Precarious Assemblages

Abstract

In order to explore translinguistic precarity in greater depth, we need to do three things: First, move towards a sufficiently complex understanding of what precarity means (and does not mean). Is it a general condition of our times, a longstanding effect of capitalist exploitation or an emergent property of unequal social relations? Second, we need to think through ways of relating precarity to language. It is not enough to predefine precarious lives in terms of marginalisation, poverty, struggle or discrimination and then to assume that the language used by or towards such speakers is necessarily precarious or produces precarity. We need instead to understand the co-articulation of translingual practices and lived experiences of precarity, asking how one informs the other. So third, it is important to understand the dynamic interactions among material relations, language ideologies and linguistic resources, where precarity may be an emergent feature as much as a pre-condition, of a local assemblage. Drawing on data from our longitudinal metrolingual project we make a case for understanding translanguaging and precarity in relational terms, entangled with family and friendship support structures, contingencies of the local economy, gender norms, cultural and religious practices, and local language policies and possibilities.

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