The production of relevant scales: Social identification of migrants during rapid demographic change in one American town

Abstract

This essay explores the question of relevant scale: which of the many potentially relevant processes -from interactional through local through global, from nearly instantaneous through those emergent over months, years or centuries -in fact contributes to social identification in any given case, and how do these heterogeneous processes interrelate? Contemporary answers to this question have moved beyond the détente of the "micro-macro dialectic," in which purportedly homogeneous "macro" processes constrain events and actions, while being simultaneously constituted by "micro" events and actions. We review contemporary work on these issues, with particular reference to the use of language in social identification, and we argue that an adequate account must go beyond "micro" and "macro. " We illustrate our argument with data from a sevenyear ethnographic project in an American town that has received thousands of Mexican immigrants over the past decade, focusing on two types of narratives that residents tell about immigrants: stories about "payday muggings" in which immigrants are victimized, and stories about the town's historical trajectory and immigrants' role in it. These narratives emerge and move across different scales, and they are an important resource for residents as they socially identify themselves and others.

Upscaling and downscaling: Negotiating scale in the English‐only movement

“…Another area for further scholarship is how to synthesize discursive and material notions of scale. Scale is not purely discursive; rather, people use discourse to make certain material scales seem relevant (Wortham & Rhodes, 2012). Furthermore, language is a local practice, in that it plays out in particular spaces in particular interactions (Pennycook, 2010).…”

Research tasks on identity in language learning and teaching

“…A scalar approach to examining identity has been used by sociolinguists (e.g., Norton & Williams 2012; Park & Lo 2012; Canagarajah 2013), linguistic anthropologists (e.g., Wortham & Rhodes 2012), and SLA researchers (e.g., De Costa 2016a). Using timescales, Park & Lo (2012) show how the lives of migrant learners are invariably interlinked with material and historical conditions at geographically distant places, while Blommaert (2010) demonstrates through his use of sociolinguistic scales that different languages and language varieties are not only valued differently but also index different identities.…”

“…Increasingly, more identity researchers have combined the constructs of scales and practice in their investigation of identity development. For example, in their call for a greater attention to the level of practice, Wortham & Rhodes (2012) recommend investigating identity formation through examining critical points in activities engaged in by learners across space and timescales. Given that scales enable us to better understand how learners and teachers handle complex social realities, they have important implications for the development of associated research tasks.…”

Analyzing Language Policy and Social Identification Across Heterogeneous Scales

“…To understand a social phenomenon like social identification or language policy implementation, we must attend to the range of resources from various timescales that are made relevant in any given case. Drawing on Agha (2007), Silverstein (1992, 1993), and Latour (2005), Wortham and Rhodes (2012, 2013) showed how a variety of resources—like material objects, models of identity, embodied dispositions, geopolitical relations—from a variety of timescales—moments, years, centuries—become relevant to the identification of one girl as a good reader.…”