Negotiating Identities, Language and Migration in Global London

Book excerpt: This book explores the transnational practices of migrant groups in global London, illustrating the complex relations between migrants and the city in the context of globalisation. The chapters offer a starting point to examine migrants and the city from a comparative perspective by bringing together case studies of diverse migrant communities. They use ‘languaging’ as the central concept in the development of an interdisciplinary framework that creates an opportunity to ‘talk across disciplines’ to engage with key issues crisscrossing migration, cities and language. The book promotes ‘language-based’ or ‘language-sensitive’ research, drawing on the plurilingual repertoires and the language and translanguaging practices of migrant communities as the tool for data collection and ethnographic fieldwork. This approach generates fresh insights into the complex issues of diasporic identities, belonging and place-making, which have broad implications for migration studies in post-Brexit Britain and beyond.