📓 Nation-state, transnationalism, and language.md by @luciana ☆

artículo de Joseph Sung-Yul Park and Lionel Wee en Canaragajah, Sureh (2017). The Routledge Handbook of Migration and Language. Routledge: London
Introduction
- This paper focuses on the relationship between transnationalism in globalization and the concept of the nation-state withing language and migration studies.
- Are the former undermining the latter? Or do the essentialist ties between language and national identities continue to be an important model in the context of transnationalism
- it is necessary to understand the relationships between the ideologies and material conditions.
Overview
- Language and the nation-state
  - since the 18th century: people’s identity and worldview has been guided by the notion of a state with jurisdiction over a particular territory and its citizens
    - citizens of the emerging sovereign states saw themselves as equal in many respects
  - nation state —>nationalism
  - Language played an important role in the creation of nation-states
    - the group of citizens inhabiting the boundaries of a state were supposed to speak a single language
    - language was carrier of the culture
    - However, the relationship between territory, ethnicity and language that function as the basis of the nation-state is a constructed and idealized one:
      - the nation-state is presented as clearly bounded and internally homogeneous
      - these ideologies justify and naturalize the existence of the nation-state
      - these ideologies must be presennted as natural and timeless through erasing everything that doesn’t fit (such as other ethnic groups, other languages)
    - nationalism needs to downplay difference and over-emphasize the shared features of its members
    - nationalism is not a stable feature, it must be maintaines
      - promotion of a national language is one of the social mechanisms used to maintain nationalism
- Transnationalism and the challenges to the nation-state
  - the work implied in sustaining the nation-state and nationalism becomes harder in the context of globalization, because the role of nation-states and links between nations and states are problematized/diminished in the new economic dynamics, for example
  - the phenomenon of transnationalism implies even greater complications
    - because transnationalism ecompasses relationships across national borders, it is not just relevant fro migrants, but also for those who are not on the move
    - it problematizes the essentialist links between territory, language and national identity that sustain the idea of nation-state
    - multiple belongings and flexible sense of moorings
    - a shared identity among people may be no longer be strongly attached to a physical territory
    - while the state is still important as an institutional arrangement, it may no longer be as important to determine someone’s identity
    - ‘flexible citizenship’: as opposed to a more traditional sense of citizenship, a choice of citizenship is no longer influenced by a sense of loyalty or identification with the community, but by whatever is more convenient economically
    - of course, such flexibility is only afforded to an elite (citizenship is still granted by a state)
    - states also employ economic criteria when selecting potential new citizens
    - states may continue to be relevant, nation-states less so
    - bc language is so central to the idea of nation-state, what is the role of language in this context? are the ties between language and national identity being weakened or is an essentialist view of language still relevant to the shaping of identities?
Issues and ongoing debates
- the opposing views regarding language and nation state in the context of transnationalism show the complexity between these terms
  - multiple ideologies of language
- Transidiomaticity (Jacquemet):
  - recombination, mix or hybridization of linguistic resources
  - intersection between moving people and moving texts through new technologies
  - use of newly acquired techno-linguistic skills
  - in doing so people increase their social worth (power)
- However, individuals are still physically located somewhere (as Blommaert and Maryns argue)
  - this mitigates claims about deterritorialization
  - this process has been met with tendencies towards hegemonization and centering of language and linguistic practices - emphasis on purity and ownership
  - it also means there will always be localized constraints that they need to negotiate
  - any discussion about power needs to be qualified
  - assylum seekers have been deterritorialized, but their narratives and language practices in the host societies are attemtps at reterritorializing
  - nation state’s relevance: migrants’ use of language is judged against the hegemonic positioning of the local national language, which leads to social discrimination based on the idea that the migrant’s version of language lacks legitimacy
  - example: Rinkeby Swedish, the variety of Swedish spoken by migrants in the Rinkeby neighborhood as judged by the native Swedish population
    - this label applies to the Swedish spoken by a hetergoenous community of migrants
    - both native Swedes and immigrants themselves consider this variety to be inauthentic Swedish
    - nation state’s relevance: migrants struggle to find legitimacy for their language use from the host society, which uses the nation-state as a reference point for community
    - the opposite can also happen: example of French-Canadian school struggling to maintain its commitment to heritage while also accommodating new students who find value in Parisian French and English as more "global" languages
- Thus, ideologies of essentialist connection between language and national identity are juxtaposed with ideologies that view this connection as flexible
- this contestation takes place in the context of an increased reflexivity and awareness of life elsewhere brought about by globalization
Implications of this complexity
- Language and citizenship
  - migration leads to liguistic diversity and thus to different valuations of the codes and varieties
  - if left unchecked these can lead to discrimination, segregation, etc
  - therefore language policy decisions need to interfere in this process so that national unity can be maintained while at the same time respecting diversity - essentialist language ideologies need to scrutinized because they can become the basis for intolerance - for example, in language tests as the way to obtain citizenship - it is necessary to remain aware of tying the access to a community to the skill in one specific language // as well as the respect that each migrant’s background and its role in the learning of the new language needs to be respected
- Heritage language education
  - should this education be guided by nation-state ideologies and the accompanying idea of a "standard" language which is the most appropriate and convenient to learn for the migrant population?
  - younger generations are able to construct hybrid identities which allows them to be mobile without abandoning their affiliation to their heritage language and ethnic community
  - thus transnationalism offers both challenges and advantages for heritage language education:
    - problematizes the idea of heritage in relationship with the nation state
    - offers diasporic communities an opportunity to re-articulate their social position
- Language in the new economy
  - context: global scale production, off-shoring and transnational companies: other ways in which the idea of nation state is undermined
  - this does not mean that essentialist views on language dissappear, they are in fact used by the transnational corporations to rationalize aspects of multinational/multicultural work
  - although multiculturality in the workforce is seen as a resource, not all forms of difference are equally valued
  - employees from particular nation states as seen as having appropriate language skills for the workplace, while others are pressured to conform to this ideal
  - cultural difference is treated as ahistorical and essential
  - the conditions of the new economy are always ideologically mediated
  - citizenship is a category that involves gradations of esteem depending on the different subcategories of citizens
  - higher skilled workers enjoy more rights, welfare protection and flexible choices in acquiring citizenship
Future directions:
- it is important to keep in mind that transnationalism as a label cannot account for/distinguish all the different kinds of migrants and migran trajectories.
  - It is important to keep these in mind to understand how nation-state ideologies affect different migrants differently
- a focus on social class can be useful
  - linguistics has been focused on the discursive construction of identity, which has left aside the material conditions in which an identity emerges, particularly in the way social classes and inequality interact in capitalism
  - wether or not particular migrants are treated as skilled foreigners in their host society, will depend on the latter’s needs and receptiveness
  - migrant professionls tend to have a higer level of autonomy, and their linguist repertoire is more likely to be perceived as an index of cosmopolitanism, as opposed to their less skilled counterparts
  - thus intersectionality and power are important to bring into the analysis
- Future research must also reconceptualize language competence to account for its fragmented and truncated nature, for every individual, as competence is always mediated by the dominant language ideologies of a particular setting
- these ideas must be taken account by language policy makers
  - this view would suggest that there is compatibility in the maintainance of the native language and the acquisition of the host society language
Summary
- critical review of the relationship between transnationalism, language and nation-state, and its implications for the research on migration and language:
  - overview of nation-state and transnationalism, and how these concepts are sites of tension in the context of globalization
  - review of the debates on whether transnationalism destabilizes the role of the nation-state with a focus on linguistic studies that approach this issue
  - implication of thos estudies for policy, research and pedagogy in three domains where the relationship between transnationalism, language and nation-state introduces new tensions:
    - language and citizenship
    - heritage language education
    - language and the new economy
  - suggestions for future research:
    - need to consider the multiplicity of transnational experience with the lens of social class
    - need to approach language taking into account that truncatedness and fragmentation are central to its use