Acknowledgements

The idea for this book, and indeed many of its contributions, arose out of a panel that was presented at the International Pragmatics Conference in Delhi in 2013. While the focus of the panel was on bringing together western and non-western perspectives on the discursive construction, negotiation and legitimisation of ‘valid’ identities, during the presentations and subsequent discussions it soon became clear that the identity issues we engaged in were much broader than our initial western/non-western dichotomy seemed to suggest. And so the idea for this collection on identity struggles in workplaces around the globe was born.

We are very grateful to all the participants – presenters and audience – of the initial panel at the conference, who have engaged so actively, and often quite passionately, with our questions around issues of identity. And also to all our contributors, who in their various chapters continue this discussion. We would particularly like to thank our authors for their patience throughout the editing process, and for their encouraging words and enthusiasm along the way.

A very big thank you also to Joelle Loew for helping with the formatting, to Jan Reynders for some expert computer advice and to Isja Conen for patiently and expertly answering all our questions while putting together this volume.