Examining maternal agency in family language policy among African-Chinese intermarriage families in Guangzhou from the lens of the actor-network theory

This study employs Actor-Network Theory (ANT) to investigate maternal agency in Family Language Policy (FLP) among six African-Chinese intermarriage families in Guangzhou, China. Drawing on seven years of ethnographic work, including participatory observations, interviews, and focus groups, the study traced how mothers negotiate FLP within dynamic networks of heterogeneous actors (fathers, children, resources, institutions, peers, auxiliary caregivers, and technologies). Findings reveal maternal agency as an emergent network effect, contingent on mother's problematization of language development and continuous interessement, enrolment, and mobilisation of the actors. Yet these efforts were systematically disrupted by competing actor-networks: fathers prioritising provider roles, children asserting Mandarin-preferring counter-networks, and economic pressures capturing material resources. The study advances FLP scholarship by demonstrating ANT's utility in tracing temporal, contested, and scale-blurring agency dynamics, while practically advocating for peer-integration initiatives and parental training to support African-Chinese intermarriage families in China.