The role of language in segregation and gentrification processes: linguistic landscapes in Gothenburg
Short description
The project aims to explain the overlooked role of language in segregation and gentrification processes. Gothenburg, as many cities, is characterised by spatial, social, and linguistic segregation, where people with different backgrounds, jobs, and languages seldom meet. By analyzing the linguistic landscape (LL) in four neighbourhoods, the research team aims to clarify how segregation and gentrification processes interact with each other, and how they are (re)produced in the LL. In three interconnected working packages - signs in place, experiences of place, and texts about place -, we investigate the (in)visibility of specific languages in different neighbourhoods, how these languages are used for different functions, and how people’s lived experiences of language values and usage affect their actions and patterns of movement.
Aim of the project
The aim of this four-year-project is to explain the overlooked role of language in segregation and gentrification processes. Gothenburg, as many cities, is characterised by spatial, social, and linguistic segregation, where people with different backgrounds, jobs, and languages seldom meet. By analyzing the linguistic landscape (LL) in six neighbourhoods, the research team aims to clarify how segregation and gentrification processes interact with each other, and how they are (re)produced in the LL. In three interconnected working packages - signs in place, experiences of place, and texts about place -, we develop a multi-sited, embodied and mobile linguistic ethnography in order to investigate the visibility of specific languages in different neighbourhoods, explain how these languages are used for different functions, and how people’s lived experiences of language values and usage affect their actions and patterns of movement.
Previous research has shown that segregation limits opportunities for socioeconomic mobility and interaction. However, economic and political forces may combine to increase the status of particular neighbourhoods. Such gentrification is often portrayed as positive by entrepreneurs and politicians, while critical voices claim that it displaces poorer residents and businesses. This project contributes a novel, linguistic perspective to social sciences by unveiling the role of language in processes of social exclusion and inclusion in urban space.
Talks
2022
- Vertikalitet i Göteborgs stadsutvecklingsdiskurs, Svenskans beskrivning 38, Örebro Universitet, 4 May 2022
- En relationell blick på språk, plats och segregation. Observationer från enkätsvar i Göteborgs språkliga landskap, Platser i rörelse – så arbetar jag med plats, Institutet för språk och folkminnen, 18 May 2022
- Språks närvaro i stadsrummet: Online/offline i Göteborgs språkliga landskap, Platser i rörelse – så arbetar jag med plats, Institutet för språk och folkminnen, 18 May 2022
2021
- Språkliga hierarkier i Göteborg, Språkrådsdagen, Språkrådet, Stockholm, 5 May 2021
- Segregation and (im)mobilization: Examining the Arabic-Islam-mosques nexus in the immigrant neighbourhood of Bellevue, Gothenburg, The 4th International Conference on the Sociolinguistics of Immigration, University of Turin, Genova, Italy, 27-28 May 2021.
- The heterotopic ambivalences of urban entrepreneurialism: the case of Business Improvement District Gamlestaden and the Bellevue industrial area, Sociolinguistic Symposium 23, University of Hong Kong, 7-10 June 2021
- Tre moskénamn i Göteborgs språkliga landskap, Den 17 Nordiska Namnforskarkongressen, Helsingfors universitet, 8-11 June 2021.
2020
- Invisible Mosques in Scandinavia's Urban Landscape, Mosques, power and politics,
Köpenhamns universitet 22-24 January 2020 -
”Finskan i Göteborg. En intersektionell analys av en plats språkliga hierarkier.” Göteborgs Stads sverigefinska råds utbildningsdag, 29 September 2020.
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The ambiguities of ordering ’chaos’: BID Gamlestaden vs. Bellevue Industriområde, Governing urban aesthetics / the aesthetics of urban governance: a discussion of Business Improvement Districts (BID) in different geographic and political-economic settings, Workshop at University of Gothenburg, 10 December 2020.
2019
- ’World-class’ segregation, or entrepreneurial language and place-making in Nya Hovås. Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv University, November 2019.
- Entrepreneurial naming and scaling: the case of Nya Hovås. Names in the Economy 6, Uppsala University.
- Signs of urban change in Gothenburg: Investigating segregation and gentrification processes with a linguistic landscape perspective. Signs of Urban Change, Birkbeck, London, https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/signs-of-urban-change-tickets-72382920263
- ‘World-class’ segregation, or entrepreneurial language and place-making in Nya Hovås. Linguistic Landscape Studies: Sharing knowledge and solving problems, Umeå University, https://challengingtraditions.wordpress.com/
Publications
2022
Rosendal, Nielsen, Järlehed, Milani, Löfdahl (2022) Language, translocality and urban change: Online and offline signage in four Gothenburg neighbourhoods, Linguistic Landscape.
Järlehed (2022) The white worker’s hotdog and the not-so-white worker’s falafel: food-based public art and urban redevelopment in a changing society, Social Semiotics.
Maria Löfdahl, Johan Järlehed, Tommaso M. Milani, Helle Lykke Nielsen och Tove Rosendal: Språkliga hierarkier i Göteborg – en intersektionell och jämförande analys av finskans och somaliskans (o)synlighet och status
Helle Lykke Nielsen, Maria Löfdahl, Tove Rosendal, Johan Järlehed, Tommaso M. Milani: Moskéer i Göteborg – självpositionering i det urbana rummet
2020
Järlehed, Löfdahl, Milani, Nielsen, Rosendal: Entrepreneurial Naming and Scaling of Urban Places: the Case of Nya Hovås (external link)
Järlehed, Nielsen, Rosendal: Language, food and gentrification: signs of socioeconomic mobility in two Gothenburg neighbourhoods