Absencing and Haunting in Semiotic Landscapes

Words, Voids and Ghosts in Qirim-Crimea
1. Auflage 2026
ISBN: 978-1-032-97335-7
Verlag: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Buch, Englisch, 264 Seiten, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 453 g

Reihe: Routledge Critical Studies in Multilingualism

This book offers a profound interdisciplinary exploration of haunting, absencing, and the violent transformation of words into voids. It argues that the erasure of language is never simple: when words are replaced by silence, not only messages but also entire worlds and histories disappear. Focusing on the Russian occupation of Qirim–Crimea and the ongoing war against Ukraine, the book reveals how linguistic, epistemic, and physical violence intertwine, urging scholars to look beyond words when studying violence in its many guises.

Central to this inquiry is ghost ethnography, a qualitative methodological intervention that foregrounds the researcher’s embodied responses to the haunting effects of violence. By attending to sensations, memories, and affects that exceed language, ghost ethnography recognises the body as a site of knowing and care. It makes visible how absenced semiotic landscapes persist through traces, echoes, and absent presences.

Conceptualising semiotic landscapes as temporally dynamic, Volvach shows that absencing and haunting not only transform meanings, memories, and worlds but also reveal the operations of violence, making clear who inflicts harm and who bears its weight. The book invites readers to listen to ghosts that inhabit wounded places and to sense what lies beyond words. It will be of interest to students and scholars in multilingualism, sociolinguistics, social semiotics, anthropology, and memory studies.

Zielgruppe

Postgraduate

Autoren/Hrsg.

Volvach, Natalia

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Sprachwissenschaft Sprachwissenschaften
• Geisteswissenschaften Sprachwissenschaft Soziolinguistik

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Foreword by Maria Tumarkin, Pre/facing the violence of war, 1. Absences and presences in occupation, 2. Turbulent pasts of Qirim-Crimea, 3. Occupation: Linguistic landscapes of Aqyar-Sevastopol, 4. Resistance: Unpacking protests as manoeuvres in the face of power, 5. National rebirth: Aqmeçit-Simferopol and the Crimean Tatar space of otherwise, 6. Vibrant voids: Ghosts of Ukraine in Qirim-Crimea, 7. Reverberations of violence and an ethnography of ghosts, 8. Capturing what seems missing, Afterword, Index

Über Autor(innen)

Natalia Volvach is a Ukrainian scholar and writer based in Stockholm. She earned her Ph.D. at the Centre for Research on Bilingualism, Stockholm University, Sweden.