The speaking citizen : language requirements and linguistic neoliberal colonialisms

Fortier, A.-M. (2022) The speaking citizen : language requirements and linguistic neoliberal colonialisms. Citizenship Studies, 26 (4-5). pp. 447-453. ISSN 1362-1025

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Abstract

This article concerns contemporary common-sense politics around language, integration, and citizenship that pervade Western European countries, where language is at the basis of a new model of citizenship – jus linguarum. I situate jus linguarum as the product of two seemingly different logics: the logics of neoliberalism and the logics (and legacies) of colonialism. I argue that jus linguarum obscures the fact that ‘national language’ is a historically constructed category with roots in imperialism, and allows for the disappearance of other categories, such as whiteness and middle-classness. The chapter shows how a form of ‘provincialised national languages’ arise from the tensions between the inevitability of multilingualism in today’s global world, on the one hand, and the insistence of one-nation-one-language, on the other. The analysis of jus linguarum developed in this paper forces a new understanding of citizenship where regimes of seeing and regimes of hearing combine in definitions of citizenship and citizens, through intersecting inequalities of language, race, and class.

Item Type:
Journal Article
Journal or Publication Title:
Citizenship Studies
Uncontrolled Keywords:
/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/3300/3320
Subjects:
?? audial hygieneclass and race inequalitiesjus linguarumpolitical science and international relationsgeography, planning and development ??
ID Code:
173688
Deposited By:
Deposited On:
26 Jul 2022 15:50
Refereed?:
Yes
Published?:
Published
Last Modified:
15 Jul 2024 22:49