Bloomsbury Academic The Discursive Construction of Identity and Space Among Mobile People (Advances in Sociolinguistics)

This book offers a close look at discourse of and around three socially marginalised groups: Irish travellers, squatters and homeless people, in order to understand more about these groups and how individuals within them position themselves vis-à-vis mainstream society. It investigates the groups' diverse and provisional relationship with space that challenges mainstream society's spatial logic.Given that the relationship between mobility, space and identity has been explored in the main in migrant contexts, the volume proposes a reconsideration of this relationship outside and beyond people's movement from one place to another. Investigating the space-identity nexus among the three groups, the study highlights how mobility - and diversity - is not solely a cross-country phenomenon but a no less crucial and dramatic reality within an individual nation.Based on close linguistic analysis of interviews collected over many years, the book investigates how the participants construct their social and personal identities, when talking about themselves and the sites they inhabit in interaction with the researcher, drawing on the concepts of 'heterotopia' and non-sexual desire. The book also considers other data, such as written reports and letters on the topic of marginal and mobile space, produced by ordinary people and by a small group of homeless individuals. Review A fascinating and well-written account of neglected groups in the study of linguistic mobility.Anne Pauwels, Emeritus Professor of Sociolinguistics, SOAS, University of London, UKIn this timely book, Piazza expertly and sensitively draws attention to the marginalised and excluded in society. Her research shows the importance of understanding individual human experiences and their complex relationship with space, place, and society. Piazza allows us to hear these usually silenced voices and meet fully people who are so often unseen.Annabelle Mooney, Professor of Language and Society, University of Roehampton, UK About the Author Roberta Piazza is Lecturer in Linguistics and English Language at the University of Sussex, UK.