About new techno-social networks: political and educational emergencies
This article is based on a qualitative research done with ﬁve countercultural groups in Colombia, which inten-sively use information and communication technologies. The results are analyzed in relation to new ways to share and disseminate knowledge and new forms of social and political organization. They are comprehended as an expanded social educative practice. These technosocial practices are considered as ways of being resistant against dominant and homogenizing political and cultural models. They also show alternative forms of community and knowledge. Nevertheless, it is a novelty observed in relation to the power and inequality that exist in those collectives.
El Cibermundo, la política del peor.
Resenha do livro: VIRILIO, Paul. El Cibermundo, la politica del peor . Madrid: Ediciones Catedra, 1997.
The Russian language maintenance and language contacts
In our introductory article, we outline the main sociolinguistic features of Russian as a heritage language of post-Soviet immigrants in European settings and beyond. We offer a general overview of the evolution of Russian as a global language, with a particular focus on its geodemographics and economic and social value as a lingua franca . Based on this, we analyse the main principles defining the maintenance of Russian as a language of migration and as a heritage language in different countries, and emphasise the most important questions that still need to be addressed in this field of research. The main objective of this special issue is to combine the most recent research on the vitality of different languages of post-Soviet republics in new political milieu, with a particular focus on European and Asian countries, but there are other objectives as well. We propose to explore the factors that have either favoured or hindered the maintenance and transmission of languages of post-Soviet immigrants and repatriates, and how these sociolinguistic processes become evident in language vitality on both private and public levels. Our special issue primarily addresses the questions of family language policy, new language contacts and their management, and linguistic landscape in heritage speakers, diasporas and their new settings in Europe, Asia and the US.