ABSTRACT
This chapter presents case studies of four multilingual adults learning and using their languages while living in the remote trans-Himalayan territory of Leh-Ladakh, India. I use the constructs of remoteness (UNCTAD, 2023), topophilia (Tuan, 1974) and spatial repertoires (Canagarajah, 2021) to show that affinity for place drives participants’ experiences of choosing, learning and deploying language. Participants reported strategic investments in different languages, and season-specific calendaring practices for learning them. They mobilised their repertoires to navigate the tourism economy, to exert a sophisticated climate politics and to dialogically build their identities. Language learning also appeared to modulate Ladakh’s remoteness itself. Language learning emerges as a purposive exercise, resolutely embedded in the geo-psychological location of learners.
