Power

Abstract

This chapter studies the tensions between urban regimes, responsible for the imposition of order on urban space and the various groups that comprise city life from the point of view of language issues. Language is situated in relation to the marginalisation of certain groups or communities, and their languages. The range of forms and types of resistance of such language groups, formal, informal, community-based, identity-based and the politics of the ‘backyard’, are outlined. An analytical description of language as resistance, defined as the means and ability to negotiate the imposition of order, is shown to be consistent with the nature of city life. It is argued that language as a social movement, as protest and as resistance is not wholly anarchic. Instead, it conforms to the cultural logic of the city as an open, diverse and intense entity that is inherently disordering.