Colonial and Decolonial Linguistics

Ana Deumert is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Cape Town. She works within the broad field of sociocultural linguistics, with a strong transdisciplinary focus. Her current work explores the use of language in global political movements as well as the contributions that de-/anti-colonial thought can make to (socio)linguistic theory. Her many publications include Introducing Sociolinguistics (with Rajend Mesthrie, Joan Swann, and William Leap; Benjamins, 2009) and Sociolinguistics and Mobile Communication (Edinburgh University Press, 2014). She is a recipient of the Neville Alexander Award for the Promotion of Multilingualism (2014) and the Humboldt Research Award (2016). Anne Storch is Professor of African Linguistics at the University of Cologne. Her work combines contributions on cultural and social contexts of languages, the semiotics of linguistic practices, colonial linguistics, epistemic language and metalinguistics, and linguistic description. Her publications include Secret Manipulations (OUP, 2011), A Grammar of Luwo (Benjamins, 2014), and Language and Tourism in Postcolonial Settings (with Angelika Mietzner; Channel View, 2019), She is co-editor of the journal The Mouth and a recipient of the Leibniz Prize (2017). Nick Shepherd is Associate Professor of Archaeology and Heritage Studies at Aarhus University and Extraordinary Professor at the University of Pretoria. His current projects are focused on walking as a form of embodied research practice, and on the politics and poetics of water in the Anthropocene. He has held visiting positions at Harvard University, Brown University, the University of Basel, and Colgate University. His recent publications include After Ethics: Ancestral Voices and Post-Disciplinary Worlds in Archaeology (with Alejandro Haber; Springer, 2014) and The Mirror in the Ground: Archaeology, Photography and the Making of a Disciplinary Archive (Jonathan Ball, 2015).