Power, Mobility and Voice

Jan Blommaert's Unfinished Business
Erscheinungsjahr 2026
ISBN: 978-1-83668-357-5
Verlag: Channel View Publications

Buch, Englisch, 428 Seiten, Format (B × H): 148 mm x 210 mm

Builds on the profound and challenging legacy of linguist Jan Blommaert, one of the most important thinkers in contemporary sociolinguistics, who dismantled the theoretical and ideological orthodoxies of his time.

This volume honours the influential work of Jan Blommaert, furthering his critical and constructive engagement with power dynamics across numerous domains. It takes Blommaert’s work as a starting point to approach the challenges of a changing social world, using his frameworks to explore new contexts and applying new methodologies to established fields of study.

The chapter authors – Jan’s colleagues, students and others inspired by his work – explore four themes of his scholarly legacy, expanding on his work and looking to new contexts. They elaborate on the concept of chronotopes, explore ideologies of language diversity and inequality, address normativities in complex online and offline spaces, and analyse voice as agency in time and space.

Spanning a wide range of academic disciplines and contexts, they share a core commitment to analysing language in relation to society and power, arguably the most pressing legacy of Blommaert’s work.

This book is open access under a CC BY NC ND licence.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Arnaut, Karel

Maly, Ico

Parkin, David

Spotti, Massimiliano

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Soziologie von Migranten und Minderheiten
• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Ethnologie Kultur- und Sozialethnologie: Allgemeines
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziale Gruppen/Soziale Themen Gewalt und Diskriminierung: Soziale Aspekte
• Geisteswissenschaften Sprachwissenschaft Soziolinguistik

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Adrian Blackledge: Preface: A Poetic Preface: Bourdieu as Inspiration: Poetry, Voice and Articulate Noise

Chapter 1. Karel Arnaut, Ico Maly, Max Spotti and David Parkin: Power, Mobility and Voice: An Introduction

Part 1: Chronotopes

Chapter 2. Ben Rampton and Lavanya Sankaran: Living with the Chronotope of War: Sri Lankan Tamil Diasporans in London

Chapter 3. Jie Dong: Danmu Videos and Chronotopicity: An Ethnography of Online Communication on Video-Sharing Websites

Chapter 4. Jos Swanenberg and Inge Beekmans: Memes and Tilburg: Chronotopes, Identity Work and Place-Making on @Tilburgmeme

Part 2: Language Ideologies, Diversity and Inequality

Chapter 5. Sjaak Kroon: Language Diversity, Policy and Practice: Five Case Studies

Chapter 6. Janus Spindler Møller: Ethnolinguistic Cornering and the Resistance of Language Identities: Representations of an Urban Youth Style in A Radio Program

Chapter 7. Max Spotti: ‘Niet Miep Miep Maar Piep Piep’: Ideological Disqualification at Play in A Dutch L2 Classroom for Asylum Seekers

Chapter 8. Dina Charalambous and Elena Ioannidou: Language, Identity and Conflicted Heritage: Two Case Studies from Cyprus

Part 3: Normativities in Complex Spaces

Chapter 9. Anna De Fina and Giuseppe Paternostro: Migrants’ Communicative Practices in Polycentric Spaces: Anomie, Stability and Change

Chapter 10. Marco Jacquemet: The Digital Turn in Asylum Determination

Chapter 11. Ico Maly and Inge Beekmans: The Ideology of Digital Platforms: The Right Stuff

Chapter 12. Alexandra Georgakopoulou: (Un)Complicating Context: The Case of Formatted Storytelling on Social Media

Chapter 13. Sirpa Leppänen and Elina Westinen: Counterspeech: Resisting Hate on Social Media

Part 4: Voice and Agency in Time/Moments

Chapter 14. Zane Goebel and Udiana Puspa Dewi: Representing the Voices of Those Living with Seawater Incursion in Indonesia

Chapter 15. Martha Sif Karrebæk, Narges Ghandchi and Marta Kirilova: 'It Makes Sense': Credibility and Impartiality in an Interpreter-Mediated Asylum Case in Court

Chapter 16. David Parkin: Indirect Communication in Seeking Therapy and Avoiding Stigmatization

Chapter 17. Karel Arnaut, Shila Hadji Heydari Anaraki, Elsemieke Van Osch, Hannelore Hooft and Carolien Lubberhuizen: Abductions: Unpacking Orders, Mobility and Struggles Through (Text-)Objects

Chapter 18. Alastair Pennycook: Complexity and the Total Semiotic Fact: Corner Shop Chronicles

Chapter 19. Jef Verschueren: Postscript: The Pragmatics of ‘Free Speech’

Über Autor(innen)

Maly, Ico
Ico Maly is Associate Professor of Digital Media, Culture and Politics at Tilburg University, The Netherlands. He is editor-in-chief of Diggit Magazine and senior fellow at Far-Right Analysis Network and his research explores digital media, ideology and power.

Arnaut, Karel
Karel Arnaut is Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology at KU Leuven, Belgium. He teaches on the anthropology of migration as wall as on language, diversity and inequality and co-coordinates a range of migration-related international projects such as AIMEC, ReROOT and ATLAS.

Spotti, Massimiliano
Massimiliano Spotti is Associate Professor of Ethnography and Digital Literacies at Tilburg University, The Netherlands. His research interests include the (dis)approval of identities via socio-technological platforms in asylum applications and software-based approaches to the learning of Dutch.

Parkin, David
David Parkin is Professor Emeritus of All Souls College and the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography at the University of Oxford, UK. His work of over six decades spans urban ethnicity, rural farming practices and multimodal communication.

Karel Arnaut is Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology at KU Leuven, Belgium. He teaches on the anthropology of migration as well as on language, diversity and inequality and co-coordinates a range of migration-related international projects such as AIMEC, ReROOT and ATLAS.

Ico Maly is Associate Professor of Digital Media, Culture and Politics at Tilburg University, The Netherlands. He is editor-in-chief of Diggit Magazine and senior fellow at Far-Right Analysis Network and his research explores digital media, ideology and power.

David Parkin is Professor Emeritus of All Souls College and the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography at the University of Oxford, UK. His work of over six decades spans urban ethnicity, rural farming practices and multimodal communication.

Massimiliano Spotti is Associate Professor of Ethnography and Digital Literacies at Tilburg University, The Netherlands. His research interests include the (dis)approval of identities via socio-technological platforms in asylum applications and software-based approaches to the learning of Dutch.