This edited volume is the result of a series of workshops on multilingualism and linguistic citizenship. Authors in this volume engage in an in-depth discussion on the ways in which the theoretical notion of linguistic citizenship (LC) can capture how individuals and groups ‘exercise control over their language, deciding what languages are, and what they may mean, and where language issues… are discursively tied to a range of social issues—policy issues and questions of equity’ (Stroud 2001:353). In so doing, the authors contrast linguistic citizenship with the linguistic human rights (LHR) framework, which, while similar, fails to capture linguistically mediated change in a way that affords equal agency to various speakers and communities. Moving away from a rights-based approach and towards a practice-based perspective, authors in this volume use in-depth case studies in South Africa, Malawi, Cameroon, Mozambique, Sri Lanka, East Timor, Thailand, and Sweden to explore language policy, planning, development, and modes of linguistic resistance and participation. Crucially, debates in this volume are methodologically reflexive—asking how the LC framework can better capture speakers as agents of social and political change.

The volume is divided into three conceptual parts. Part one lays out a detailed discussion of linguistic citizenship, and the ways in which it allows us to address aspects of ideology, power, inequality, and language policy. Christopher Stroud and Lionel Wee each offer an in-depth discussion of language rights and linguistic citizenship through their case studies on the treatment of Northern and Southern varieties of siNdebele in South Africa, and English-Tamil multilingualism in Sri Lanka.

Part two is concerned with linguistic citizenship in education, particularly in colonial and postcolonial contexts. Authors explore localized and community-based language promotion and development, highlighting the political struggle and power inequities that stem from periods of colonization and subsequent periods of liberation, such as in postliberation Mozambique (Feliciano Chimbutane) and postconflict East-Timor (Estêvāo Cabal & Marilyn Martin-Jones). At the core is a consideration of the ways in which marginalized communities participate in language debates on local, regional, and national levels, through expressions of agency and linguistic expertise.

Part three delves into forms of resistance and participation by minority-language speakers. From the social and political approaches to linguistic diversity and the empowerment of minority-language speakers of Sri Lankan Malay (Umberto Ansaldo & Lisa Lim), to the development and promotion of indigenous languages in Malawi (Gregory Kamwendo), to new approaches to modes of representation and political participation in South Africa (Caroline Kerfoot), and the place of hybrid linguistic practices in Swedish language policies (Tommaso M. Milani & Rickard Jonsson). At the core of all four papers lies an in-depth consideration of the ways in which individuals and groups can become agents in debates around linguistic representation, language development, and promotion, and thereby, also, find broader access to political participation.

Each part is concluded by a brief commentary paper, which further contextualizes the themes of each paper in the respective part, while bringing them into dialogue with each other. This volume is particularly useful for researchers interested in theoretical and methodological considerations of multilingualism and the facilitation of speaker agency in linguistic research.