ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the management of linguistic diversity in migrant-targeting and migrant-operated telecommunications companies, including multinationals, small/medium-sized enterprises and “ethnic” call shops. I show that ICT ventures have adopted multilinguistic commercial strategies (understood as neoliberal language policies) which are, in reality, monolingual, with the scarce use of “economically viable” linguae francae and of migrants’ languages. I argue that this business sphere imposes a regime of clienthood which reinforces an integration-through-the-nation-state-language ideology tied to citizenship access, and I discuss the consequences of the fact that migration-flows surveillance is increasingly implemented by governments in close collaboration with the marketplace.
