Language, Power, and Social Boundaries: Dynamics of Inclusion - Exclusion Across Social Spaces
This webinar series interrogates the pervasive role of language in shaping continuums of inclusion-exclusion across social spaces. It foregrounds processes of racialisation and migrantisation, entangled with language, while insisting on the urgency for an intersectional perspective.
Engaging with debates on power in different social settings, the series convenes diverse scholars and practitioners to examine how linguistic ideologies, everyday language practices, and institutional language policies either reproduce or challenge enduring power relations, which are also continually rearticulated in response to shifting sociopolitical contexts.
The sessions place particular focus on how social vulnerabilities are constituted, marked and negotiated through language. They critically examine the exclusions experienced by Black, Indigenous, and migration-related groups, while also tracing how these exclusions intersect with gender, class, and citizenship status. Drawing on research and case studies from varied national contexts, contributors illuminate both overt and subtle manifestations of raciolinguistic marginalisation, as well as the forms of resistance and re-appropriation that emerge in response — such as the affirmation and recognition of marginalised epistemologies, identities, and languages — thereby challenging structural white supremacy and illuminating pathways for transformation and social change.
Format
The webinar is envisioned as a dialogue that brings together established scholars or practitioners with early-career researchers, artists, and other participants. The aim is to create a space where novel perspectives can emerge, fostering critical and reflective dialogue rather than presenting closed or finalised results. This is intended as a safe space for exploration, questioning, and learning.
Language Policy & Inclusivity
We aim to create a multilingual and inclusive space. Translanguaging and participation in languages other than English are warmly welcomed. Speakers and participants are encouraged to express themselves in the ways they feel most comfortable.
Programme
Organisation
IMISCOE Education and Social Inequalities Standing Committee & CIES-Iscte
In collaboration with
Eurac Research & CESSMIR (Ghent University)