Jan Blommaert is a Professor of African Linguistics and Sociolinguistics at Ghent University. He has also worked at the University of London's Institute of Education and at the University of Antwerp. In 1993 he was awarded the Ark Prize for Free Speech for his articles on the ethnic minority issue. His books include 'Het Belgische migrantendebat. De pragmatiek van de abnormalisering' (1992, with Jef Verschueren), 'Debating Diversity. Analysing the rhetoric of tolerance' (1998, with Jef Verschueren), 'Ik stel vast. Politiek taalgebruik in het tijdperk van vernieuwing' (2001), 'Ethnography, discourse and hegemony' (2003, with James Collins, Monica Heller, Ben Rampton, Stef Slembrouck and Jef Verschueren), 'Populisme' (2004, with Eric Corijn, Marc Holthof and Dieter Lesage).