[Linganth] Call for papers - AAA 2026 -On the verge of belonging: Language, precarity, and institutional thresholds

[Nora Tyeklar]

Just a friendly reminder.

Thank you again for considering!

On Mon, Mar 30, 2026 at 7:52 AM Nora Tyeklar <nora.tyeklar at maine.edu> wrote:

> *Call for papers - AAA 2026 - American Anthropological Association Annual
> Meeting*
> November 18-22, 2026
> St. Louis, MO
> *Please see the panel abstract below.*
>
> If you are interested in participating as a panelist, discussant, or
> chair, contact Nora Tyeklar at nora.tyeklar at maine.edu by *Wednesday,
> April 15th.*
>
> If you are interested in being a panelist, please also send along a paper
> abstract 250-300 words in length by *Wednesday, April 15th.*
>
> Thank you for considering!
>
>
> *Panel abstract:*
> *On the verge of belonging: Language, precarity, and institutional
> thresholds*
>
> What does it mean to live—and to speak—on the verge? This panel approaches
> the 2026 theme through a linguistic anthropological lens to examine how
> precarity is constituted through language within public-serving
> institutions (Agha 2007; Woolard 2016).
>
> Across contexts, institutions serving racially, ethnically, caste-marked,
> migrant, and economically marginalized communities such as schools, health
> systems, welfare offices, and community programs are increasingly
> positioned at the edge of viability. Funding regimes tied to performance
> metrics, bureaucratic filtering, and expanding authoritarian governance
> place these institutions and the communities that depend on them on
> uncertain ground, even as they remain sites where alternative futures are
> voiced (Bourdieu 1991; Silverstein 2003).
>
> Drawing on ethnographically grounded analyses, this panel examines how
> language practices shape and are shaped by institutional precarity. Papers
> analyze how discourse and interaction constitute experiences of being "on
> the verge" of exclusion, abandonment, or bureaucratic disappearance, as
> well as persistence and how feelings of un-belonging are produced,
> circulated, and resisted across institutional encounters, policy genres,
> media discourse, and everyday talk (Briggs 2005; Heller and McElhinny 2017).
>
> This panel further shows how language mediates institutional survival
> through funding structures, categorization practices, and audit regimes
> that render institutions both indispensable and disposable (Shore and
> Wright 2015). It also explores the linguistic production of racialized and
> caste-marked subjectivities, the cultivation of aspiration through
> institutional discourse, and the affective dimensions of precarity in
> interactions among institutional actors and the publics they serve (Ahmed
> 2014; Berlant 2011), while considering alternative institutional forms and
> shifting public discourse that reshape what can be said, administered, and
> imagined (Foucault 1991; Hull 2012).
>
> By foregrounding language as a central analytic, the panel asks how people
> speak from the brink, narrate endurance, and make collective futures
> imaginable when institutions themselves remain on the verge.
>
>
> --
>
> ------------------------------
>
> [image: UMA]
>
> Nora Tyeklar, PhD
>
> she/her
>
> Visiting Assistant Professor of Social Science
>
> Social Science Program Coordinator
>
> President's Council on Transforming Lives Co-Chair
>
> University of Maine at Augusta
> uma.edu | my.uma.edu
>
> 207-621-3282
>
> 46 University Dr.
> Augusta, ME 04330
>
> nora.tyeklar at maine.edu
>
>
> UMA’s Heritage Month Calendar
> <https://www.uma.edu/about/transforminglives/heritage-calendar/>
>
> Digital Media co-Director, Society for Linguistic Anthropology
> <https://linguisticanthropology.org/>
>
>
> I live and work on the homeland of the Wabanaki Nations一the Penobscot,
> Passamaquoddy, Maliseet, and Mi’kmaq一who have stewarded these lands for
> generations and continue to do so today. I acknowledge this history and am
> committed to respectful relationships that honor Wabanaki cultures,
> histories, and contributions.
>
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