Abstract:  This editorial proposes reflecting upon multilingual social research in spatial terms to better grasp the manifold challenges described by the contributing authors when examining their own methodological approaches and research practices regarding multilingualism(s). Conceptualizing the research process as embedded in multilingual spaces brings power relations and their impact on the produced knowledge to the fore. These power relations and their implications appear as cross‐cutting themes in all contributions to this thematic issue, which are otherwise multifaceted and diverse. The contributions provide insights into concrete research settings, and thus into specific multilingual spaces and their associated language regimes and practices that are embedded in and shaped by larger structural conditions. They look at how different actors meet in the multilingual research spaces; how their interactions are shaped by individual dispositions, organizational, financial, and personnel resources, concrete institutional practices, regulations and customs, larger structural conditions, and language ideologies. By highlighting that research challenges in multilingual spaces transcend issues of translation and translatability as well as underscoring the need for reflexivity, the contributions vividly illustrate the potential that consciously engaging with multilingualism holds for social research.

Keywords:  empirical social research; language regimes; multilingualism; reflexivity; research methods

Published:   12 February 2026

Issue:   Vol 14 (2026): Multilingual Challenges: Empirical Social Research in Migration Societies, Transnational Spaces, and International Contexts