Janet Connor is a linguistic anthropologist and sociolinguist, interested in the ways that linguistic and cultural differences become significant, and how people use language to create forms of belonging across difference. Since August 2021, she is an Assistant Professor at the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics.

More information about Janet Connor

Research

My research takes a sociolinguistic and anthropological approach to community formation, asking how linguistic and cultural differences become significant, and how people use language to create forms of belonging across difference. My work contributes to studies of language and political economy, language ideologies, language and scale, and the social significance of semiotic systems more generally.

In my most recent research in urban Norway, I examine how large-scale processes like urbanization, transnational migration, and climate change are reshaping the Norwegian welfare state and understandings of the bonds that hold Norwegian society together. I am currently working on adapting my PhD thesis into a book about language and the politics of belonging in a multicultural and multilingual neighborhood in central Oslo.

I have also conducted research on the politics of regional languages in France, specifically Occitan.

Curriculum vitae

Ph.D. Anthropology and Linguistics, University of Chicago, 2021
M.A. Anthropology, University of Chicago, 2016

Publications