This is an extremely timely book that reminds us of some of the neglected aspects of the new mobility paradigm in sociolinguistic research. It covers research contexts that have not been previously explored. Its conceptual and methodological innovations ensure the book’s lasting impact on theory, research design, policy and practice.

Li Wei, University College London, UK

This book treats the notion of (im)mobilization in a competent and nuanced manner. It considers at least four competing but complementary perspectives: (1) language resources and repertoires, (2) language practices and technologies, (3) control, mobility and resistance, and (4) subjectivity, identity and agency, drawing from examples in different regions of the globe. This is a welcome and timely addition to the expanding scholarship on the topic.

Sinfree Makoni, Pennsylvania State University, USA and Laikipia University, Kenya

Among the large animals, humans stand out for their propensity to migrate, their social stratification, and their complex symbolic communication. The authors of this volume explore the intersection of mobilities, inequalities, and discourses in a powerful set of contemporary case studies from around the world.

Ingrid Piller, Macquarie University, Australia

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<p><em>Exploring (Im)mobilities</em> is certainly an interesting read for those who want to know more about the role of language in contexts of (im)mobilization and processes of (im)mobility. It is written in a style that is accessible to undergraduate and more senior scholars as well as to the informed reader with an interest in language-on-the-move.</p>

- Noel B. Salazar, KU Leuven, Belgium, Journal of Sociolinguistics, 2022

<p>Speaking from my own collaboration (Holsapple 2022) with Multilingual Matters, I can affirm that <em>Exploring (Im)mobilities: Language Practices, Discourses and Imaginaries </em>is no exception to their commitment to publishing critically-engaged scholarship that hinges on challenging and shaking up, rather than assuming and reifying normative patterns of analysis. Addressing the widespread fallacy of considering mobility primarily through a positivist lens, the volume's eleven sociolinguistic case studies bring to the forefront agentive meaning-making practices through which (im)mobility is reconfigured, as experienced by asylum-seekers, migrants, and other minoritized mobile groups.</p>

Christiana Decheva, University of Tartu, Estonia, Tertium Linguistic Journal 8 (1) (2023)

The impact of mobility and superdiversity in recent sociolinguistic research is well-established, yet very few studies deal with issues related to immobility. The chapters in this book focus on the sociolinguistic investigation of the dynamics between mobility and immobility as experienced by migrants, asylum seekers and members of minority or exploited groups. Central to the book is an exploration of how mobilities are affected by and in turn affect power relations and of the kinds of resources used by people to deal with (im)mobility processes. The book brings to light a new critical sociolinguistic imagination that is responsive to 21st century processes of (im)mobilities as socially, discursively and emotionally constructed and negotiated. 

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The chapters in this volume use ethnographically-based methodologies to address the interconnectedness between forms of mobility and immobility in international migratory processes or in discriminatory practices within the boundaries of national states, thus bringing to light a sociolinguistics responsive to 21st century concerns.

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Contributors
Acknowledgements

Anna De Fina and Gerardo Mazzaferro: Introduction

Part 1: The (Im)mobilization of Language Resources, Repertoires and Practices

Chapter 1. Mari D’Agostino: Multilingual Young African Migrants: Between Mobility and Immobility

Chapter 2. Necia Stanford Billinghurst: Sociolinguistic (Im)mobilities in Spaces of Migration

Chapter 3. Katrijn Maryns and Stef Slembrouck: Categorization and the Use of English as an (Im)mobile Resource in Service Encounters with Migrants in Flanders

Part 2: (Im)mobilities, Technologies and Control

Chapter 4. Maria Sabaté-Dalmau: Controlling Migrants’ (Im)mobilities through Telecommunications: Technopolitical Governance in Telephony Advertising Discourse

Chapter 5. Massimiliano Spotti: On Being Enregistered into the Matrix of Online Knowledge: An Ethnographic Exploration of an Internet-based Dismissal in an Asylum-seeking Procedure

Chapter 6. Marco Jacquemet: From Language to Politics: Communication, Power, and Migration in the Central Mediterranean

Part 3: Spaces of (Im)mobility and Resistance

Chapter 7. Anna De Fina and Gerardo Mazzaferro: Everyday Communicative Practices and Repertoires in Contexts of Involuntary and Enforced Immobility

Chapter 8. Ana Deumert: Beachspaces: Racism and Settler-Colonial (Im)mobilities at the Shoreline

Chapter 9. Birgul Yilmaz: Language and Humanitarian Governmentality in a Refugee Camp on Lesvos Island

Part 4: (Im)mobilities, Subjectivity, Identity and Agency

Chapter 10. Mike Baynham, Bahiru Shewaye and Gomes O. Kayode: Estrangement and Home in Queer Asylum Stories

Chapter 11. Roberta Piazza: The Power of (Im)mobility: Irish Travellers’ Agentive Identities in Transit and Permanency

Chapter 12. Jan Blommaert: Postscript: Immobilities Normalized

Index

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<p>Timely addition to research on mobility and immobility and how it manifests in language use</p>

Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9781788925280
Publisert
2021-11-23
Utgiver
Vendor
Multilingual Matters
Vekt
384 gr
Høyde
210 mm
Bredde
148 mm
Dybde
16 mm
Aldersnivå
UP, 05
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Heftet
Antall sider
296

Biographical note

Anna De Fina is Professor of Language and Linguistics and Chair of the Italian Department, Georgetown University, USA. She has published widely in sociolinguistics and narrative analysis. Her most recent publication is The Cambridge Handbook of Discourse Studies, edited with Alexandra Georgakopoulou (2020, Cambridge University Press).

Gerardo Mazzaferro is Senior Lecturer in Linguistics at the University of Turin, Italy. He is the author of Translanguaging as Everyday Practice (2018, Springer).