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Programme: accepted abstracts

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Abstract ID: 193

Thematic Session (Papers belonging to this Thematic Session)

Transcultural networks and neighborhoods

Authors: Vigouroux, Cécile B.; Meinhof, Ulrike Hanna
Submitted by: Vigouroux, Cécile (Simon Fraser University, Canada)

This panel aims at exploring the relevance of neighborhood as a spatio-temporal unit of analysis to studying the mobility of people, of language resources, and of semiotic artifacts. Neighborhoods are defined here as experienced timespaces, constantly re-constructed through social actors’ semiotic practices rather than through fixed and institutionalized administrative units. This approach raises methodological and theoretical issues about traditional sociolinguistic and prompts scholars to revisit units of analysis such as community and network. Taking neighborhood as a unit of analysis also blurs categories such as insider vs. outsider and foreigner vs. local. For instance, one can be an institutionally ratified foreigner (e.g. a Congolese in Belgium) but a ratified insider on the ground (e.g. a Congolese in Brussels’ Matonge).

The papers of this panel have in common the fact of approaching neighborhoods from the perspective of transculturalism, focusing on migrants (be they transnational or regional) and investing and creating new spaces through trans-local practices. Among the issues we wish to address are the following: 1) How, within a given space, do localized practices connect different timespaces and create a sociocultural continuum between discontinuous geographic spaces, for instance, from urban to rural, one point of a city to another, and one country to another? 2) How are spaces of socialization and sociability created between individuals or self-organized groups that either ratify or transcend sociocultural boundaries? 3) How are some neighborhoods commodified with explicit display of, say, Italian-ness or African-ness?  4) How, by conforming to local representations and tastes of what being Italian or African should be, do they contribute to the reproduction of localized ethnicity? and 5) How are multilayered traces of population movements made visible through linguistic landscape and ethnically-based economic activities?

This panel explores different parts of the world. Data analyzed are multimodal, ranging from ethnographic field notes, audio-recorded narratives, mind-maps, archives, media texts, and photographs. 

Overall, the panel wishes to engage theoretically and methodologically in a better understanding of the (multilayered) intertwinement of timespace and semiotic practices.

 

References

Blommaert, J. 2007. Sociolinguistic scale. Intercultural Pragmatics 4(1): 1-19.

Blommaert J, J. Collins & S. Slembrouck. 2005. Spaces of multilingualism. Language & Communication 25: 197-216.

Collins, J. & S. Slembrouck. 2006. Reading shop windows in globalized neighborhood: multilingual literacy practices and indexicality. Journal of literacy Research 39(3): 335-356.  

Crang, M and Thrift, N. 2000. Thinking space. London: Routledge.

Jewitt, C. 2009. The Routledge Handbook of Multimodal Analysis. London: Routledge.

Lefebvre, H. 1974/2000. La production de l’espace. Paris: Anthropos.

Low, Setha. M. 2005. Theorizing the city. New Brunswick: Rutgers University press.

Scollon, R. & S. Scollon, Wong 2003. Discourse in place. Language in the material world. London: Routledge.

Shohami, E. & D. Gorter. 2009. Linguistic landscape. New York: Routledge.

Thrift, N. 1996. Spatial Formations, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Urry, J. 2007. Mobilities. Cambridge: Polity.