Eithne B. Carlin - Böcker

In and Out of Suriname: Language, Mobility and Identity offers a unique multidisciplinary perspective on a multilingual society in the Caribbean and Guianan sphere. Breaking away from the view of bounded ethnicity, the authors address central theoretical issues of multilingual and multicultural societies including ethnicity as a social distinction, identity as the shifting construction of the self and others, and the role of language therein. They discuss the impact of contact and mobilities on language maintenance, expansion and change. Language, mobility and identity in Suriname are observed through the lens of the actors themselves, from the ever-mobile Amerindians and Maroons on the periphery of land and society through expanding urban societies enhanced by recent migration from Haiti, Brazil and China.