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Hosted by: AILA Research Networks on Language and Migration;  Applied Linguistics and Literacy in Africa and the Diaspora; and Literacy Studies, together with five South African universities.

Date: 19-21 January 2011  

Venue: Vineyard Conference Centre, Claremont, Cape Town

Aims: The conference will aim to

• bring together a group of established and emerging researchers in applied language and literacy studies who are interested in the transnational, translocal and global movements of people, language and literacy in relation to social practice;
•  focus on the lived experiences of individuals on the front lines of global, transnational, and translocal processes;
• engage with both accounts of global flows and ethnoscapes as well as local practices and processes produced by or impacting on migrants and other people who cross various kinds of social, linguistic, cultural, economic and workplace borders in socially stratified and ethnically plural social settings;
• pay attention to the dynamics of multilingualism in located settings and the social and personal management of multilingualism in such settings;
• explore the role (and nature) of language and literacy practices in boundary maintenance or disruption in global, transnational, and translocal flows; discuss research about language practices and documentary practices as regards access, selection, social mobility and gate-keeping processes in particular settings.