WP212 Superdiversity and linguistic ethnography: Researching people and language in motion

This paper discusses a linguistic ethnographic (LE) approach to superdiversity in three steps. First, it lays out some basic assumptions of LE. Secondly, it demonstrates how superdiversity pairs with LE methods and perspectives and describes some domains of research. Finally, it presents two examples of LE research in Cyprus and Denmark, taken from research projects carried out by each author. Both cases come from classrooms in which similarity and uniformity is ?to an extent? aspired to, but where difference turns out to be fundamental to the participants. Both cases illustrate situations resulting from people’s movement in space and discursively in time (e.g. talking about the past), and they put into focus the struggle between different discourses on diversity, and between existing structures and emerging discrepancies. They also highlight issues of security, precarity and conflict which are important, yet often overlooked effects of mobility and technological and societal changes.