Social configurations where people from diverse sociocultural and linguistic backgrounds come together (physically or otherwise) for a limited period of time to work on a shared activity. Some TMCs are project-based with participants coming together to solve very specific tasks, for instance setting up a play at a theatre with an international cast or establishing sustainable water supply in a remote village through collaboration between the local population and outside experts. Other TMCs will be organized more loosely around shared activities, for instance participating as a student in an international university programme.
Transient multilingual communities and the formation of social and linguistic norms
UPCOMING ACTIVITIES
- Panel on "Studying transient social configurations as a window on sociality in the making". Contributions by Mortensen, Kraft, Kappa, Hazel, Lønsmann, Marco Jacquemet. 117th American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting. San Jose, USA. 14-18 November 2018.
SPECIAL ISSUE IN JOURNAL OF LINGUISTIC ANTHROPOLOGY
18/12/2017
This special issue ('Transience: Emerging norms on language use') explores the concept of transience and how it foregrounds the temporality of norm formation, located within the practices of people on the move. Transience, in spite of being ubiquitous, is not always salient for members or analysts, but to identify, fixate and theorize it as an object of study invites new ways of conceptualizing the interdependence of language and social structure.
