HOMELandS (Hub On Migration, Exile, Languages and Spaces) at the University of Westminster cordially invites you to join us in celebrating the launch of the book Negotiating Identities, Language and Migration in Global London: Bridging Borders, Creating Spaces which is co-edited by Cangbai Wang and Terry Lamb and with a foreword by Andrew Linn.
The event will begin with a panel discussion chaired by Prof. Gerda Wielander (Westminster). Jacqueline Broadhead (Oxford) and Professor Umut Erel (The Open University) will have a conversation with the book editors Dr. Cangbai Wang (Westminster) and Professor Terry Lamb (Westminster) and share their views on interdisciplinary research into migration, languages and cities in the UK and beyond with contributors and the audience.
This will be followed by a wine reception.
Location
Fyvie Hall, University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street, London W1B 2HW.
About the book
Negotiating Identities, Language and Migration in Global London: Bridging Borders, Creating Spaces (Multilingual Matters, 2024)
This book explores the transnational practices of migrant groups in global London, illustrating the complex relations between migrants and the city in the context of globalisation. The chapters offer a starting point to examine migrants and the city from a comparative perspective by bringing together case studies of diverse migrant communities. They use 'languaging' as the central concept in the development of an interdisciplinary framework that creates an opportunity to 'talk across disciplines' to engage with key issues crisscrossing migration, cities and language. The book promotes 'language-based' or 'language-sensitive' research, drawing on the plurilingual repertoires and the language and translanguaging practices of migrant communities as the tool for data collection and ethnographic fieldwork. This approach generates fresh insights into the complex issues of diasporic identities, belonging and place-making, which have broad implications for migration studies in post-Brexit Britain and beyond.
Contributors: Susan L.T. Ashley, Alison Barnes, Lucia Brandi, Umit Cetin, Saskia Huc-Hepher, Celia Jenkins, Denise Kwan, Terry Lamb, Fabrice Lyczba, Xiao Ma, Julie Marsh, Benedetta Morsiani, Ailsa Peate, Giulia Pepe and Cangbai Wang.
About the speakers
Jacqueline Broadhead
Jacqueline Broadhead is Director, Global Exchange on Migration and Diversity at the University of Oxford, and Co-Director of the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS) where she manages a broad portfolio of knowledge exchange and research projects which aim to extend and deepen COMPAS’s international contribution to the reciprocal sharing of expertise and ideas among academics, policymakers, professionals, civil society, school students and others in the field. Her work focuses on local government and migration, integration and inclusion and how place-based narratives can facilitate the development of inclusive communities. As a Senior Researcher at the Global Exchange from March 2017-March 2019, she led the first phase of the Inclusive Cities programme – supporting 6 UK cities and their local partners to achieve a step-change in their approach towards integration of newcomers in the city, including through a learning exchange with Welcoming America.
Umut Erel
Umut Erel is Professor of Sociology, Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences, School of Social Sciences & Global Studies at the Open University. Her research employs an intersectional approach and explores how gender, migration and ethnicity inform practices of citizenship. She is PI in several major projects funded by AHRC and ESRC that explored migrant women’s mothering practises and citizenship, participatory arts-based methods for civic engagement in migrant support organisations and the potential of using participatory theatre and walking methods for co-producing knowledge. She is the director of the Centre for Global Challenges and Social Justice (GCSJ). She was associate editor of Citizenship Studies and is the Deputy Chair of the Editorial Board of Sociology, the British Sociological Association's Flagship journal.
Terry Lamb
Terry Lamb is Professor of Languages and Interdisciplinary Pedagogy and Co-Director of HOMELandS (Hub On Migration, Exile, Languages and Spaces) at the University of Westminster. He has published extensively in the areas of multilingualism, urban studies and learner/teacher autonomy, and is founder editor of the academic journal Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching. He has carried out consultancies in many countries and been involved in numerous research projects, including several at the European Centre for Modern Languages of the Council of Europe. He has been awarded the honour of Chevalier des Palmes Académiques by the French Prime Minister. He is President of FIPLV (Fédération Internationale des Professeurs de Langues Vivantes), an NGO of both UNESCO and the Council of Europe.
Cangbai Wang
Cangbai Wang is Reader and Co-Director of HOMELandS (Hub On Migration, Exile, Languages and Spaces) at the University of Westminster. His research interests fall in the areas of transnational migration, Chinese diaspora and migration-related museum and cultural heritage studies. He has published widely in peer-reviewed internationals. He is the author of Museum Representations of Chinese Diasporas: Migration Histories and the Cultural Heritage of the Homeland (Routledge, 2021) and the co-editor of Routledge Research on Museum and Heritage in Asia. He is currently leading an AHRC-funded research project that is aimed at developing a global network of diasporic Chinese museums.
Gerda Wielander
Gerda Wielander is Professor of Chinese Studies and Associate Head of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Her research focuses on the link between the personal and spiritual to wider social and political developments in China. She has published on various different aspects of Christian thought and belief in contemporary China, on social organisations, and on the meaning of socialism in the Chinese context. Her current projects include an exploration of happiness and the Chinese socialist project and the use of ‘faith’ in contemporary Chinese political discourse, and signifying practices in post-socialist China. She is the Director of Westminster's Contemporary China Centre, editor of the British Journal of Chinese Studies and the REF Unit of Assessment lead for Modern Languages and Linguistics at the University of Westminster. As a researcher and editor of international standing, she is a member of the British Academy's Strategic Committee for Languages in Higher Education.
