This volume shows the relevance of the concepts of ‘place’ and ‘belonging’ for understanding the dynamics of identification through language. It also opens up a new terrain for sociolinguistic and linguistic anthropological study, namely the margins. Rural, as well as urbanized areas that are seen as marginal or peripheral to places that are overtly recognized as mixed and hybridized have received relatively little sociolinguistic attention. Yet, people living in these supposedly less ‘spectacular’ margins are not immune to the effects of globalization and rapid technological change. They too constantly form new ensembles from linguistic and cultural resources which they invest with novel, instable, often ambiguous meanings. This volume focusses on the purportedly unspectacular in order to achieve a full understanding of the relation between language, place and belonging. The contributors to this volume, therefore, focus on language practices analyzing them as dialectically related to political-economic processes and language ideologies.

"This is an in-depth examination of a slippery and contradictory subject. Knowledge alone is not enough for this type of project. It takes breaking out of narrow conceptual cages and unsettling what we think of as stable meanings. The author brings all of this to life in often unforgettable ways." - Saskia Sassen, Professor, Columbia University "National identities were once taken largely for granted in social science. Now they are part of an even more complex ′politics of belonging′ that challenges both public affairs and the categories of social science. Nira Yuval-Davis offers a nuanced account that will be important for scholars and all those concerned with contemporary politics." - Craig Calhoun, Director, LSE This is a cutting-edge investigation of the challenging debates around belonging and the politics of belonging. Alongside the hegemonic forms of citizenship and nationalism which have tended to dominate our recent political and social history, Nira Yuval-Davis examines alternative contemporary political projects of belonging constructed around the notions of religion, cosmopolitanism and the feminist ′ethics of care′. The book also explores the effects of globalization, mass migration, the rise of both fundamentalist and human rights movements on such politics of belonging, as well as some of its racialized and gendered dimensions. A special space is given to the various feminist political movements that have been engaged as part of or in resistance to the political projects of belonging. Yuval-Davis deconstructs notions of national and ethnic and interrogates the effects that different political projects of belonging have on members of these collectivities who are differentially located socially, economically and politically.

In this book, Edenborg studies contemporary conflicts of community as enacted in Russian media, from the ‘homosexual propaganda’ laws to the Sochi Olympics and the Ukraine war, and explores the role of visibility in the production and contestation of belonging to a political community. The book examines what it is that determines which subjects and narratives become visible and which are occluded in public spheres; how they are seen and made intelligible; and how those processes are involved in the imagination of communities. Investigating the differentiated consequences of visibility, Edenborg discusses what forms of visibility make belonging possible and what forms of visibility may be related to exclusion or violence. The book maps and analyses the practices and mechanisms whereby a state seeks to produce and shape belonging through controlling what becomes visible in public, and how that which becomes visible is seen and understood. In addition, it examines what forms contestation can take and what its effects may be. Advancing theoretical understanding and offering a useful way to analytically conceptualize the role of visibility in the production and contestation of political communities, this work will be of interest to students and scholars of gender and sexuality politics, borders, citizenship, nationalism, migration and ethnic relations.

Inclusivity and Belonging in Chinese Discourse explores how recent language change in the third-person pronoun system of Mandarin Chinese is harnessed by netizens to construct spaces of (non-)belonging along a fluid continuum in the context of pro- and anti-LGBTQ discourses. Grounded in stance, framing, and positioning theories, the monograph contributes to the notions of membership categorization and (co-)reference chains for identity construction. With a focus on newly emergent genderless third-person pronoun ta, written in pinyin, and the various noun and verb phrases which co-occur with the pronoun in specific contexts, this monograph shows how ta has become a conventionalized language practice accepted and implemented by language users of various identities, sexual orientations, and backgrounds for a vast array of interactional and communicative purposes. The monograph illustrates how ta is used in doing identity construction work for the self, another party involved in the interaction, and/or a third party external to the interaction, often simultaneously. That is, the specific function and referent of ta is defined through language users’ unique interpretations and the discourse community of use, resulting in a ‘chameleon-like’ pragmatically loaded pronoun which reflects the inherent fluidity of identity(ies). This monograph will appeal to scholars, language researchers, and advanced graduate students concerned with inclusive language use in the Chinese context, particularly within discourse analysis, linguistics, sociolinguistics, and semantics. The book will also be valuable to professionals concerned with inclusive language and identity construction.

Contributions address the sites, practices, and narratives in which belonging is imagined, enacted and constrained, negotiated and contested. Focussing on three particular dimensions of belonging: belonging as space (neighbourhood, workplace, home), as practice (virtual, physical, cultural), and as biography (life stories, group narratives).

This book provides a complex and intricate portrayal of Asian American high school girls – which has been an under-researched population – as cultural meditators, diasporic agents, and community builders who negotiate displacement and attachment in challenging worlds of the in-between. Based on two years of ethnographic fieldwork, Tomoko Tokunaga presents a portrait of the girls’ hardships, dilemmas, and dreams while growing up in an interconnected world. This book contributes a new understanding of the roles of immigrant children and youth as agents of globalization and sophisticated border-crossers who have the power and agency to construct belonging and identity across multiple contexts, spaces, times, activities, and relationships. It has much to offer to the construction of educative communities and spaces where immigrant youth, specifically immigrant girls, can thrive.

Unaccompanied children and adolescents seeking protection in the UK are among the most vulnerable migrant groups, and often find themselves in a hostile policy environment after enduring traumatic journeys. This book offers an in-depth analysis of the lived experiences of belonging, and the politics and policies of migration. Focusing on unaccompanied young migrants, it investigates the conditions and nature of belonging in the face of the uncertainty, ambiguity and violence of the UK asylum system. Drawing on interviews and the Deleuzo-Guattarian concepts of assemblage, the book provides an empirical and theoretical examination of the belonging of unaccompanied young migrants seeking protection in the UK. Through compelling accounts, the author portrays the complex and paradoxical nature of belonging under precarious conditions, shedding light on the tenacity and fragility of belonging for unaccompanied young migrants.

Migrant Women Transforming Citizenship develops essential insights concerning the notion of transnational citizenship by means of the life stories of skilled and educated migrant women from Turkey in Germany and Britain. It interweaves and develops theories of citizenship, identity and culture with the lived experiences of an immigrant group that has so far received insufficient attention. By focusing on the British and German contexts, it introduces a much needed European and comparative perspective, whilst exploring the ways in which diverging concepts and policies of citizenship allow for a differentiated examination of ethnicity, gender, multiculturalism and citizenship in Europe. Presenting a significant and welcome contribution to our understanding of the complexities of multiculturalism it challenges Orientalist images of women as backward and oppressed. Through engagement with the changing realities of education, work, intimacy, family and social activism, this volume provides a situated account of how the concepts of citizenship, transnationality and culture play out in actual social relations. With its rich empirical material the book explores how migrant women create new practices and meanings of belonging across boundaries. Critiquing dominant multiculturalist and anti-multiculturalist accounts, this book suggests how citizenship debates can be reframed to be inclusive of migrant women as actors. As such it will appeal to those working across a range of social sciences, including sociology and the sociology of work, race and ethnicity; citizenship, cultural and gender studies, as well as anthropology and social and public policy.

Australian Media and the Politics of Belonging explores mediated debates about belonging in contemporary Australia by combining research that proposes conceptual and historical frameworks for understanding its meaning in the Australian context. A range of themes and case studies make the book a significant theoretical resource as well as a much-needed update on work in this area. Australian Media and the Politics of Belonging also provides an intervention that engages with key contemporary issues, questions and problems around the politics of belonging that are relevant not only to academic debate, but also to contemporary policy development and media and popular discussion.

The book questions how modern migration and globalisation have impacted upon notions of belonging and identity within nation-states across the world. This book provides theoretical and empirical accounts of the relationship between identity, rights nationalism, race and ethnicity. The authors cover the complexity of the topic as identification has become much more multifaceted. The authors cover difficult and cutting edge issues relating to citizenship, nation formation, identity, remittances, transnational families, migration and asylum in the context of Australia, Malaysia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. These critical issues inform and shape key policy and program responses of many governments and are subject of topic in international relations forums between nation states.