Nation-states manage and simplify diversity through a range of practices, including schooling and the mass media. Some argue that the forces that engender diversity have been in the ascendancy for many years, increasing the need to focus on the social, political, and economic consequences of this diversity. What has become clear from these discussions is that nuanced understandings for diversity are desirable and obtainable through a focus on how this diversity has come about and the role of nation-states in the diversification of social life. In Language and Superdiversity, Zane Goebel explores how diversity has been managed in Indonesia since Dutch colonial times and how these practices have produced more diversity. Taking inspiration from contemporary linguistic anthropological thought, Goebel explains how ethnolinguistic identity in Indonesia has been constituted, reproduced, and valued over the longue durée, and how bits of these identities are used in everyday talk amongst Indonesians living in Japan. Using a wide range of data, he demonstrates how and why management practices have produced hundreds of ethnolinguistic groups in Indonesia, while increasing Indonesia's diversity in other ways. For transnational Indonesians living in Japan, earlier participation in these management practices has enabled them to draw upon their knowledge of other ethnolinguistic groups to pull off situated identity work in everyday talk. These knowledging practices, Goebel argues, help build and maintain relationships that are important for this group of relative strangers to survive and thrive abroad.

Book jacket.