36.1122, Confs: The social life of names and naming practices in migration contexts (Workshop) (France)

Wed Apr 2 08:05:02 UTC 2025

LINGUIST List: Vol-36-1122. Wed Apr 02 2025. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 36.1122, Confs: The social life of names and naming practices in migration contexts (Workshop) (France)

Moderator: Steven Moran (linguist at linguistlist.org)
Managing Editor: Justin Fuller
Team: Helen Aristar-Dry, Steven Franks, Joel Jenkins, Daniel Swanson, Erin Steitz
Jobs: jobs at linguistlist.org | Conferences: callconf at linguistlist.org | Pubs: pubs at linguistlist.org

Homepage: http://linguistlist.org

Editor for this issue: Erin Steitz <ensteitz at linguistlist.org>

================================================================

Date: 01-Apr-2025
From: Camille Simon [camille.simon2 at gmail.com]
Subject: The social life of names and naming practices in migration contexts (Workshop)

The social life of names and naming practices in migration contexts
Theme: multilingualism, migration, diaspora, anthroponyms, toponyms,
ethnonyms, glossonyms

Date: 20-Nov-2025 - 21-Nov-2025
Location: Paris, France
Contact: Maria Coma-Santasusana
Contact Email: maria.coma-santasusana at u-paris.fr

Linguistic Field(s): Discourse Analysis; Sociolinguistics

Submission Deadline: 31-May-2025

Names, whether they refer to people, places, businesses, languages
etc., are not mere labels disconnected from a social fabric, they are
“a repository of accumulated meanings, practices, and beliefs, a
powerful linguistic means of asserting identity (or defining someone
else) and inhabiting a social world” (Rymes 1999: 165). Through their
referential function and multiple connotations, they “identify,
categorize, tell stories and provide social tools for interactions”
(Bramwell 2016: 276). The agency of names may differ in significant
ways and touch upon varied domains, yet the fact that names “do”
things remains unquestioned. Embedded in social relations and
histories, names and naming “shape, and are shaped by,
worlds-in-the-making” (Rose-Redwood 2021: 196). Our workshop offers to
reflect on names and naming practices in the more specific context of
migration. While names have often been taken as an indication of the
degree of integration into the host community as opposed to ethnic
maintenance and discrimination (e.g. Khosravi 2012, Pennesi 2016,
2019), we posit that names and naming have the potential to reveal
much beyond the integration/estrangement dichotomy.
Several scholars have pointed out that names appear as “an ideal
object for cross-disciplinary research, because they are cultural
artefacts and because their bestowal, change, and everyday usage are
so manifestly related to the social organization of a community” (de
Stefani 2016: 65; see also Rose-Redwood 2021). But names and naming
“remain conspicuously absent as a dedicated area of interest in
relevant sociolinguistic perspectives on language and migration”, and
anthropological studies focusing on personal names and migration
remain rare (Waldispühl 2024: 16). Migrations go together with the
development of multilingual repertoires and the encounter of different
social systems, and the study of names and naming provides an entry
point for understanding the linguistic and social reconfigurations at
work in the migratory experience. This is why our workshop hopes to
enrich research on migration by looking into names and naming
practices from a variety of disciplines of the humanities and social
sciences, tackling present or historical situations, as long as these
are based on empirical case studies.
Possible topics include (but are not limited to):
 • Naming and placing selves in migration: the use of names in an
individual's or a community's construction;
 • Naming and place-making in migration;
 • Effects of encounters between different naming systems and their
possible coexistence;
 • Language contact in names and naming practices, including
linguistic transfers and copies;
 • Endonymy and exonymy in and by migrant communities;
 • Actual use of names and alternative linguistic expressions in
everyday interactions, in the cross-cultural context of migration;
 • Names, naming and memory in migration contexts;
 • Evolution of the connotations and associative meanings of names in
the context of migration;
 • Agency and contestation in naming practices in migration;
 • Name giving and de-naming in migration.
Convenors & scientific committee
This workshop is convened as part of DiasCo-Tib, ANR 23 CE41 0017
(https://anr.fr/Projet-ANR-23-CE41-0017), a multidisciplinary research
project that examines various processes of linguistic and social
convergence and divergence at play in the Tibetan diaspora, mainly in
France but also in other geographical spaces.
 • Anne-Sophie Bentz, contemporary history, CESSMA, Université Paris
Cité
 • Maria Coma-Santasusana, anthropology, CESSMA, Université Paris Cité
 • Xénia de Heering, sociology, CESSMA, Université Paris Cité
 • Françoise Robin, Tibetan studies, IFRAE, Inalco
 • Nicola Schneider, anthropology, IFRAE, Inalco
 • Camille Simon, linguistics, LACITO, Université de Picardie Jules
Verne
 • Wang Sanchuan, linguistics, IFRAE, Inalco
Location
Inalco, Maison de la Recherche, 2 rue de Lille, 75007 Paris, France.
In-person participation is preferred (please contact us if
impossible).
Abstract submission
Send your 300- to 500-word abstract in English or French (for other
languages, please approach the committee) to
maria.coma-santasusana at u-paris.fr.
Important dates
Deadline for submissions: May 31, 2025
Notification of acceptance: June 30, 2025
Workshop: November 20-21, 2025
References
Bramwell, Ellen S. 2016. ‘Ch. 18 Personal names and anthropology.’ In:
Hough, Carole (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Names and Naming, 263-278.
https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199656431.001.0001.
De Stefani, Elwys. 2016. ‘Ch. 4 Names and Discourse.’ In: Hough,
Carole (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Names and Naming, 52-66.
https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199656431.001.0001.
Khosravi, Shahram. 2012. ‘White Masks/Muslim Names: Immigrants and
Name-Changing in Sweden.’ Race & Class 53, no. 3: 65–80.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0306396811425986.
Pennesi, Karen. 2019. ‘Differential Responses to Constraints on Naming
Agency among Indigenous Peoples and Immigrants in Canada.’ Language &
Communication 64: 91–103.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langcom.2018.11.002.
Pennesi, Karen. 2016. ‘“They Can Learn to Say My Name”: Redistributing
Responsibility for Integrating Immigrants to Canada.’ Anthropologica
58, no. 1: 46–59. https://doi.org/10.3138/anth.581.A03.
Rose-Redwood, Reuben. 2021. ‘The Social and Political Life of Names
and Naming: Concluding Commentary.’ Nordic Journal of Socio-Onomastics
1: 187–198. https://doi.org/10.59589/noso.12021.14734.
Rymes, Betsy. 1999. ‘Names.’ Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 9, no.
1/2: 163–66. https://www.jstor.org/stable/43102455.
Waldispühl, Michelle. 2024. ‘Personal Names and Migration: An
Overview.’ Nordic Journal of Socio-Onomastics 4, no. 3: 15–58.
https://doi.org/10.59589/noso.42024.17635.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

********************** LINGUIST List Support ***********************
Please consider donating to the Linguist List to support the student editors:

https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=87C2AXTVC4PP8

LINGUIST List is supported by the following publishers:

Bloomsbury Publishing http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/

Cambridge University Press http://www.cambridge.org/linguistics

Cascadilla Press http://www.cascadilla.com/

De Gruyter Mouton https://cloud.newsletter.degruyter.com/mouton

Edinburgh University Press http://www.edinburghuniversitypress.com

Elsevier Ltd http://www.elsevier.com/linguistics

John Benjamins http://www.benjamins.com/

Language Science Press http://langsci-press.org

Lincom GmbH https://lincom-shop.eu/

Multilingual Matters http://www.multilingual-matters.com/

Netherlands Graduate School of Linguistics / Landelijke (LOT) http://www.lotpublications.nl/

Oxford University Press http://www.oup.com/us

Wiley http://www.wiley.com

----------------------------------------------------------
LINGUIST List: Vol-36-1122
----------------------------------------------------------