Globalization in the margins: toward a re-evalution of language and mobility

Abstract

Work on globalization has been concentrated on typical sites where features and phenomena are abundantly available: the huge contemporary metropolis with its explosive and conspicuous diversity in people and languages, its hyper-mobility and constant ux. Less typical places -peri-urban and rural areas, peripheral areas of countries, peripheral zones of the world, peripheral institutional zones where minorities are relegated -have been less quickly absorbed into current scholarship. Yet, upon closer inspection, there is no reason to exclude these 'margins' from analyses of globalization processes and of their sociolinguistic implications. Globalization is a transformation of the entire world system, and it does not only a ect the metropolitan centers of the world but also its most remote margins. Thus, we are bound to encounter globalization e ects, also in highly unexpected places. A survey of these rei cations of globalization at the margins will be the topic of this paper. We shall suggest a speci c angle from which such forms of globalization in the margin can be most usefully addressed and we do so by drawing from examples taken from new media and communication technologies, from new forms of economic activity and, last but not least, from the perspective of legitimacy in the contentious struggle between commodication of language and the semiotic construction of authenticity.

English and discourses of commodification among tourism workers in the Himalayas

“…The analysis will show that the ideologies of global English intersects in a complex way with language workers' interests for economic gains and their desires for a global mobility in the context of international tourism in the ‘margins of globalization’ (Wang et al. ).…”

Translinguajamento: pensando entre línguas a partir de práticas e metadiscursos de docentes indígenas em formação superior

“…Todo o imaginário moderno/colonial descrito anteriormente e as ideologias modernas de linguagem, mais especificamente, desconsideram a dinamicidade intercultural das práticas comunicativas e a própria mobilidade dos povos indígenas, ainda mais impactada pelos processos recentes de globalização (WANG et al, 2014), bem como os contextos locais que se distanciam das noções universais modernas (NASCIMENTO, 2017). Essa é mais uma decorrência da invisibilização desses sujeitos e de suas práticas e epistemologias (nesse caso, relacionadas à linguagem), como um dos efeitos reais da invenção das línguas, um modo de negar as práticas comunicativas contemporâneas dos povos indígenas inseridos em uma "nação" na qual não cabem, na perspectiva da sociedade não indígena, senão como objetos relegados a um passado histórico e primitivo.…”

Literacy and Multilingualism in Africa

“…Large parts of rural 148 Africa are characterized by similar patterns of intense diversity sometimes thought 149 to be exclusive for metropolitan areas (cf. Wang et al 2014). Yet, the same lack of 150 state support for African scripts and literacies observed above also applies to The following example is illustrative.…”