The paper aims are twofold: first, make visible work that individuals and institutions “do” in global North and global South. Second, illustrate how analyses across time and geopolitical spaces allows for revisiting ways in which language categories get talked-and-written-into-being and how identity-positions and culture become framed in and through social practices and textual accountings. Taking both a socially oriented perspective and a decolonial framework this contribution juxtaposes data from different ethnographic projects. The analysis builds upon (i) video-recordings of mundane activities, (ii) data-prompted discussions and (iii) archives and policy related to institutions in Sweden and India where individuals have access to a number of language varieties. Findings highlight the incongruence between individuals and institutional accountings in the global North (as opposed to individuals talk and institutional accountings in the global South) as well as the performance of languaging, identity and culture in the global North – i.e. challenging dominating understandings of language, identity and culture generally and the organization of “special” educational support for “immigrant” or “disabled” individuals. Issues are also raised regarding the “technification” of language and diversity. Evidence presented questions the simplistic positions and problematic “webs-of-understandings” that frame mono-bi-multilingualism and mono-bi-multiculturalism in the global North. Providing emic understandings of how accountings constitute a core dimension of “collective remembering” of “imagined communities”, the paper illustrates “alternative voices” in Language and Educational Sciences. This endeavor calls for shift in analytical perspectives, a viewing from decolonial positions, instead of dominant colonial viewings built upon northern hegemonies - currently framing discourses of globalization.