The Politics of Researching Multilingually

This book offers a unique understanding of how researchers’ linguistic resources, and the languages they use in the research process, are often politically and structurally shaped and constrained, with implications for the reliability of the research. The chapters are written by both experienced and novice researchers, who examine how they negotiated the use of their own, and others’, linguistic and communicative resources when undertaking their research in politically-charged, and linguistically and culturally diverse contexts. The contributing authors are either from the Global South, or engaged in work which is contextualised within the Global South; or they face linguistic structural hegemonies in the Global North which challenge their research processes. They utilise diverse theoretical, methodological and disciplinary approaches to produce a collection of engaging and accessible accounts of researching multilingually in their contexts. These accounts will help readers to make theoretically and methodologically informed choices about the political dimensions of languages in their own research when researching multilingually.

Prue Holmes is Professor and Director of Research in the School of Education, University of Durham, UK. She is the editor of The Cultural and Intercultural Dimensions of English as a Lingua Franca (with Fred Dervin, 2016, Multilingual Matters).

Judith Reynolds is Lecturer in multilingual and intercultural communication in the Centre for Language and Communication Research, Cardiff University, UK. Her research focuses on how language and culture intersect, and how both shape identities, in particular in professional and workplace settings.

Sara Ganassin is Lecturer in applied linguistics and communication in the School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences, Newcastle University, UK. She is the author of Language, Culture and Identity in Two Chinese Community Schools. More than One Way of Being Chinese? (2020, Multilingual Matters).