«This is a superb collection of chapters that captures David Parkin’s impressive scholarship over 60 years. Theoretically dense, the book offers a wide range of ethnographic data from Eastern Africa. Parkin’s work highlights how much scholars have to learn from meaning-making practices in Africa. I highly recommend it.»

Cécile B. Vigouroux, Simon Fraser University, Canada

«This impressive and insightful collection invites readers to replace scholarly fixation on static modes of classifying languages and people with the approach captured by the poignant phrase that gives the book its title and innovative analytic: ‘the transformative materiality of meaning-making’.»

Charles L. Briggs, University of California, Berkeley, USA

«This important book brings acute observation to central sociolinguistic themes like multilingualism, linguistic change, standardisation, power and creativity, and situates them with great subtlety and depth in the political, cultural and historical processes in which they play a part. More than that, it provides vivid insight into key developments in social scientific thought over the last five decades, and richly illustrates the power and scope for a social anthropology of language.»

Ben Rampton, King’s College London, UK