This book examines the linguistic and discursive elements of social and economic policies and national political leader statements to read new meanings into debates on border protection, national sovereignty, immigration, economic indigenisation, land reform and black economic empowerment. It adds a fresh angle to the debate on nationalisms and transnationalism by pushing forward a more applied agenda to establish a clear and empirically-based illustration of the contradictions in current policy frameworks around the world and the debates they invite. The author's novel vernacular discourse approach contributes new points of method and interpretation that will advance scholarly conversations on nationalisms, transnationalism and other forms of identity imaginings in a transient world.

Finex Ndhlovu is Associate Professor of Language in Society at the University of New England, Australia, Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Graduate Center, City University of New York, USA, and Visiting Research Professor, College of Graduate Studies, University of South Africa. His research interests sit at the cutting edge of sociolinguistics of migration and socio-cultural theories around language, identity and sociality in relation to transnational African diasporas; language and development; language and discourses of everyday exclusion. Most recent major publications include Becoming an African Diaspora in Australia (2014); Hegemony and Language Policies in Southern Africa (2015); and Language, Migration, Diaspora: Challenging the Big Battalions of Groupism (2017).