37.1612, Reviews: Insecurities in Language Policy and Planning: Sinfree Makoni, Cristine Gorski Severo, Ashraf Abdelhay and Alissa J. Hartig (eds.) (2026)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-37-1612. Wed Apr 29 2026. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 37.1612, Reviews: Insecurities in Language Policy and Planning: Sinfree Makoni, Cristine Gorski Severo, Ashraf Abdelhay and Alissa J. Hartig (eds.) (2026)

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Date: 29-Apr-2026
From: Daniel Strogen [973256 at swansea.ac.uk]
Subject: Applied Linguistics: Sinfree Makoni, Cristine Gorski Severo, Ashraf Abdelhay and Alissa J. Hartig (eds.) (2026)


Book announced at https://linguistlist.org/issues/37-213

Title: Insecurities in Language Policy and Planning
Subtitle: Decolonial Theories and Practices
Series Title: Global Forum on Southern Epistemologies
Publication Year: 2026

Publisher: Multilingual Matters
           http://www.multilingual-matters.com/
Book URL: http://multilingual-matters.com/page/detail/?K=9781836681922

Editor(s): Sinfree Makoni, Cristine Gorski Severo, Ashraf Abdelhay and
Alissa J. Hartig

Reviewer: Daniel Strogen

SUMMARY
Insecurities in Language Policy and Planning: Decolonial Theories and
Practices, edited by Sinfree Makoni, Cristine Gorski Severo, Ashraf
Abdelhay, and Alissa J. Hartig, examines the epistemological
foundations of language policy and planning (LPP). In doing so, it
asks what it means to ‘decolonise’ the field. The volume spans diverse
contexts and engages with core concepts in LPP, particularly its roots
in Western academic traditions. The volume includes fifteen chapters,
alongside a preface and epilogue, each taking a transgressive
approach. All chapters depart from conventional academic structures,
using extended, edited dialogues led by named researchers.
The opening chapters establish the volume’s critical orientation.
Makoni, Abdelhay, and Severo’s chapter, ‘Planning Language, Planning
(In)Security’, frames LPP as an inherently unstable field, shaped by
unclear concepts, limited theorisation, and its entanglement with
political power. It situates LPP within histories of colonialism and
standardisation, arguing that it has contributed to processes of
control and exclusion. In response, the authors call for a
reorientation, positioning the subsequent chapters as ‘conversations’
that challenge dominant assumptions. Spolsky’s ‘Continued Thoughts on
Language Policy’ reflects on his work and outlines his three-component
model of language policy (practice, beliefs, and management),
extending it to include domains of use, non-linguistic factors, and
individual repertoires. In contrast, Tannenbaum and Shohamy’s ‘A New
Multilingual Educational Policy in Israel: The Role of Research as a
Contributing Factor’ presents a policy-focused case study, showing how
research, stakeholder engagement, and competing interests shape
multilingual education. Pinto’s ‘Becoming a Language of State’
examines colonial language ideologies in India, challenges the
centrality of Sanskrit, and highlights the multilingual nature of
literary traditions. Similarly, Rampton, Silva, and Charalambous’
‘Sociolinguistics and Securitization as Another Mode of Governance’
explores the links between language, governance, and securitisation,
arguing that language standardisation operates within broader
political logics of control. Together, these chapters foreground the
conceptual and political assumptions underlying LPP and demonstrate
how they can be re-examined through a decolonial lens.
The following chapters extend this critique across diverse contexts.
Faraclas’ ‘Longue Durée and Durée Profonde: Udumu, Utu and Bringing
Language Back to Earth’ adopts a longue durée perspective to challenge
anthropocentric language concepts, drawing on precolonial
epistemologies such as Utu and Udumu to foreground the entanglement of
human, non-human, and ancestral relations. Relatedly, Gafaranga’s
chapter, ‘Doing Translanguaging, Unknowingly and Differently’,
revisits translanguaging and argues for suspending ‘language’ as a
fixed analytic category, using it only when invoked by speakers
themselves. Lian’s ‘Metaphorical Language Policy and Language Politics
in the Arabic-Speaking World’ shows how recurring metaphors shape
ideologies of Standard Arabic and function as political tools grounded
in historical processes. Mendel’s chapter, ‘Arabic in Israel: The
Consequences of Harnessing Language for Security’, examines the
securitisation of Arabic in Israel, showing how military and
intelligence institutions shape both motivations for learning Arabic
and definitions of expertise. Similarly, Suleiman-Malley’s ‘Language
and Conflict in the Israeli–Palestinian Sphere: The View from Below’
argues that language operates as a symbolic site through which broader
political conflicts are expressed, rather than as a direct cause of
conflict.
The final chapters deepen the volume’s decolonial critique of
knowledge, policy, and practice. Adébísí’s ‘[Un]Making the Wretched of
the Earth’ critiques legal constructions of the human and calls for
new concepts beyond colonial frameworks, with implications for how
language is understood and governed. In a related vein, Karlander and
Salö’s ‘Historicizing Semilingualism: On the Theoretical Origins of a
Linguistic Pathology’ traces the origins of the concept of
semilingualism, exposing its ideological roots and showing how deficit
models have shaped language policy and education. Vavrus’ ‘Schooling
as Uncertainty: An Ethnographic Memoir’ examines educational precarity
in Tanzania, highlighting how individuals navigate instability while
reimagining their futures. Joshi’s ‘An Exploration of the Causes and
Consequences of Private Schooling Expansion: Global Trends and
Research Findings from Nepal’ analyses the global expansion of private
schooling, demonstrating how economic inequalities structure access to
education and shape policy outcomes. Mayo’s ‘Twenty Years’ Engagement
in Postcolonial Education: A Retrospective’ reflects on the shifting
use of concepts such as postcolonial, neocolonial, and decolonial
across contexts. The chapter, ‘From Uncharchiving to Unbooking: How
the Film No Vernacular Rethinks Language Policy Research for Global
South Contexts’, by Nii-Owoo, introduces a multimodal approach through
‘unarchiving’ and ‘unbooking’, using film to explore Ghanaian
teachers’ responses to language policy and to question the capacity of
conventional academic forms to represent diverse epistemologies.
The volume is framed by a prologue and epilogue by José del Valle and
Ezra Chambal Nhampoca, respectively. Together, they characterise the
chapters as part of a broader effort to unsettle dominant
epistemologies in LPP and to rethink its conceptual foundations. This
framing reinforces the volume’s central claim that LPP must move
beyond inherited categories to engage with more plural and situated
ways of knowing.
EVALUATION
Overall, the volume offers an ambitious and conceptually important
contribution to LPP. Its central aim is to rethink the epistemological
foundations of the field through a decolonial lens, supported by a
dialogic and explicitly transgressive format. By bringing together a
wide range of contexts and perspectives, the book challenges
established assumptions about language, knowledge, and governance in
LPP. The breadth of the volume is a particular strength, spanning
contexts from India and the Arabic-speaking world to Israel, Tanzania,
Nepal, and Ghana, and demonstrating how questions of language, power,
and policy play out across a range of historical and sociopolitical
settings.
Another of the volume’s main strengths is its conceptual ambition and
its use of a dialogic format to challenge conventional academic
practice. By structuring chapters as extended dialogues, the volume
moves away from single-author authority and allows for the
juxtaposition of different perspectives. This approach aligns with its
decolonial aims, particularly in questioning taken-for-granted
categories like ‘language’, ‘speaker’, and ‘policy’. These categories
have long structured LPP as a field (Spolsky 2004; Ricento 2006).
Across the chapters, this produces a sustained critique of the
conceptual foundations of LPP and encourages readers to reconsider how
language is defined, studied, and governed.
At the same time, this approach is not realised uniformly across the
volume, leading to some variation in depth and focus. While many
chapters engage directly with the decolonial project, others remain
closer to descriptive or policy-oriented approaches, with less
explicit reflection on their underlying assumptions. This variation
can make it harder to identify a consistent thread across the
chapters, particularly in how key concepts are redefined or applied.
Even so, the diversity of approaches also reflects the openness of the
volume’s ‘conversational’ design, allowing different entry points into
its central concerns.
Interestingly, while the volume calls for moving beyond categories
such as ‘language’ or ‘speaker’, much of its analysis relies on these
concepts in practice. Rather than undermining the volume, this
highlights the difficulty of rethinking LPP without drawing on the
very concepts it seeks to critique. In this sense, the volume is
particularly effective in identifying the limits of existing
approaches and in opening up space for further conceptual development.
The decolonial perspective is therefore productive, even where it
remains exploratory, showing the challenge of turning epistemological
critique into workable models for analysis and policy.
The volume’s conceptual depth is a clear strength, but it also makes
it demanding to read. The dialogic format, combined with dense
theoretical discussion, can at times obscure the central argument of
individual chapters and make it more difficult to follow their
contribution to the volume as a whole. While this reflects the book’s
aim to move away from conventional academic forms, it may reduce
accessibility for some readers. At the same time, for those engaged in
decolonial and critical approaches to LPP, this depth is likely to be
seen as a strength rather than a limitation. Moreover, the use of
dialogue can make the chapters feel more immediate and reflective,
offering insights into how scholars negotiate ideas in practice rather
than presenting fully settled arguments.
Despite these minor limitations, the volume makes a strong and timely
contribution to LPP. Its focus on questioning the epistemological
foundations of the field, alongside its use of alternative formats for
presenting research, marks an important shift in how LPP can be
approached. The questions it raises about language, power, and
knowledge are both necessary and productive. The volume therefore
stands as a valuable resource for scholars seeking to rethink the
scope and assumptions of LPP, and it points toward the need for
further work that can more fully connect decolonial critique with
empirical and policy-oriented practice. It also contributes to ongoing
debates about the scope and direction of LPP as a field, particularly
in relation to questions of epistemology, methodology, and the
relationship between research and practice. In doing so, it invites
scholars to reflect on what LPP studies and how it produces knowledge.
REFERENCES
Ricento, Thomas (ed.). 2006. An introduction to language policy:
Theory and method. Oxford: Blackwell.
Spolsky, Bernard. 2004. Language policy. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Daniel Strogen is a PhD candidate and senior teaching assistant in
Applied Linguistics at Swansea University. His doctoral research
examines Welsh language use among young people, with a particular
focus on post-school transitions and the factors shaping continued use
or disengagement. He has published short fiction alongside his
academic work, and his broader interests include dialectology,
language attitudes, and language policy and planning.



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