A linguistic ethnography of geomapped small stories: Born Frees in Sandton, South Africa

International audience In order to operationalise small story research (De Fina and Georgakopoulou 2008) in a linguisticethnography of place, the present study uses geomapping to trace participant trajectories through a site and thereby examine the emergence and occasioning of narrative interaction. The data for the study consists of photographs, and GPS mapped and transcribed self-collected participant audio recordings. These are analysed using the axes of Bucholtz and Hall’s (2005) approach to identity as complemented by a geosemiotic analysis of discursive environment (Blommaert and Maly 2014 and Scollon and Scollon 2003). The resulting exploration of Sandton, Johannesburg, is a‘new’ ethnography that aims to better understand new city spaces. One cohort in particular, thatrepresents South Africa’s modernity (the ‘Born Frees’ or ‘millenials’) is focused upon. This papergives an account of the subjectivities and understandings that will be relevant to the present, andfuture, of the site. In particular, I look at Born Free’s tactics of intersubjectivity, their stylects, theircomplex movement from periphery to centre, their distinction through conspicuous consumption,as well as gender violence and their insertion within vertical, neoliberal, power structures anddiscourses.