This book offers a close look at the discourse of and around three socially marginalised and vulnerable groups – Irish Travellers, Squatters and Homeless people – in order to understand more about how individuals within them position themselves vis-à-vis mainstream society. It investigates the groups' diverse and provisional relationship with space that challenges mainstream society's spatial logic. Given that the relationship between mobility, space and identity has been explored in migrant contexts, Roberta Piazza proposes a reconsideration of this relationship beyond people's movement from one place to another. Investigating the space-identity nexus among the three groups, she highlights how mobility is not solely a cross-country phenomenon, but a no-less crucial and dramatic reality within an individual nation. Based on close linguistic analysis of interviews collected over many years, Piazza investigates how the participants construct their social and personal identities when talking about themselves and the sites they inhabit, drawing on the concepts of 'heterotopia' and non-sexual desire.

This book offers a close look at the discourse of and around three socially marginalised and vulnerable groups – Irish Travellers, Squatters and Homeless people – in order to understand more about how individuals within them position themselves vis-à-vis mainstream society. It investigates the groups' diverse and provisional relationship with space that challenges mainstream society's spatial logic. Given that the relationship between mobility, space and identity has been explored in migrant contexts, Roberta Piazza proposes a reconsideration of this relationship beyond people's movement from one place to another. Investigating the space-identity nexus among the three groups, she highlights how mobility is not solely a cross-country phenomenon, but a no-less crucial and dramatic reality within an individual nation. Based on close linguistic analysis of interviews collected over many years, Piazza investigates how the participants construct their social and personal identities when talking about themselves and the sites they inhabit, drawing on the concepts of 'heterotopia' and non-sexual desire.

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.

Linguistic landscapes can play an important role in educating individuals beyond formal pedagogical environments. This book argues that anywhere can be a space for people to learn from displayed texts, images, and other communicated signs, and consequently a space where teachable cultural moments are created. Following language learning trajectories that 'exit through the language classroom' into city streets, public offices, museums and monuments, this volume presents innovative work demonstrating that anyone can learn from the linguistic landscape that surrounds them. Offering a bridge between theoretical research and practical application, chapters consider how we make sense of places by understanding how the landscape is used to express, claim and contest identities and ideologies. In this way, Linguistic Landscapes Beyond the Language Classroom highlights the unexpected potential of the informal settings for learning and for teachers to expand their students' intercultural experience.

This collection highlights the interplay between language and liminal places and spaces in building distinct narratives of selfhood. The book uses an interdisciplinary approach to examine linguistic and social phenomena in places shaped by displacement and social inequality. The book also looks at chronotopes, the Bakhtinian-inspired concept of the interconnectedness of time and space in identity. The volume demonstrates how studying liminal places and spaces can offer unique insights into how people construct language and selfhood in these spaces, making this key reading for researchers in sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, geography, and linguistic anthropology.

At the heart of this volume lies an exploration of what actually happens to languages and their users when cultures come into contact. What actions do supra-national institutions, nation states, communities and individuals take in response to questions raised by the increasingly diverse forms of migration experienced in a globalized world? The volume reveals the profound impact that decisions made at national and international level can have on the lives of the individual migrant, language student, or speech community. Equally, it evaluates the broader ramifications of actions taken by migrant communities and individual language learners around issues of language learning, language maintenance and intercultural contact. Reflecting Jan Blommaert's assertion that in a world shaped by globalization, what is needed is 'a theory of language in society... of changing language in a changing society', this volume argues that researchers must increasingly seek diverse methodological approaches if they are to do justice to the diversity of experience and response they encounter.

We are living through a time when old identities - nation, culture and gender are melting down. Spaces of Identity examines the ways in which collective cultural identities are being reshaped under conditions of a post-modern geography and a communications environment of cable and satellite broadcasting. To address current problems of identity, the authors look at contemporary politics between Europe and its most significant others: America; Islam and the Orient. They show that it's against these places that Europe's own identity has been and is now being defined. A stimulating account of the complex and contradictory nature of contemporary cultural identities.