This chapter introduces the study of language ideologies and the relationship between language, social belonging, and social order, particularly in the context of late modernity. It approaches linguistic categories as discursively constructed rather than naturally occurring. This frames language as a key lens for understanding human social organisation, emphasising that ideas about language reflect and co-construct broader social and political ideologies. Through a discussion of sociolinguistic and linguistic anthropological theories, the chapter critiques essentialist views of language. It introduces concepts such as social indexicality, standard language, prestige, and centring institutions to explore how language acquires social meaning and status. The chapter also examines the material dimensions of language, including the role of writing, sound, and tangible artefacts such as grammars and dictionaries in shaping linguistic ideologies and language categories. It lays the foundations for understanding languages as dynamic, constructed phenomena embedded in specific historical, cultural, and material contexts.

This chapter focuses on the broader historical, social, and political context of Belize, which is shaped by colonial history, transnational connections, and multilingual practices. Belize’s linguistic composition reflects its complex history, with English as the official language, Kriol as a marker of national identity, and Spanish as both a widespread and contested language. The historical prominence of Afro-European Creoles and the national fear of Guatemalan territorial claims have added to the prestige of anglophone languages. In addition, Belize’s sociolinguistic diversity incorporates indigenous languages, global influences, and a dynamic interaction between English, Kriol, and Spanish. The studied village, initially settled by Spanish speakers, has evolved into a ‘superdiverse’ community due to tourism, migration, and global economic integration. The chapter explores spatial and social stratification within the village, where language use reflects not only ethnicity and class but also local and transnational affiliations. The chapter illustrates the fluidity of linguistic and social boundaries, challenging Eurocentric assumptions about diversity and belonging.

This chapter examines language ideologies in the context of creole linguistics and in the Caribbean. Creole linguistics offers critical insights into how languages are socially constructed. Traditional debates in creole linguistics have often framed creoles as ‘simpler’ or structurally distinct from other languages, reflecting Western biases. Other approaches challenge these views and underline the fluidity and variability of creole languages. In the second part, the chapter examines language attitudes and ideologies in creole-speaking societies, focusing on the Caribbean in general and Belize. Creole languages function as symbols of solidarity and belonging. In Belize, the rise of Kriol’s prestige reflects national identity and cultural independence, and intersects with English, Spanish, and indigenous languages. This requires frameworks that account for the polycentric, complex sociolinguistic realities of creole-speaking societies. The chapter establishes Belize as a compelling site to explore how languages are discursively constructed, and shows how academic and lay perspectives influence this construction.

James Aggrey was the most influential pan-Africanist in the Anglophone African world in the 1920s and was the single greatest influence on the early leaders of the African Association (AA). This chapter does a deep dive into Aggrey’s intellectual biography and his connection to the AA to argue that Aggrey transmitted Ethiopianist ideas to East Africans. It carefully examines the life of this remarkable global African intellectual by investigating the Gold Coast political milieu of his youth, his educational formation in the African Methodist Episcopal Zion (AMEZ) Church in the American South, and his time in New York at Columbia and as a member of the Negro Society for Historical Research. It argues that Aggrey helped directly tie East Africans in the 1920s into a network of black thought that shaped their understanding of African identity and their role in the continent’s past and future, inspiring some of them to become redemptive pan-Africanists.

Julius Nyerere was one of the greatest African thinkers and leaders of the twentieth century, but until now, no one has looked at how his time in the African Association (AA), before he left for Europe, connected him to a whole world of black thought and shaped his intellectual biography. After demonstrating the lessons Nyerere learned about African unity from the AA and figures like James Aggrey, it will demonstrate how he remolded and used these ideas, and how the strands of both practical pan-Africanism and Ethiopianist-inspired redemptive pan-Africanism can be seen throughout his career. It explores how his ideas of umoja shaped both domestic and international policies in postcolonial Tanzania including the relationship between religion and politics. It then examines how Nyerere wrestled with ideas of African identity, unity, and Africanness (Uarikfa) and highlights the inherent tensions between projects of territorial nationalism and political pan-Africanisms such as African nationalism.

The introduction engages scholarly debates around the topics of Tanzanian nationalism, African identity, pan-Africanism, and global intellectual history to indicate its contributions to those fields. It introduces the main question: How did an African identity come to have any personal or political purchase in East Africa in the twentieth century? The main case study focuses on the African Association (AA), a politically minded pan-African group with ideational connections to several streams of black thought. The members who chose this group, which promoted an African identity, usually did so for two reasons. They were either inspired by the redemptive pan-Africanism of some of its visionary leaders who engaged with the ideas of Ethiopianism surrounding Africa’s future and past and/or they were drawn to the strand of practical pan-Africanism cultivated by the leadership of the AA who sought to build African unity and open chapters all throughout the continent and even the globe.

Paul Sindi Seme is a little-known pan-Africanist but was the chief architect and popularizer of the African Association (AA)’s vision of continental and global expansion in the 1930s and 1940s through a vast network of correspondence. During this period, the AA attempted to spread the ideas of redemptive and practical pan-Africanism deeper into the interior of Africa by building a material circuit of ideas which they hoped would expand to all Africans across the globe. The practical work of building the African nation came through the mastery of the postal system, the circulation of statute books and membership forms, and the creation of regional conferences. Seme was not only a prolific letter writer but also completed several book manuscripts including the first history of East Africa written in an African language by an African (c.1937). This chapter analyzes his writings to demonstrate how his vision was influenced by Ethiopianism and redemptive pan-Africanism.

This chapter is devoted to a linguistic analysis of the variable nature of English in public spaces in Belize, focusing on school, mass media, and research interviews. Adopting a decolonial perspective, it refrains from categorising English in Belize as a distinct and national variety. The analysis reveals significant linguistic variability in morphosyntax, phonetics, and prosody. Public English in Belize incorporates a range of forms influenced by Kriol, Spanish, and international English standards, challenging conventional notions of ’standard’ language. Morphosyntactic features reveal both local and non-local influences, while phonetic analyses reveal individual variations in vowel production linked to social, educational, and ideological factors. Prosodic variation, particularly pitch and intonation, emerges as a key marker of linguistic boundaries. English in Belize resists fixed categorisation and embodies a ’liquid’ linguistic character. This variability results from the absence of a hegemonic cultural and linguistic centre.

An intellectual history approach to the exploration of African identity in mid twentieth-century East Africa provides several insights into unresolved tensions in African political history. Building the African Nation argues that the failure of the Pan-African Movement to politically unify the continent in the heady days of the end of empire in the late 1950s and early 1960s should be partly attributed to the fact that competing nationalisms were at play. African and territorial nationalisms were vying for the loyalty of the people of the continent. Even though the relationship between the two proved to be beneficial to the aims of some territorial nationalists in solving specific problems – coordination of anti-colonial tactics, sharing of information valuable to decolonization projects, etc. – in the end, there were two separate identities aiming for ultimate allegiance. In hindsight, we can see that trying to build two nations simultaneously was bound to create tension or conflict and is one reason African political unity has proven so elusive. When we recognize that much pan-African thinking in the continent was born out of the idea that all Africans were one and should therefore prioritize a continental fealty, it becomes easier to understand how this made pan-Africanism at odds with territorial nationalists’ projects.

After looking at Aggrey and the African Association (AA), the second chapter continues the examination of the intellectual strands that wove together to inspire the future leaders of the AA to promote an African identity and build the African nation. It examines the intellectual biographies of the early AA leaders and how they came to conceptualize the African continent and people. This is done by examining geography lessons in missionary schools and tracing out encounters with South Asians and other East African political figures such as Harry Thuku of Kenya, Prince Akiiki Nyabongo of Uganda, and an African-American named F. Burgess. By recreating the issues and ideas that shaped the formation of the AA, I argue that there was a clear continental, and not territorial, vision from the start.