From Southern Theory to Decolonizing Sociolinguistics: Voices, Questions and Alternatives 9781788926560, 9781788926553, 9781788926584, 9781788926577

Table of contents :
Contents
Contributors
Preface
1 Introduction: From Southern Theory to Decolonizing Sociolinguistics
2 ‘Purifying’ Hindi Translanguaging from English and Urdu Emblems: A Sociolinguistic Decolonization of the Hindu Right?
3 The South in the North: Colonization and Decolonization of the Mind
4 Conversation with Ellen Cushman
5 From Douglas Firs to Giant Cuttlefish: Reimagining Language Learning
6 Making the Secular Sacred: Sociolinguistic Domains and Performance in Christian Worship
7 The Relevance of Experience: Decolonial and Southern Indigenous Perspectives of Language
8 From Anthropophagy to the Anthropocene: On the Challenges of Doing Research in Language and Society in Brazil and the Global South
9 Localizing National Multilingualism in Some Countries in East Africa
10 Conversation with Lynn Mario Menezes De Souza
11 Thoughts on ‘Love’ and Linguistic Citizenship in Decolonial (Socio) linguistics
12 ‘Sociolinguistics Maak My Skaam [Sociolinguistics Makes Me Ashamed]’: Humour as Decolonial Methodology
13 Decolonial Praxis and Pedagogy in Sociolinguistics: Concluding Reflections
14 Commentary: From Southern Theory to Decolonizing Sociolinguistics – A Radical Listening
15 Commentary: Mobile Gazing. On Ethical Viability and Epistemological Sustainability
Index

Citation preview

From Southern Theory to Decolonizing Sociolinguistics

STUDIES IN KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION AND PARTICIPATION Series Editors: Mary Jane Curry, University of Rochester, USA and Theresa Lillis, The Open University, UK Questions about the relationships among language and other semiotic resources (such as image, film/video, sound) and knowledge production, participation and distribution are increasingly coming to the fore in the context of debates about globalisation, multilingualism, and new technologies. Much of the existing work published on knowledge production has focused on formal academic/scientific knowledge; this knowledge is beginning to be produced and communicated via a much wider range of genres, modes and media including, for example, blogs, wikis and Twitter feeds, which have created new ways of producing and communicating knowledge, as well as opening up new ways of participating. Fast-moving shifts in these domains prompt the need for this series which aims to explore facets of knowledge production including: what is counted as knowledge, how it is recognised and rewarded, and who has access to producing, distributing and using knowledge(s). One of the key aims of the series is to include work by scholars located outside the ‘centre’, and to include work written in innovative styles and formats. All books in this series are externally peer-reviewed. Full details of all the books in this series and of all our other publications can be found on http://www​ .multilingual​ -matters​ .com, or by writing to Multilingual Matters, St Nicholas House, 31-34 High Street, Bristol, BS1 2AW, UK. Editorial Board Jannis Androutsopoulos, University of Hamburg, Germany Karen Bennett, Universidade Nova, Portugal Rebecca Black, University of California, USA Sally Burgess, Universidad de La Laguna, Spain Paula Carlino, University of Buenos Aires, Argentina Christine Casanave, Temple University, USA Christiane Donohue, Dartmouth College, USA Guillaume Gentil, Carleton University, Canada Bruce Horner, University of Louisville, USA Dawang Huang, University of Ningbo, China Luisa Martín Rojo, Universidad Autonoma, Spain Carolyn McKinney, University of Cape Town, South Africa Françoise Salager-Meyer, Universidad de Los Andes, Venezuela Elana Shohamy, Tel Aviv University, Israel Sue Starfield, University of New South Wales, Australia Christine Tardy, Arizona State University, USA Lucia Thesen, University of Cape Town, South Africa Other books in the series Global Academic Publishing - Policies, Perspectives and Pedagogies Mary Jane Curry and Theresa Lillis (eds) Grassroots Literacy and the Written Record - A Textual History of Asbestos Activism in South Africa John Trimbur Decoloniality, Language and Literacy - Conversations with Teacher Educators Carolyn McKinney and Pam Christie (eds) Digital Genres in Academic Knowledge Production and Communication - Perspectives and Practices María José Luzón and Carmen Pérez-Llantada

STUDIES IN KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION AND PARTICIPATION: 5

From Southern Theory to Decolonizing Sociolinguistics Voices, Questions and Alternatives

Edited by

Ana Deumert and Sinfree Makoni

MULTILINGUAL MATTERS Bristol • Jackson

DOI https://doi.org/10.21832/DEUMER6560 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Names: Deumert, Ana, editor. | Makoni, Sinfree, editor. Title: From Southern Theory to Decolonizing Sociolinguistics: Voices, Questions and Alternatives/Edited by Ana Deumert and Sinfree Makoni. Description: Bristol; Jackson : Multilingual Matters, [2023] | Series: Studies in Knowledge Production and Participation: 5 | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “This book seeks to imagine a decolonized sociolinguistics. All the chapters are firmly grounded in southern approaches to knowledge production, and invite us to begin to decolonize ourselves and to rethink normative assumptions about everything from academic writing to research methods and language teaching”— Provided by publisher. Identifiers: LCCN 2023007188 (print) | LCCN 2023007189 (ebook) | ISBN 9781788926560 (hardback) | ISBN 9781788926553 (paperback) | ISBN 9781788926584 (epub) | ISBN 9781788926577 (pdf) Subjects: LCSH: Sociolinguistics. | Decolonization. | Knowledge, Theory of— Developing countries. | LCGFT: Essays. Classification: LCC P40 .F756 2023 (print) | LCC P40 (ebook) | DDC 306.44—dc23/eng/20230314 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023007188 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023007189 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue entry for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN-13: 978-1-78892-656-0 (hbk) ISBN-13: 978-1-78892-655-3 (pbk) Multilingual Matters UK: St Nicholas House, 31-34 High Street, Bristol, BS1 2AW, UK. USA: Ingram, Jackson, TN, USA. Website: www​.multilingual​-matters​.com Twitter: Multi_Ling_Mat Facebook: https://www​.facebook​.com​/multilingualmatters Blog: www​.cha​nnel​view​publ​ications​.wordpress​.com Copyright © 2023 Ana Deumert, Sinfree Makoni and the authors of individual chapters. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher. The policy of Multilingual Matters/Channel View Publications is to use papers that are natural, renewable and recyclable products, made from wood grown in sustainable forests. In the manufacturing process of our books, and to further support our policy, preference is given to printers that have FSC and PEFC Chain of Custody certification. The FSC and/or PEFC logos will appear on those books where full certification has been granted to the printer concerned. Typeset by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India.

Contents

Contributors vii Preface xiii 1 Introduction: From Southern Theory to Decolonizing Sociolinguistics 1 Ana Deumert and Sinfree Makoni 2 ‘Purifying’ Hindi Translanguaging from English and Urdu Emblems: A Sociolinguistic Decolonization of the Hindu Right? Jaspal Naveel Singh

18

3 The South in the North: Colonization and Decolonization of the Mind Pia Lane

39

4 Conversation with Ellen Cushman

56

5 From Douglas Firs to Giant Cuttlefish: Reimagining Language Learning 71 Alastair Pennycook 6 Making the Secular Sacred: Sociolinguistic Domains and Performance in Christian Worship Nana Aba Appiah Amfo and Dorothy Pokua Agyepong

90

7 The Relevance of Experience: Decolonial and Southern Indigenous Perspectives of Language Cristine Severo and Sinfree Makoni

109

8 From Anthropophagy to the Anthropocene: On the Challenges of Doing Research in Language and Society in Brazil and the Global South Alan S.R. Carneiro and Daniel N. Silva

v

127

vi  From Southern Theory to Decolonizing Sociolinguistics

9 Localizing National Multilingualism in Some Countries in East Africa Jane Akinyi Ngala Oduor 10 Conversation with Lynn Mario Menezes De Souza

147 169

11 Thoughts on ‘Love’ and Linguistic Citizenship in Decolonial (Socio)linguistics 199 Sibonile Mpendukana and Christopher Stroud 12 ‘Sociolinguistics Maak My Skaam [Sociolinguistics Makes Me Ashamed]’: Humour as Decolonial Methodology 219 Marcelyn Oostendorp 13 Decolonial Praxis and Pedagogy in Sociolinguistics: Concluding Reflections Ana Deumert and Sinfree Makoni

239

14 Commentary: From Southern Theory to Decolonizing Sociolinguistics – A Radical Listening Crispin Thurlow

255

15 Commentary: Mobile Gazing. On Ethical Viability and Epistemological Sustainability Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta

262

Index 273

Contributors

Nana Aba Appiah Amfo is Professor of Linguistics and Vice C ­ hancellor of the University of Ghana. She holds a PhD from the Norwegian ­University of Science and Technology. Her research interests include ­multilingualism and language use in specific domains such as health, religion, politics and migration. Current research projects include ­documenting trends and transitions in sociolinguistic studies in postcolonial Africa, and ­institutional crisis communication. Her recent publications have appeared in the Journal of Cognitive Semantics and the International Journal of the Sociology of Language. She has also recently published a book chapter in Southernizing Sociolinguistics: Colonialism, Racism, and Patriarchy in Language in the Global South (Routledge). Dorothy Pokua Agyepong is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Linguistics, University of Ghana. She holds a PhD from the University of Cape Town, South Africa. Her research interests include semantics and pragmatics of African languages, syntax, gesture studies and the sociolinguistics of urban youth (contact) languages. Her current research projects investigate the semantics and pragmatics of separation events, and the effect of age and culture on co-speech gestures in Asante-Twi oral narratives. Some of her works have appeared in Nordic Journal of Linguistics (NJAS), Journal of West African Languages (JWAL), Discourse and Society, Sociolinguistic Studies and the Contemporary Journal of African Studies. A recent book chapter is published in Urban Contact Dialect and Language Change: Insights from the Global North and South (Routledge). Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta has been Professor-Chair in Education at Örebro and Jönköping universities in Sweden since 2007, and has been visiting professor at universities in Italy and India. Her research is specifically multidisciplinary. It deals broadly with issues pertaining to communication, identity, culture and learning from ethnographically framed, multiscalar, sociocultural and decolonial framings. She has been the scientific head of the research environment Communication, Culture and Diversity since the late 1990s, and has led large-scale externally funded research vii

viii  From Southern Theory to Decolonizing Sociolinguistics

schools and projects. In 2016, together with the theatre sector, she initiated the Participation and Inclusion think-tank DoIT. She is multilingual in spoken, signed and written languages. Alan Silvio Ribeiro Carneiro is an Assistant Professor of Language Policy at the Federal University of São Paulo (UNIFESP), Brazil. Previously, he was a Lecturer at the University of Cape Town (UCT) and a Visiting Lecturer at the National University of Timor-Leste (UNTL). His current research interests are related to migration, teaching of additional languages and multilingual education, as well as the current epistemological debates in humanities. His last articles were ‘Following the Path of Otherwise, Subalternized Subjects, Academic Writing and the Political Power of Discomfort’ (2022) and ‘Nodal Frontlines and Multisidedness: Contemporary Multilingualism Scholarship and Beyond’ (with Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta, 2021). Ellen Cushman is Dean’s Professor of Civic Sustainability in the College of Social Sciences and Humanities at Northeastern University and a citizen of the Cherokee Nation. Her projects consider how people use literacy and language to endure and create change. Lynn Mario T. Menezes de Souza is Full Professor at the Modern Languages Department of the University of São Paulo, Brazil, where he engages in and supervises postgraduate research in applied linguistics and semiotics, language policy, literacy studies, racism, decoloniality and interculturality. Among others, his publications include two co-edited Routledge volumes: Postcolonial Perspectives on Global Citizenship Education (2012) and Glocal Languages and Critical Intercultural Awareness: The South Answers Back (2019). His most recent publication is the chapter ‘Questioning Epistemic Racism in Issues of Language Studies in Brazil: The Case of Pretuguês versus Popular Brazilian Portuguese’, co-authored with Gabriel Nascimento, in Southernizing Sociolinguistics (Routledge). Ana Deumert is Professor in the Department of African Studies and Linguistics at the University of Cape Town. Her research programme is located within the broad field of sociolinguistics and has a strong transdisciplinary focus. She has worked on the history of Afrikaans (2004), co-authored Introducing Sociolinguistics (2009, with Rajend Mesthrie, Joan Swann and William Leap) and the Dictionary of Sociolinguistics (2004, with Joan Swann, Rajend Mesthrie and Theresa Lillis). She has also published on mobile communication from a southern perspective (Sociolinguistics and Mobile Communication, 2014), and edited several collections (including Colonial and Decolonial Linguistics, Knowledges and Epistemes, 2020). She serves on a number of editorial boards and is, inter alia, co-editor of Encounters (Multilingual Matters).

Contributors 

ix

Pia Lane is Professor of Multilingualism at the Center for Multilingualism in Society across the Lifespan (MultiLing) at the University of Oslo, Norway. Her research focuses on multilingualism in northern Norway, with a particular emphasis on language policy, language shift and language revitalization in relation to Indigenous and minoritized languages. Her publications include Standardizing Minority Languages: Competing Ideologies of Authority and Authenticity in the Global Periphery (2017, co-edited with James Costa and Haley De Korne) and Negotiating Identities in Nordic Migrant Narratives – Crossing Borders and Telling Lives (2022, co-edited with Bjørghild Kjelsvik and Annika Bøstein Myhr). She is co-editor-in-chief of LME Linguistic Minorities in Europe Online (LME), published by De Gruyter and serves as a member of the Norwegian Truth and Reconciliation Commission (2018–2023). Sinfree Makoni is Professor at Pennsylvania State University and is an Extraordinary Professor at North West University and the University of the Western Cape, South Africa and Visiting Professor at Nelson Mandela University, South Africa. He is the key architect of the African Studies Global Forum, and one of the editors of Multilingual Matters series, Global Forum on Southern Epistemologies. He is also associate editor of Applied Linguistics. He has published extensively in the fields of integrational linguistics, language in health, politics of language and language policy and planning. Sibonile Mpendukana holds a PhD in linguistics and is currently employed as Lecturer at the Department of African Studies and Linguistics at the University of Cape Town. His research and publications focus on linguistic landscapes, space, visual semiotics and material ethnography. His specific research interests are in the nexus of place, semiotics/ language and race in the post-1994 era, and his central focus is on the ways in which place is a salient semiotic dynamic in different, evolving somatic and semiotic performances of race. He has also worked as an assistant strategic planner and researcher for an advertising agency. Jane Akinyi Ngala Oduor is Associate Professor of Phonology in the Department of Linguistics and Languages at the University of Nairobi and the co-ordinator of the Korean Studies Programme. She is also an ELDP-trained language documentation specialist. She documented the Okiek language of Kenya through an ELDP grant. Her research interests are in the sound systems of languages in Kenya and the teaching of pronunciation in Kenyan schools. She is also very interested in African sociolinguistics, especially multilingualism. Apart from these, her current research is on African pragmatics, reading and improving the quality of secondary school teachers of English in Kenya.

x  From Southern Theory to Decolonizing Sociolinguistics

Marcelyn Oostendorp is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of General Linguistics at Stellenbosch University, South Africa. Her research is primarily concerned with multilingual and multimodal forms of meaningmaking in contexts such as education, the media and the workplace. Her research has appeared in journals such as Applied Linguistics, Text and Talk, Critical Discourse Studies and Social Semiotics. Together with Judith Purkarthofer and Brigitta Busch, she is currently editing the very first Handbook of Language and Trauma (Routledge). Through her ongoing projects, she seeks to theoretically contribute to multimodality, multilingualism and decolonial approaches to language. Alastair Pennycook is Professor Emeritus at the University of Technology Sydney and Research Professor at the MultiLing Centre at the University of Oslo. He is best known for his many books, including The Cultural Politics of English as an International Language (now a Routledge Linguistics Classic), Global Englishes and Transcultural Flows, Language and Mobility: Unexpected Places and Posthumanist Applied Linguistics (all winners of the BAAL Book Prize). His most recent book (with Sinfree Makoni) is Innovations and Challenges in Applied Linguistics from the Global South. A second edition of Critical Applied Linguistics, A Critical Re-introduction was published in 2021. Cristine Severo is Associate Professor at Federal University of Santa Catarina (Brazil) and a CNPq national fellow. She is interested in southern perspectives of language and language policy and planning in decolonial contexts. Cristine has produced around 13 books (single, coauthored, edited), 60 articles and 40 book chapters, most of which are in Portuguese. Recent contributions to the field include Language Planning and Policy: Ideologies, Ethnicities and Semiotic Spaces of Power (2020, co-edited with Ashraf Abdelhay and Sinfree Makoni), The Languaging of Higher Education in the Global South De-Colonizing (2022, co-edited with Sinfree Makoni, Ashraf Abdelhay and Anna Kaiper-Marquez) and Os Jesuítas e as Línguas no contexto colonial Brasil-África (The Jesuits and the Languages in the Colonial Brazil–Africa Context, 2020). Daniel N. Silva teaches sociolinguistics, applied linguistics and linguistic anthropology at the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC), Brazil. His research focuses on language, violence and hope in Rio de Janeiro’s favelas. His fieldwork in the Brazilian peripheries has led to publications and collaborative work on language and resistance, including Marielle, presente: Metaleptic Temporality and the Enregisterment of Hope in Rio de Janeiro (2021, with Jerry Lee) and The Pragmatics of Adaptability (2021, edited with Jacob Mey). With Jerry Lee, he is working on a manuscript about language as hope in Rio de Janeiro’s favelas.

Contributors 

xi

Jaspal Naveel Singh is a Lecturer in Applied Linguistics and English Language at the Open University in the United Kingdom. His research focuses on the complex interconnections between culture and language, taking inspiration from classic Western and Eastern philosophy, southern theory, hip hop and Black diasporic traditions. Jaspal’s first monograph Transcultural Voices (2022) traces voice and narrative in the emerging hip hop community in Delhi, India. He has worked and lived in Hong Kong, Wales, India and Germany. Christopher Stroud is Emeritus Professor of Linguistics at the University of the Western Cape, and Professor of Transnational Bilingualism at Stockholm University. His current research focuses on practices and ideologies of multilingualism in Southern Africa, specifically Linguistic Citizenship, as a way of rethinking the role of language in brokering diversity in a decolonial framework. He is a fellow of the Academy of Science in South Africa (ASSAf), and a member of the UNESCO Chair in Multilingualism and Language Planning. Together with Kathleen Heugh and Piet van Avermaet, he co-edits a series for Bloomsbury Press titled Multilingualisms and Diversities in Education. Crispin Thurlow is Professor of Language and Communication in the Department of English at the University of Bern, Switzerland. His most recent books are The Business of Words: Linguists, Wordsmiths, and Other Language Workers (2020) and Visualizing Digital Discourse: Interactional, Institutional and Ideological Perspectives (2020). He serves on the editorial boards of journals such as Language in Society, Linguistic Landscape, Critical Discourse Studies and the Journal of International and Intercultural Communication.

Preface

When writing, one incurs many debts and we would like to thank all those who supported us during the time that it took us to complete this edited volume. We are indebted to the contributors in this collection: you inspired us throughout the journey, and we are grateful for the good spirit in which we were able to work during the difficult years of 2020–2022. We would also like to thank the participants of the invited panel on southern theory at the Sociolinguistic Symposium in Auckland in 2018, who, for various reasons, were not able to contribute to this collection: Reem Bassiouney, Sonal Kulkarni-Joshi, Lisa Lim, Leketi Makalela, Pam Maseko and Anne Storch. We hope that our conversations will continue in other spaces. There are many people in our personal and professional lives who we would like to thank: Busi Makoni; the African Studies administrative staff at Penn State University who enabled Sinfree to juggle writing and administrative work; Melissa Hummel; ‘Madam No’ who prevents Sinfree from making unnecessary administrative mistakes; Jackie Cauley who has a remarkable eye for detail; Mindy Regester who kept Sinfree’s world organized through our Monday meetings; Nkululeko Mabandla for many conversations and inspirations over shared meals and long walks; Nobuhle Mhlongo for assisting with the transcriptions of the c­ onversations; Aaliya Abrahams for compiling the index; Ana’s colleagues (Justin Brown, Sibonile Mpendukana and Miché Thompson) at the University of Cape Town for seeking, collectively, to realize decolonial pedagogies in our ­Linguistics teaching and curriculum; and Faiza Steffenson, thank you not only for your administrative efficiency, but also for your kindness throughout the years. Funding which facilitated work on this volume was provided by the Mellon Foundation, the University of Cape Town and Pennsylvania State University. Importantly, we would like to thank all our students and the members of the Global Virtual Forum: you challenged us and engaged with us. This book is for you and the future of what sociolinguistics might become.

xiii

xiv Preface

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic which interrupted our lives and which took too many from us, the book took longer than we expected. We thank Multilingual Matters – the series editors M.J. Curry and Theresa Lillis, the commissioning editor Anna Rodrick as well as Florence McClelland and Constance (‘Stanzi’) Collier-Qureshy – for their patience and confidence in us. Both of us would also like to thank Anisa Caine for the exquisite cover to our book and her selfless continued engagement with applied linguistics from an artistic angle. The last but not the least important point is that working on the book brought us pleasure and intellectual enjoyment; indeed it brought us happiness.

1 Introduction: From Southern Theory to Decolonizing Sociolinguistics Ana Deumert and Sinfree Makoni

Troubled Times

We live in troubled times. We have chosen the latter two words carefully: troubled and times. The ‘troubles’ is an expression that has been used to describe uprisings against those in power, and against oppression. It is perhaps most strongly associated with the Irish revolution of the early 20th century and the insurgencies in Northern Ireland that started in the 1960s. The noun ‘trouble’ also features in Donna Haraway’s (2016) monograph Staying with the Trouble – Making Kin in the Chthulucene, which asks us to seek ways to change the world, find new possibilities of being, of multispecies worlding and relations. Haraway (2016) reflects on the word ‘trouble’ in the introduction: Trouble is an interesting word. It derives from a thirteenth-century French verb meaning ‘to stir up’, ‘to make cloudy’, ‘to disturb’. We – all of us on Terra – live in disturbing times, mixed-up times, troubling and turbid times. The task is to become capable, with each other in all our bumptious kinds, of response… Our task is to make trouble, to stir up potent response to devastating events, as well as to settle troubled waters and build quiet places. (Haraway, 2016: 1)

A positive interpretation of the word ‘trouble’ was also articulated by the late John Lewis, an African-American politician and civil rights activist. He called for people to make some ‘noise’: ‘Get[ting] in good trouble, necessary trouble, and redeem[ing] the soul of America’. He made this statement on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, on 1 March 2020, when commemorating the events of Bloody Sunday, which occurred on 7 March 1965.1 John Lewis’ thinking is important, not only because he encourages us to trouble the status quo, but also because he insists, like Haraway, on the importance of imagining different futures – futures that 1

2  From Southern Theory to Decolonizing Sociolinguistics

are articulated in the actions that one takes in the present moment. Lewis (2017) writes in his memoir: Freedom is not a state; it is an act. It is not some enchanted garden perched high on a distant plateau where we can finally sit down and rest. Freedom is the continuous action we all must take, and each generation must do its part to create an even more fair, more just society. (Lewis, 2017: 11)

Engaging in acts of world-making beyond a violent present has been central to decolonial work (Getachew, 2019; Kelley, 2002), and time – past–present–future – is important when thinking, and writing, about decolonization and southern theory. Our current moment – the lived experience of a pandemic that, at the time of writing, continued to affect our lives – matters to theorizing as well. Covid-19 has created new temporalities, blurring the boundary between normalcy and emergency. It has brought ‘slow emergencies’ – racism, sexism, poverty, exploitation and the climate catastrophe – into sharp relief and has drawn attention to the ‘uneven distribution of futurity’ (Grove et al., 2022). We have witnessed, for example, the limited availability of vaccines to the majority world (aptly called ‘vaccine apartheid’; Bajaj et al., 2022) and the unequal socioeconomic effects of the pandemic, both within countries and across countries. These effects include the refusal of a debt suspension programme to support countries in the Global South, the refusal to release the vaccine patents and the profits that pharmaceutical companies have made from the pandemic.2 We have also seen old orientalist tropes at play, including discourses that Africa will again become the ‘dark continent’, predicting an exceptionally dystopian scenario of suffering and death. Yet, it was scientists in Botswana and South Africa who – in November 2021 – were the first to sequence the new Omicron variant, and the mortality carnage anticipated for Africa has not materialized (Adams et al., 2021). While many parts of the geopolitical south managed the pandemic as well as, if not better than, their northern counterparts, they have been severely affected by the socioeconomic consequences. A report by the United Nations highlights an alarming increase in global unemployment and poverty, the first drop in the Human Development Index since 1990, as well as severe effects on the education and nutrition of children (UN Department of Social and Economic Affairs, 2021). We live in troubled times. In these times, debates about decolonization, southern theory, social justice, equality, different worlds and possibilitiesof-being-otherwise are not simply academic pursuits. What is at stake is our very future, and how we understand that future. In this volume, authors engage with these debates from the broad perspective of sociolinguistics, while grounding themselves in diverse forms of transdisciplinarity

Introduction 

3

that are committed to the project of ‘disciplinary disobedience’ (Mignolo, 2012: xvi). Thus, they begin to formulate the kinds of theories that are needed to imagine new futures. This is necessary because – as noted by David Graeber and David Wengrow (2021: 76): ‘[t]here is no doubt that something has gone terribly wrong with the world’. In this introduction, we discuss what we understand by theory, its relevance to pluriversalities as well as the concepts of ‘decolonization’ and ‘southern theory’ as tools for scholarship and academic and political activism. We further reflect on the texts that we produce as scholars and how we can challenge existing textual hegemonies. This is followed by an overview of the chapters in this book. We conclude with reflections on our positionalities. Different Histories

The concept of decolonization has different histories across the globe, and no definition of decolonialization exists that is universally applicable to the numerous contexts and disciplines to which it is applied as a theoretical frame. Even though it is difficult to provide a definition for decolonization, one can argue that one of the intended outcomes of epistemological decolonization is to produce a counter-genealogy of thought and praxis. For sociolinguists who are working with, in and through a ‘decolonial turn’ (Maldonado-Torres, 2011), this means, inter alia, framing one’s texts in new ways by drawing, especially, on scholars from the Global South, whose work has long been marginalized in the hegemonic Euro-American spaces of the academy. In North America, the ‘decolonial turn’ or the ‘decolonial option’ gained prominence in the 2000s, building on Aníbal Quijano’s (2000a: 533) notion of the ‘coloniality of power’. It was shaped by Latin American philosophy, and the work of Walter Mignolo has made it visible across the anglophone world. However, if one takes a longer and broader view, one can see that decolonial thinking has multiple origins. It was also influenced by – and this list is not complete – Chicana feminism, Africana phenomenology, dependency theory, liberation theology, Black studies, queer studies, the New World Group in the Caribbean and Indigenous scholarship in diverse sites across the globe.3 The genealogy of decolonization further includes the histories of freedom struggles in the Global South, which created unique theoretical-historical trajectories from the 15th century onwards. Their legacies find contemporary expression in movements such as #RhodesMustFall (Ahmed, 2019) and #BlackLivesMatter (Lebron, 2017), and they inform the activism of organizations such as Abahlali baseMjondolo (‘the shack-dwellers’ movement’) in South Africa, the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Sem Terra (‘landless workers’ movement’) in Brazil and the Bhumi Uchhed Pratirodh Committee (‘committee against land evictions’) in India (Khosi, 2020; Pratap & Bose, 2015; Rosa et al., 2021).

4  From Southern Theory to Decolonizing Sociolinguistics

Historical and global solidarities and interconnections notwithstanding, scholars need to be careful not to homogenize and/or unify decolonial practices, and to remain cognizant of the fact that decolonization discourses may articulate different ‘vistas’ in different sites (Tlostanova, 2014: 62; also Gržinić, 2019). Olúfẹ́mi O. Táìwo (2019, 2022) reminds us that neither colonization nor decolonization were uniform experiences, nor did they mean the same thing to different people, or even to the same person at different times of their academic and political lives. For example, the extraction colonialism in West Africa was distinct from the settler colonialism of much of southern Africa (even though both shared some features). Decolonization discourses are consequently different in these locales. Táìwo argues that, sometimes, there is a conceptual failure to fully appreciate the colonial/postcolonial/decolonial diversities within Africa and the Global South more broadly. These diversities also include the strategies that are used by scholars and activists in their work. Thus, while Mignolo (2017: 40) calls for ‘disobedient conservativism’ and ‘dignified anger’, others – like bell hooks (1994) and Amílcar Cabral (2016) – emphasize more radical visions of insurgency and protest. This diversity – or pluriversality – is integral to the decolonial imagination; it allows for constructive contestation, ensuring that, ultimately, decolonization will not become a new hegemony (for reflections on ‘the discourse on decolonizing’, see also Ndhlovu, 2022). Decolonial thinking has also made an impact at the sites of empire in western Europe. In Berlin, for example, Dekoloniale is an initiative that challenges the memory culture of Berlin and seeks to make visible the city’s postcoloniality (https://dekoloniale​ .de). And in the United Kingdom, RhodesMustFall Oxford continues the struggle that started in South Africa. Turning further north, Julia Suárez-Krabbe (forthcoming) argues that in countries such as Denmark, it is the local, white and Danish population who need to be decolonized. And Manuela Boatcă (2021) proposes that a monolithic conception of Europe fails to capture the dynamics of inferiorization that occur within the European continent, and that a multiplication of the notion of Europe is helpful for thinking through the violence of imperialism. She distinguishes ‘decadent’ Europe (Spain and Portugal) from ‘heroic’ Europe (Germany, France and England) and ‘epigonal’ Europe (the Balkan states and the former Soviet Union that were not involved in the colonization of Africa or the Atlantic slave trade). Some of these spaces (southern Europe and eastern Europe) have, at times, been treated as conceptually ‘Black’ and can, thus, experience forms of racial discrimination (Gržinić, 2019; Robinson, [1983] 2000; Tlostanova, 2015). Despite such differences, decolonization discourses also share global communalities; in particular, a rejection of the colonial–capitalist–patriarchal order and a ‘delinking’ from western modes of knowledge production (Amin, 1985; Mignolo, 2007; Quijano, 2000b). The latter links to the project of ‘southern theory’ as a movement

Introduction 

5

that seeks to bring about epistemic justice. Yet, there have also been critiques. In a lecture delivered at the University of the Orange Free State, South Africa, Paul Zeleza (2017) argued that decolonization is potentially limiting because it reinforces, rather than challenges, the idea of Eurocentrism. Thus, the colonial haunts decolonization by being integral to the word itself, thereby providing a central space for Europe in the discussion, rather than strategically provincializing and side-lining Europe (Chakrabarty, 2007). Moreover, decolonization – drawing on the spirit of Bandung and a strong sense of international solidarity – can, at times, overlook local knowledges in favour of globally intelligible discourses of struggle and resistance; discourses which are frequently articulated in the former colonial languages. In this volume, we suggest that southern theory is an invaluable and necessary strategy in the creation of a decolonized sociolinguistic ­imagination. Thus, the title of the book indicates movement: from southern theory to decolonizing linguistics, thereby positioning southern theory – understood as non-Eurocentric ways of knowing – as foundational to the project of decolonization. Our approach further builds on the idea that southern theory reflects ‘knowledges born in the struggle’ – against colonialism-capitalism-patriarchy – rather than knowledges that emerge from a particular geopolitical region (Santos & Meneses, 2020). By invoking the centrality of ‘struggle’, southern theory emerges as a project that is closely linked to decolonization. Thus, our title could also have been conjunctive: ‘southern theory and decolonizing sociolinguistics’. However, we like the sense of movement that is implied in the prepositions from–to; of seeing southern theory as the epistemological foundation, and decolonization as the political project to which it gives rise. Southern theory includes those forms of knowledge that have been erased, oppressed, silenced, exploited and buried. Southern theory starts with the reconstruction of local forms and practices of knowing, thereby linking to Indigenous critique and scholarship (on southern theory in sociolinguistics, see also Heugh et  al., 2022). Yet, making visible what had been excluded for so long, might be easier said than done. The violence of appropriation is always present if this work is done by outsiders. Ramón Grosfoguel (2020) reflects on such ‘epistemic extractivism’ as follows: Epistemic extractivism extracts ideas… from Indigenous communities, removing them from the contexts in which they were produced to depoliticize them and give them a new meaning based on Western-centric ideas. (Grosfoguel, 2020: 208; see also Pillow, 2019)

As scholars, we need to be cognizant of this danger: to ensure humility and reciprocity in our work (see Cushman in this volume), to remain

6  From Southern Theory to Decolonizing Sociolinguistics

accountable to communities and – at no point – to claim that the intellectual labour of others is ‘ours’. By focusing on interconnectedness with others, on incompleteness and indebtedness, one can contribute to the development of a ‘solidarity-based epistemology’ (Connell, 2018; on incompleteness, see Nyamnjoh, 2017). Both southern theory and decolonial thought seek to address the disappearance of ancestors and memories; that is, the lives, practices and ideas that were ‘stolen by the enlightenment’ (Moten & Harney, 2013: 27). Much academic theory remains Eurocentric and exclusionary to experiences that are outside of its hegemonic frame; a frame that is defined by whiteness, maleness, ableist and middle-class identities. Theory – in the form of southern or decolonial theory – is not simply an abstract edifice, it can also be a space for healing. This was emphasized by bell hooks (1994), who writes: I came to theory desperate, wanting to comprehend-to-grasp what was happening in and around me. Most important, I wanted the hurt to go away, I saw in theory then a location for healing. (hooks, 1994: 59)

A similar point was made by Wesley Leonard (2011: 140) in his discussion of language reclamation (‘Our efforts are in some ways a healing process’) as well as in reflections on the ‘sociolinguistics of hope’ (Silva & Lee, 2021). Thus, the work we do in emphasizing southern and decolonial traditions of thought is not merely an academic exercise, or a form of exegesis. It is also a political intervention that seeks to give new words and concepts that challenge a world that remains colonial-capitalistpatriarchal in its orientation. Decolonizing Academic Writing

Among those scholars who engage with southern theory and decolonial thinking, many are activists themselves; they have been on the streets, they have transformed their classrooms, they write in ways that seek to change the status quo, often adopting a style that is political and poetic. One way in which activist scholars have been challenging academic writing (which is at the core of the colonial scholarly enterprise) is by changing the formats of academic publications. For example, the African Studies Global Forum4 organizes regular online talks by a wide range of scholars. The talks are later transformed into edited volumes. This creates a complex intellectual archive, consisting of publicly available YouTube video recordings of the talks as well as ‘conversational book chapters’ (the first volume is Makoni et al., 2022). These ‘conversational chapters’ are based not only on the presentations that were given (and transcribed), but also include the (online) interactions with the audience. By including such diverse contributions to

Introduction 

7

the debate (presentations, questions asked, comments made in the chat), the texts make visible the multidirectional and deeply dialogic, indeed polyphonic, nature of these conversations and challenge the linearity of conventional academic texts. In the chapters that follow, academic writing is also reconfigured in different ways: personal narratives are integrated into the text, and the conversations bring a sense of dialogue to a genre that has often been monologic. Another important aspect of ‘decolonizing academic writing’ is the question of language, a topic that has been central to the work of, especially, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o (1986), who argued that colonialism has dis-membered the humanity of those who it oppressed and exploited, and that it is vital to engage in acts of re-membering (Sibanda, 2021). Wa Thiong’o has been adamant in writing in Gĩkũyũ – and would only later translate his texts into English for an international audience. Translation as an ethical and political practice has been central to his work, and it is through translation that knowledges can be brought into conversation with one another. Similarly, Kwesi Wiredu (1996) has emphasized the importance of looking at philosophy multilingually and argued that African philosophers should draw more strongly on African languages. One could also mention Frantz Fanon ([1952] 2008: 8), who stated in Black Skin, White Masks: I ascribe a basic importance to the phenomenon of language… For it is implicit that to speak is to exist absolutely for the other.

These arguments are powerful: they emphasize the importance of Indigenous languages, voices and knowledge systems, and they challenge the dominance of the former colonial tongues. Yet, those asking for scholarship to be produced, monolingually, in Indigenous languages might also be critiqued as such proposals can reflect the idea that languages are separate and well-defined objects, rather than fuzzy sets, blending and merging into one another (as argued by Makoni & Pennycook, 2007; Severo & Makoni, 2021). For example, rather than promoting a practice of ‘parallel multilingualisms’ and translation, one could promote practices of translingual writing as a form of decolonial engagement (García & Alvis, 2019). Or one could – as argued, for example, by bell hooks (1994: 168) with reference to Black English – take, claim and possess the ‘oppressor’s language’; to disrupt its hegemony and make it mean new things; to create forms of ‘renegade speech’ (also Deumert, 2021). In a similar vein, Souleymane Bachir Diagne (2020) asks us to think polyphonically ‘from language to language’. Such a dialogic perspective would allow one to decentre oneself and ‘to look at one’s language from another language, to consider one’s identity from what is not one’s identity’ (Amselle, 2020: 54; Diagne, 2020: 22). An example of

8  From Southern Theory to Decolonizing Sociolinguistics

the latter, of thinking translingually – ‘from language to language’ – is the work of Mogobe Ramose (2020), who writes in both English and Sesotho sa Leboa/Sepedi. In adopting a multilingual mode of writing, Ramose (2020) links his style of writing to music and rhythm, a theme to which we will return in the Conclusion to this volume. Ramose comments: I shall write with reason and passion recognizing that the dance of ‘bei-ing’ is a complex rheomode requiring rhythm attuned to it. (Ramose, 2020: 59)

To challenge – like Ramose does – the monoglossic dominance of English by not translating parts of academic texts should not be misunderstood as ‘revenge’, seeking to create unintelligibility and closing down dialogue with northern scholars. Rather, it calls out existing hegemonies and constitutes ‘an ethical plea for epistemic and social justice’ (Carruba-Rogel, 2018; Lillis, 2022; Ramose, 2020: 61; Simpson, 2011; see also Cusicanqui, [2010] 2019; Pratt, 2019).5 In this volume, Marcelyn Oostendorp adopts a similar approach and, hopefully, her chapter will become an inspiration for future texts in sociolinguistics. The Chapters in this Volume

In the introduction to this chapter, we commented on the troubled times in which we live – times that are characterized by multiple slow and fast emergencies. Contributors to this volume wrote their chapters during these troubled times. We are all writing in troubled times. The chapters reflect on the intersections of southern theory and decolonization in different ways, and the order in which they are presented reflects our reading of the chapters; the ways in which we see them as speaking to one another, articulating with one another. However, readers might want to read them differently, going back and forth, moving in and out of the text, rearranging the order in which the chapters are read. We encourage such non-linear reading. Jaspal Singh’s and Pia Lane’s chapters make striking contributions to the debate by reflecting, explicitly, on their own histories and thus positionalities. Both invite the reader to reflect on decolonization and southern theory in new ways. They emphasize the the deformation of decolonial tropes in nationalist projects and the persistent (but often ignored) presence of the south-in-the-north. Singh problematizes the idea of decolonization with references to current discourses in India and argues that these discourses of purification are better read as a form of ‘colonization’. He further reframes existing work on translanguaging from a decolonial perspective, thereby bringing together work in critical applied linguistic and decolonial theory. Lane’s chapter draws attention to the importance of temporalities in the processes of language shift by

Introduction 

9

looking at the loss of Indigenous knowledge and language in northern Norway through the narratives of speakers. Losing ancestral voices is not an event, but a process that reflects complex histories in which diverse metapragmatic discourses are articulated. Alastair Pennycook argues for the importance of developing alternative approaches to second language development, challenging the commonly made distinction between psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic approaches. His chapter is a critique of the ontologies of language that underlie work on second language acquisition, and the Euro-American epistemologies that underpin it. Pennycook seeks to develop alternative ontologies of language that are drawn more from the ocean/water, and less from the land, thereby, engaging, boldly and imaginatively, with recent work on southern theory. Nana Aba Appiah Amfo and Dorothy Pokua Agyepong reflect on Joshua Fishman’s domain analysis, seeking to ‘test’ the validity of his theory. In their study of Ghanaian churches, they employ participant observation combined with ethnographic approaches. The results show that the notion of domains and their relationship with language cannot be framed in a unidimensional manner. They propose alternative ways of analyzing language use in religious spaces that are more pertinent to Ghanaian contexts. The chapter by Cristine Severo and Sinfree Makoni contributes to southern theory by considering perspectives on language by Indigenous communities. They centre the chapter on the notion of experience, which is compatible with integrationist approaches to language and communication. Severo and Makoni note that the ontological experiences of communication and language vary between different communities, and even within the same community. Thus, Indigenous orientations towards language need to consider heterogeneity and pluriversality, and recognize that ontologies are always multiple. Alan Carneiro and Daniel Silva examine the dialectical nature of the relationship between the Anthropocene and anthropology. The authors describe the institutional and epistemic barriers that are a product of the continuing legacy of colonialism. They draw on the scholarship of different sociolinguists in Brazil to capture how critical sociolinguistics has been brought into being in the Global South, and created its own traditions of scholarship. The aim is to develop new knowledges and to change the terms according to which knowledge is produced and taken up in the academy. Through an astute analysis of different contexts, Jane Akinyi Ngala Oduor illustrates the national and individual benefits of multilingualism in East Africa, tracing the major milestones in the evolution of language policy and language practices in Burundi and Rwanda. By drawing on local and national evidence, Oduor illustrates the shifting notions of the

10  From Southern Theory to Decolonizing Sociolinguistics

role and status of multilingualism in the two countries. The chapter contributes towards the body of scholarship on language policy and planning in the Global South. Sibonile Mpendukana and Christopher Stroud turn to Frantz Fanon, whose work has been foundational to decolonial thinking. Their analysis links Fanon’s work to events in contemporary South Africa, showing the continued relevance of his thinking on bodies and embodiment, on performance (including dance) and, as they argue in a creative reading of Fanon, also on love. In doing so, they draw on the notion of linguistic citizenship, refracting it through their reading of Fanon. Marcelyn Oostendorp explores the role of humour as a decolonial methodology in the final chapter of this volume. Like Jaspal Singh and Pia Lane, she draws on her own life experiences as a ‘coloured’ academic in South Africa and reflects deeply on researcher positionality, including not only race but also class and gender. Humour, in her nuanced and theoretically sophisticated analysis, can be understood as a form of epistemic disobedience against empire and the oppressions it continues to enact. Interspersed with the chapters are conversations with Ellen Cushman (United States) and Lynn Mario de Souza (Brazil). Reflecting on her own scholarship, Cushman identifies ‘reciprocity’ as a core concern when working ‘in’ and ‘with’ and ‘for’ communities. She shows how decoloniality provided her with a vocabulary and a metalanguage to address issues of concern to her throughout the years. Lynn Mario de Souza also explores the trajectory of his work and how it is grounded in the complexities of his biography: the fact that his family was both colonized and ‘professional’ shaped his work and the topics to which he turned. He reflects further on the everyday acts of racism that he and his family experienced, leading to a situation where English ‘suffocated’ all the other languages that he knew. The volume concludes with our reflections on the pedagogical implications of southern/decolonial thinking, and reflective commentaries by Crispin Thurlow and Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta. The commentaries engage with the chapters of the volume and move the argument into new directions. Who Are We?

We have commented above on how some of the authors (Cushman, De Souza, Lane, Oostendorp and Singh) foregrounded their positionalities and lived experiences; they spoke to the fact that ‘who they are’ shapes their academic work and thinking. To write so-called positionality statements is not easy and there is always a danger that the result is a list of predefined identity categories. One problem with such lists of identities is the question of where to stop. Gender matters, as does race, class and where one has lived and lives. But what about our physical health and mental well-being – should this be

Introduction 

11

mentioned too? Or the social networks in which one is embedded? The families one comes from and those one makes? One’s political orientations and activism? One’s religion, spirituality or possible lack thereof? The intersectional privileges that one holds? The spaces to which one has access? The languages one speaks, has spoken or desired? And what about the temporalities of all of this, because who one is, is not fixed in time and space? The very fact that it is often difficult to write such statements – and that they can become unwieldly – should not be used to detract from their importance: there is ‘no gaze from nowhere’ and ‘disembodied scientific objectivity’ is a fiction since all knowledge is situated (Haraway, 1988: 581, 576). Reflexivity and criticality are vital at any stage; when developing a research project, during data collection, when writing or in the classroom, just as much as when giving feedback on postgraduate work or reviewing articles. And although one could argue that our positionality becomes visible to others in the way we write or teach, in the topics we work on and in the curricula we design, we believe that we need to do more; not leave it to the reader to figure us out, but to address the question of our situatedness, our locus of enunciation, directly and transparently as an invitation for others to engage with us. Instead of listing our – ascribed and self-selected – identities, we want to suggest that we could story our positionalities. María Cioè-Peña’s (2021) three-page ‘A note on positionality’, which precedes the text of her book on mothers and mothering, is an excellent example of such a storied and dialogical approach. It reminds us that we need time and space to properly reflect on our embodied selves. As we recognize the situated nature of the knowledges we create and teach, we are also cognizant of the unintended consequences and dangers of such practices; namely, the centring of ourselves in our texts. With this in mind, let us conclude the introduction by offering storied fragments of the positionalities – and biographies – that shaped our work on this book, our engagement with southern and decolonial theory and our scholarship more broadly. Sinfree: Stories of continuous shifts I have been in this office in 311 Sparks at Pennsylvania State University for two decades longer than I have lived in any single place in my entire life. My desk faces the same wall that I have looked at longer than I would like to imagine. I have reflected on how I finally found myself developing a career in a place that I did not know when I left southern Africa, and on whether my career would have been different if I had not been a nomad. My intellectually nomadic career began when I left Rhodesia to fly to Blantyre, Malawi, in 1980, as the Rhodesian government did not allow its citizens to be admitted to the University of Rhodesia unless we

12  From Southern Theory to Decolonizing Sociolinguistics

had served in the Rhodesian army against the Zimbabwean Liberation Army. I stayed in Malawi for nine months with a relative. During my stay, I had an opportunity to experience independent Africa at a time when Rhodesia was under the control of a white regime. This gave me the opportunity to view myself through different lenses – independent Africa and racist Rhodesia. I was a young body with multiple political and educational experiences. In Malawi, one of the refugee organizations bought me a ticket to the United Kingdom after my efforts to proceed to Kenya to join an uncle failed. It was difficult to gain access to the United Kingdom because I did not have the ‘right’ papers. After repeating fragments of discourse, which I had picked up from many other Zimbabweans, that the British Government had an obligation to allow us into the United Kingdom, the immigration officer granted me permission to enter. During my stay there, I lived with a close relative. This period overlapped with the time that the British were negotiating constitutional arrangements (which came to be known as the Lancaster House Constitution) between the white regime, led by Ian Smith, and the different liberation armies in Zimbabwe. It was during this time that I fondly remember meeting a close friend who was part of the Zimbabwean Liberation Army. We exchanged notes, and it was interesting to recall how we were clearly traveling in different directions. He was moving into becoming part of government, while I was destined to be an outsider. It is this outsider view that I have retained over time. Because of this outsider status I have found the decolonial and southern epistemologies attractive because they provide me with ways to understand myself and the social contexts I inhabit. From the United Kingdom, after receiving a scholarship from the African American Institute, I left for Cuttington University in Banga in Liberia. At Cuttington University, I had my first experience of the potentially negative impact of language policy (even though I did not know the term language policy then). At the university, studying French was mandatory, and all Liberian students had studied French in high school. To graduate from Cuttington, I needed to pass French, but the possibility of my doing so was remote because I did not have the necessary background in French unlike my Liberian counterparts. When I was leaving Rhodesia, discussions concerned the liberation of Rhodesia. When I was in Liberia, I experienced the converse of liberation discourses – my first military experience of a coup. When I arrived in Liberia, Samuel Tolbert had just been overthrown by Samuel Doe. These early experiences of Africa made me aware how quickly events could change as well as the need to see events from many different perspectives. From Cuttington University, I proceeded to the University of Ghana, Legon, Accra, where I completed my junior degree in English, with a specialty in linguistics. What I found fascinating at the university was that most of the lecturers were Ghanaians, and the material that

Introduction 

13

they used was written by African scholars. My experience in Ghana left me with the impression that a strong nationalist and Pan-African orientation to scholarship was indeed possible. It then took me some time to explore how this nationalist epistemological orientation could be integrated into linguistics, which we were taught is scientific and descriptive. Ana: Searching, persisting, loving Not long ago someone called me a ‘revolutionary romantic’ and perhaps in some ways this is true: I have a deep intellectual-affective belief in the possibility of a better world, a world in which everyone can flourish; and this belief – which some might call romantic/utopian/unrealistic/ naïve – has shaped who I am. It started with the anti-war demonstrations in Europe during the 1980s (when I came, politically, ‘of age’, and had my first encounters with the police and government anxieties around protest and resistance). My political engagement continued with what, at the time, was called ‘third-world solidarity’ as well as a strong interest in socialist/communist political theory and alternative ways of thinking about the world, a world that was shaped by the cold war realities of growing up in West Germany. When I moved to South Africa in 1994 to further my education, my political commitment deepened: there was euphoria about seeing the end of apartheid-colonialism and the beginnings of a new society; there were also the political complex emotions that accompanied the change from the socialist-inspired Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) to the ultimately capitalist Growth, Employment and Redistribution Programme (GEAR). And then there was the renewed political activism of the post-2010 period, when insurgent social movements were raising their fists in a reminder that the struggle is not yet over. While I was somehow able to separate scholarship from political engagement in my younger days, this is no longer possible: it is one of the many lessons that I have learned by living and loving across time and space. There has been restlessness in my life: moving between different cities as well as different countries, always searching and ‘on the move’. And then there came an unexpected rootedness: South Africa is the place where I have now lived for more than half my life. It is a place that has become home in so many ways. Yet, it is also a place where my presence is uncomfortable and problematic as it is necessarily located within the history-and-present of settler colonialism. When I was reading Sinfree’s reflections, I was reminded of something that shaped my experience of academic spaces: debate and respect. I remember how heated debates and strong disagreements did not diminished the respect – and love – that we, as colleagues, scholars and often friends, had for one another. I have been fortunate to be part of shifting scholarly communities that have allowed disagreement and engaged in

14  From Southern Theory to Decolonizing Sociolinguistics

‘loving critique’. Reflecting further on my life in the academy, I need to comment on gender. As a sociolinguist, I was trained at a time when linguistics (my home discipline) was a discipline that was dominated, almost exclusively, by white and male scholars. The only time that I was taught by a white, female scholar was when I took a literature elective on contemporary love poems! It is something I still reflect on – how these experiences, and resistances to them, might have shaped me, how they might have shaped my scholarship and reading practices, as well as the ethics of my engagement with others. Like Sinfree, although in different ways, my experience has been that of an outsider. My final story is a memory. I am with my grandmother in the forest. She tells me about plants that heal, she throws herself into the nettles to prevent arthritis, she teaches me how to pick berries without damaging them, blackberries and wild strawberries. It was a world so different from my middle-class urban childhood, and the knowledges she taught me in the forest were unlike those that I learnt at school. Today, I remember them and feel a certain sadness that I spent so much time with books, studying, and not more time with my grandmother in the forest, listening to her, learning from her and celebrating her knowledges.

These are just some observations about our lives. Like everyone, we have more – talking about our positionalities will continue, it will shift and change over time. For now, we have said enough. Notes (1) https://www​.brookings​.edu​/blog​/how​-we​-rise​/2020​/07​/23​/five​-things​-john​-lewis​ -taught​-us​-about​-getting​-in​-good​-trouble/. See also the documentary Good Trouble, which chronicles the life and political work of John Lewis. (2) https://www​.theguardian​.com​/commentisfree​/2021​/nov​/29​/developing​-nations​-wto​ -vaccine​-patents​-covid​-britain. (3) We acknowledge that ‘Indigenous’ is not an unproblematic concept. It is a shifting signifier that indexes not only Indigenous experiences and worldviews but also diversity and plurality in postcolonial societies as well as political and legal struggles. An example of the latter is the Los Pinos Declaration (2022; https://en​.unesco​.org​/ sites​/default​/files​/los​_pinos​_declaration​_170720​_en​.pdf). In Latin America, the term originario is frequently used, but Indigenous occurs as well (e.g. in the names of institutions and initiatives such as the Instituto Iberoamericano de Lenguas Indígenas (IIALI); on Indigeneity discourses see also Severo & Makoni, this volume). (4) Organized by the African Studies Programme at Pennsylvania State University in collaboration with the University of the Western Cape (South Africa), Nelson Mandela University (South Africa) and the University of Oslo (Norway). (5) Lillis (2022) and Carruba-Rogel (2018) creatively combine English and Spanish in their texts, creating complex multilingual genres. However, one should keep in mind that writing multilingually in English and Spanish means that one writes multilingually in two ex-colonial languages; two languages which have been empowered by significant financial and symbolic resources during empire (albeit not in the same way). This is different for Sesotho Sa Leboa/Sepedi, a language that has a long history of oppression and marginalization.

Introduction 

15

References Adams, J., MacKenzie, M.J., Amegah, A.K., Ezeh, A., Gadanya, M.A., Omigbodun, A., Sarki, A.M., Thistle, P., Ziraba, A.K., Stranges, S. and Silverman, M. (2021) The conundrum of low COVID-19 mortality burden in Sub-Saharan Africa: Myth or reality? Global Health: Science and Practice 9, 433–443. Ahmed, A.K. (2019) The rise of fallism: #RhodesMustFall and the movement to decolonize the university. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Columbia. Amin, S. (1985) Delinking. Towards a Polycentric World. London: Zed Books. Amselle, J.-L. (2020) On cultural and linguistic specificities. In S.B. Diagne and K.L. Amselle (eds) In Search of Africa(s) – Universalism and Decolonial Thought (pp. 50–59). Cambridge: Polity Press. Bajaj, S.S., Maki, L. and Stanford, F.C. (2022) Vaccine apartheid: Global cooperation and equity. The Lancet 399, 1452–1453. Boatcă, M. (2021) Thinking Europe otherwise: Lessons from the Caribbean. Current Sociology 69, 389–414. Cabral, A. (2016) Resistance and Decolonization (with an introduction by R. Rabaka). London: Rowman & Littlefield. Carruba-Rogel, Z.N. (2018) The complexities in Seguir Avanzando: Incongruences between the linguistic ideologies of students and their familias. In M. Bucholtz, D.I. Casillas and J.S. Lee (eds) Feeling It. Language, Race, and Affect in Latinx Youth Learning (pp. 149–165). London: Routledge. Chakrabarty, D. (2007) Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Cioè-Peña, M. (2021) (M)othering Labeled Children: Bilingualism and Disability in the Lives of Latinx Mothers. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Connell, R. (2018) Decolonizing sociology. Contemporary Sociology 47, 399–407. Cusicanqui, S.R. ([2010] 2019) Ch’ixinakax utxiwa: A reflection on the praxis and discourses of decolonization. Language, Culture and Society 1, 106–119. Deumert, A. (2021) Insurgent words: Challenging the coloniality of language. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 272, 101–126. Diagne, S.B. (2020) On the universal and universalism. In S.B. Diagne and J.-L. Amselle (eds) In Search of Africa(s) – Universalism and Decolonial Thought (pp. 19–29). Cambridge: Polity Press. Fanon, F. ([1952] 2008) Black Skin, White Masks. New York: Grove Press. García, O. and Alvis, J. (2019) The coloniality of language and translanguaging: Latinx knowledge-production. Journal of Postcolonial Linguistics 1, 26–40. Getachew, A. (2019) Worldmaking After Empire: The Rise and Fall of Self-Determination. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Graeber, D. and Wengrow, D. (2021) The Dawn of Everything. A New History of Humanity. London: Penguin. Grosfoguel, R. (2020) Epistemic extractivism. A dialogue with Alberto Acosta, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, and Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui. In B. de Sousa Santos and M.P. Meneses (eds) Knowledges Born in Struggle. Constructing the Epistemologies of the Global South (pp. 203–218). London: Routledge. Grove, K., Rickards, L., Anderson, B. and Kearnes, M. (2022) The uneven distribution of futurity: Slow emergencies and the event of COVID-19. Geographical Research 60, 6–17. Gržinić, M. (2019) Theorizing decoloniality in southeastern Europe: Vocabularies, politics, perspectives. Dverisa/ dВЕРСИЯ 3, 170–193. Haraway, D. (1988) Situated knowledges: The science question in feminism and the privilege of partial perspective. Feminist Studies 14, 575–599. Haraway, D. (2016) Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

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Heugh, K., Stroud, C., Taylor-Leech, K. and De Costa, P. (eds) (2022) A Sociolinguistics of the South. London: Routledge. hooks, b. (1994) Teaching to Transgress. Education as the Practice of Freedom. London: Routledge. Kelley, R.D.G. (2002) Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Khosi, M. (2020) Living Ubuntu: The struggles of Abahlali Base Mjondolo as an African philosophy in the making. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in the South 4, 26–36. Lebron, C.J. (2017) The Making of Black Lives Matter. A Brief History of an Idea. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Leonard, W. (2011) Challenging ‘extinction’ through modern Miami language practices. American Indian Culture and Research Journal 35, 135–160. Lewis, J. (2017) Across that Bridge. A Vision for Change and the Future of America. New York: Hachette Books. Lillis, T. (2022) Academic literacies: Intereses locales, preocupaciones globales? [Academic literacies: Local interests, global concerns?] In N. Ávila Reyes (ed.) Multilingual Contributions to Writing Research Toward an Equal Academic Exchange (pp. 35–59). Denver, CO: University Press of Colorado. Makoni, S. and Pennycook, A. (2007) Disinventing and Reconstituting Languages. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Makoni, S., Madany-Saá, M., Antia, B.E. and Gomez, R.L. (eds) (2022) Decolonial Voices, Language and Race. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Maldonado-Torres, N. (2011) Thinking through the decolonial turn: Post-continental interventions in theory, philosophy, and critique – An introduction. TRANSMODERNITY: Journal of Peripheral Cultural Production of the Luso-Hispanic World 1, 1–15. Mignolo, W.D. (2007) Delinking. The rhetoric of modernity, the logic of coloniality, and the grammar of coloniality. Cultural Studies 21, 449–514. Mignolo, W.D. (2012) Local Histories/Global Designs. Coloniality, Subaltern Knowledges, and Border Thinking. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Mignolo, W.D. (2017) Coloniality is far from over, and so must be decoloniality. Afterall: A Journal of Art, Context and Enquiry 43, 38–45. Moten, F. and Harney, S. (2013) The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning & Black Study. Wivenhoe: Minor Compositions. Ndhlovu, F. (2022) Revisiting the true purpose of the discourse on decolonizing. Journal of Multilingual Discourses 7, 1–5. Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o (1986) Decolonizing the Mind. The Politics of Language in African Literature. Nairobi: James Currey. Nyamnjoh, F.B. (2017) Incompleteness: Frontier Africa and the currency of conviviality. Journal of Asian and African Studies 52, 253–270. Pillow, W.S. (2019) Epistemic witnessing: Theoretical responsibilities, decolonial attitude and lenticular futures. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 32, 118–135. Pratap, S. and Bose, J.C. (2015) Development as politics: A study of emerging workers’ movements in India. Journal of Economic and Social Development 11, 41–52. Pratt, M.L. (2019) Decolonization: Who needs it? Language, Culture and Society 1, 120–125. Quijano, A. (2000a) Coloniality of Power, Eurocentrism and Latin America. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Quijano, A. (2000b) Modernidad, Colonialdad y América Latina. Nepantla. Views From the South 1, 533–580. Ramose, M. (2020) On finding the cinerarium for uncremated Ubuntu: On the street wisdom of philosophy. In B. de Sousa Santos and M.P. Meneses (eds) Knowledges

Introduction 

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Born in Struggle. Constructing the Epistemologies of the Global South (pp. 58–77). London: Routledge. Robinson, C. ([1983] 2000) Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. Rosa, M.C., Penna, C. and Carvalho, P.D. (2021) Heterogeneity and instability: ­Theoretical–methodological outcomes of three investigations on land and agrarian movements and the state. Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy 10, 415–439. Santos, B. de Sousa and Meneses, M.P. (eds) (2020) Knowledges Born in Struggle. Constructing the Epistemologies of the Global South. London: Routledge. Severo, C.G. and Makoni, S. (2020) African languages, race, and colonialism. In H.S. Alim, A. Reyes and P.V. Kroskrity (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Language and Race (pp. 153–166). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sibanda, B. (2021) ‘Language as being’ in the politics of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o. In M. Steyn and W. Mpofu (eds) Decolonising the Human. Reflections from Africa on Difference and Oppression (pp. 143–163). Johannesburg: Wits University Press. Silva, D.N. and Lee, J.W. (2021) ‘Marielle, Presente’: Metaleptic temporality and the enregisterment of hope in Rio de Janeiro. Journal of Sociolinguistics 25, 179–197. Simpson, L.B. (2011) Dancing on Our Turtle’s Back. Stories of Nishnaabeg Re-Creation, Resurgence and A New Emergence. Winnipeg: ARP Books. Suárez-Krabbe, J. (forthcoming) Racism, sociogeny and (im)possible decolonization: Reflections on the crisis of European man in Denmark. In L. Gordon (ed.) Fanon and the Crisis of European Man. London: Routledge. Táìwo, O. (2019) Rethinking the decolonization trope in philosophy. The Southern Journal of Philosophy 57, 135–159. Táìwo, O. (2022) Against Decolonization. Taking African Agency Seriously. London: Hurst & Company. Tlostanova, M. (2014) On lost crisitunities, vanishing postSoviet and decolonization of thinking, being and perception. Journal of Cultural and Religious Theory 13, 53–67. Tlostanova, M. (2015) Can the post-Soviet think? On coloniality of knowledge, external imperial, and double colonial difference. Intersections 1, 38–58. UN Department of Social and Economic Affairs (2021) The sustainable goals development report. See https://unstats​.un​.org​/sdgs​/report​/2021/. Wiredu, K. (1996) Cultural Universals and Particulars: An African Perspective. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Zeleza, P. (2017) The decolonization of African knowledges. Address delivered at the Ninth Africa Day Lecture, University of the Free State, Bloomfontein.

2 ‘Purifying’ Hindi Translanguaging from English and Urdu Emblems: A Sociolinguistic Decolonization of the Hindu Right? Jaspal Naveel Singh

Introduction: ‘Purification’ is Not a Decolonial Option

People construct their own culture in many ways. Some dwell in romantic nostalgia for a bygone golden era, others look to a bright future without much regard to the past and others again live with trauma, personal or inherited, induced by experiences of oppression, persecution and genocide. What is clear is that all such cultural constructions give us a sense of identity: who we are in relation to others in the world. In postcolonial contexts, the question of what counts as one’s ‘own’ culture, one’s ‘own’ identity, is a matter of finding a locus of enunciation (Bhabha, 1994; Grosfoguel, 2007; Mignolo, 2000), a space from which one can speak, from which one can assemble a hybrid identity, constantly negotiating between precolonial imagination, colonial mimesis and decolonial futures. At different times in the history of the postcolonial nation-state, different identities are propagated and others are suppressed. The quest for a national language both mirrors and co-produces such cultural constructions in the postcolony, and in each postcolonial nation this occurred in radically different and complexly unique ways. In India, after the country had gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1947, the task of selecting one national language proved to be impossible. Known for its linguistic diversity, the linguistic unification of India was not achieved until the present day. Hindi, the largest language spoken across North India, was deployed at certain points in history to imagine a linguistically unified nation, yet English, the colonizer’s language and the lingua franca of the current neoliberal world order, remained as an 18

‘Purifying’ Hindi Translanguaging from English and Urdu Emblems  19

ambiguous ‘official’ language for international and pan-Indian communication and as a marker of upward social mobility, while local and regional languages were also strengthened through media, education and religion.1 The complexity of the linguistic situation in India is perhaps the reason why language education policies and linguistic mediascapes are so contested and become politicized in times of crisis. In the current political climate – some would call it a crisis – dominated by the right-wing Hindu nationalist party BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party, ‘Indian People’s Party’), we can observe the deployment of Hindi, as well as other Indian languages, to imagine a new – decolonized – self-understanding of India. The objective of such linguistic politics is to construct a specific register of Hindi, called shuddh (‘pure’) Hindi. Shuddh Hindi is a ‘purified’ version of Hindi translanguaging practices used by people across India, and especially in the Hindi dialect continuum in the northern part of the country (the so-called Hindi Belt), in their regular and everyday communication. Here, I conceptualize translanguaging (Canagarajah, 2013; García & Li, 2014; Lee & Dovchin, 2020) as a ‘normal’ or ordinary and common linguistic situation in which languagers draw on elements from various languages, dialects and sociolects to construct their speech repertoires to index styles, stances and registers in momentary and highly contextualized embodied interaction. The people’s everyday translanguaging practices contest monolingual or double-monolingual ideologies that describe and prescribe boundaries between languages, dialects, registers and modalities. Thus, translanguaging stands in direct opposition to language purification efforts. Consequently, from a translingual perspective, ‘purification’ equals colonization. With this equation, echoing Aimé Césaire’s ([1950] 2001) famous equation ‘colonization = “thingification”’, I want to interrogate how dominant social groups can deploy ideologies of linguistic purity to colonize, suppress and control people’s everyday translanguaging and thereby gain political power. In contemporary India, this colonization of translanguaging can be observed in the ways in which shuddh Hindi is entextualized in education materials, in the media and in politics to become a recognizable register that iconically indexes the Hindu national speaker. This enregisterment (Agha, 2007) of shuddh Hindi produces archives of apparent diachronic linguistic evidence that support the revisionist argument that the Hindu religion and culture, and ergo the casteHindu people, have been the legitimate rulers of India in the past and will have to rule India again in the future. Thus, in fact, contrary to my expositions here, Hindu nationalists sometimes render the colonization of Indian translanguaging by shuddh Hindi as a form of decolonization! In their view, the purification of translanguaging contributes to rectifying historical injustices inflicted on the Hindus and on their culture during a millennium of foreign colonial rule in India. While Césaire’s equation begins with European colonialism and renders as its result the process

20  From Southern Theory to Decolonizing Sociolinguistics

of thingification, i.e. the dehumanization of both the colonized and the colonizers who are barbarically brutalized into becoming commodities, things, that generate surplus value for the European bourgeoise in the global capitalist world order, my statement reverses this causality. The thingification of ‘pure’ Hindi as a recognizable commodity register indexical of the Hindu national speaker results in a colonization of India’s political, educational and media landscapes by Hindu nationalist organizations. Independent of how we read causality into the order of the two elements of Césaire’s or my equation, the equals sign might simply suggest that the processes of purification, colonization and thingification are mutually constitutive and interlock in various complex ways. For people in India and in the Indian diaspora, the colonization of their everyday translanguaging practices by a purified, thingified, or essentialized/reified, register of Hindi might represent a loss of translinguistic freedom and it might thereby bring about a heightened selfawareness, a hypersubjectivity (Hall, 2014), towards the insufficiency of one’s own language competence in relation to some superimposed and ultimately unattainable ‘pure’ version of the Hindi language, creating linguistic anxiety on the level of the individual and linguistic injustice on the level of society. Like British received pronunciation (RP) and other so-called standard language varieties, shuddh Hindi is a phantasmatic register against which the people’s regular Hindi translanguaging practices appear as somewhat impure and thus unfit to adequately index national belonging (Chand, 2011; for a related discussion on English and Swahili language purity – ufasaha – in the context of Tanzanian beauty pageants, see Billings, 2014: 101–108). Such feelings of fear and insufficiency, it seems to me by observing the current political situation in India from outside of the country, can be used as part of an affective political strategy that aims to control the exclusion and inclusion of diverse populations in the imagined community of the nation-state, and to construct narratives that historically legitimize the political and economic power of dominant groups over marginalized groups. The sociolinguistic ‘purification’ of Hindi translanguaging focuses on linguistic influences that are perceived as having come from outside powers oppressing India, namely Islamic rule (indexed by ‘Urdu’) and British colonialism (indexed by ‘English’). As I will show, such historical readings and visions of sociolinguistic ‘purity’ are embedded in a wider moral and political discourse that seeks to (re-)establish a Brahmanical cosmic order. The Hindutva (i.e. Hindu-ness) vision is to lead India out of its colonial past, its colonial mentality, and create a new Hindu Rashtra, a Hindu nation with the name of Bharat (Clémentin-Ojha, 2014; Roychowdhury, 2020), in which the Hindu way of life is protected against outside forces, as well as against internal liberation movements that are perceived as un-Indian or anti-national, such as Dalit emancipation, Marxism and Indian feminism.

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The construction of shuddh Hindi, and its metapragmatic politicization as an index for a future hope of (re-)establishing Brahmanical superiority, can be understood as a linguistic revival. Shuddh Hindi is distinguishable from everyday Hindi translanguaging because it draws heavily on words deriving from Sanskrit, the great ancient South Asian language with a rich literary tradition extending over three millennia. Thus, in order to speak, write or learn ‘pure’ Hindi, one must replace terms that derive from Arabic, Persian and English with ones that derive from Sanskrit. Kara Fleming and Umberto Ansaldo (2020) make a useful conceptual distinction between revival and revitalization, which, I suggest, can also help us with distinguishing two contrastive ideas about decolonization: right-wing ethnonationalism striving for purity and national unification, on the one hand, and an emancipatory resistance against coloniality promoting translanguaging, intersectional solidarity and cosmopolitan diversification, on the other. Fleming and Ansaldo (2020: 5) think of linguistic revivals as ‘social movements in which groups seek to garner state power to serve their own ends – specifically, the aim to advance a discriminatory view of a given language, which inevitably creates exclusionary forms of essentialism’. In such movements, ‘language, ethnicity, and nationhood are strictly linked and, in our view, language is being abused as an instrument of power’ (Fleming & Ansaldo, 2020: 5). Language revitalization, in contrast, ‘is not directed at state capture but rather lobbies for tolerance, accommodation, and political recognition’ (Fleming & Ansaldo, 2020: 5). These are ‘cases that may be more bona fide attempts at helping a language, and its culture, to not disappear from the face of the planet’ (Fleming & Ansaldo, 2020: 5). It seems to me that Fleming and Ansaldo’s distinction between revival and revitalization can help us distinguish, at least conceptually, decolonial discourses emanating from the Hindu right from those that are currently captivating left and liberal academic thought. While Hindutva frames itself as decolonial by presenting the Hindus as victims of a millennium of oppression from outside forces, it abuses Hindi as an instrument for gaining political power, and it promotes exclusionary discourses and practices against India’s minoritized and disenfranchised groups. I am, therefore, of the opinion that a Hindutva project cannot, in any way, be helpful for, or even reconciled with, developing decolonial tactics that allow us to push for material redistribution and radical epistemological shifts. In other words, Hindutva is not a southern theory with which decolonial scholars should collaborate as part of a broad allied front against coloniality. Hindutva is not decolonial because its practices and discourses are fundamentally exclusionary, nationalistic, racist, divisive and resemble conspiracy theories more than they resemble southern theories. India’s decolonial option (Tlostanova & Mignolo, 2009), I propose, would benefit from promoting Hindi translanguaging

22  From Southern Theory to Decolonizing Sociolinguistics

and strengthening local language revitalization efforts, while always resisting desires to ‘purify’ language and culture. To explore my position, I discuss several moments in which metapragmatic efforts are made to speak/write/learn a shuddh, i.e. ‘pure’, register of Hindi, which is free from what are perceived as historical impurities caused by Islamic rule (indexed by ‘Urdu’) and British colonialism (indexed by ‘English’). I begin with some personal encounters with Hindi translanguaging to emphasize that my voice as the author of this chapter is historically situated in experiences of (resisting) coloniality. I then provide a cursory overview of the history of shuddh Hindi and move on to discuss recent purification efforts in Indian education and science. My Father, the Translanguager

‘Vadder, ich lern jetzt Hindi’, I told my father over the kitchen table one day in my early twenties. I had just signed up for Hindi classes at the Institut für Indologie at Johannes Gutenberg-Universität in Mainz, Germany, where I was studying linguistics, history and philosophy. My father seemed impressed, lowering the corners of his lips and raising one eyebrow below his turban, nodding his head in approval. He stroked his long beard and said in his deep voice: ‘Zeig mal Buch’. My father was born close to Rawalpindi, Punjab, in 1935, which was then in British India and is now in Pakistan. He and his family, being Sikhs and Hindus, had to flee the communal riots that broke out during the partition of the British Raj in 1947–1948, one of the largest and most traumatic refugee crises in history, displacing an estimated 14.5–17.9 million people (Bharadwaj et al., 2008). Like 700,000 other Punjabi refugees, my father ended up growing up in New Delhi, the capital of the newly founded Republic of India. He left India by ship at the age of 25 to complete a six-month internship at a bank in Düsseldorf, Germany. There, he met my mother. The rest is (complex) history. Growing up in a village close to Frankfurt, my family and I always spoke in German. My two sisters, my mother and I all speak German ‘natively’, and my dad would develop an idiosyncratic style of translanguaging, drawing on German, English and some Indian languages available to him, such as Punjabi, Urdu and Hindi. For us, and him, the three Indian languages blended into one another and it was hardly ever clear to me which one he spoke with. A few Indian phrases became part of the everyday linguistic repertoire of our family, such as endearing vocatives (beta, beti), affirmative phrases (achcha, thik hai, han ji, chalo) and food items (roti, dal, alu, saag, gobhi, haldi, dhaniya, jeera, etc.) – my father was a tremendous cook. And, even though my father passed on eight years ago, we still use all these terms in our family today. But neither my sisters nor I, nor my mother, could speak ‘Indian’ in the sense of having a meaningful conversation with people from India without relying

‘Purifying’ Hindi Translanguaging from English and Urdu Emblems  23

on English. Our inability to speak an Indian language often became a topic when Indian family and business partners came to visit our home in Germany or when we visited India. I felt that many Indians had some expectation that we ought to know how to speak Punjabi and/or Hindi, or at least some mixture of that. Shouldn’t our father have taught us something of our culture by teaching us the language? When I told my dad that I had signed up to Hindi classes at university, I felt that I had done something to connect with my roots. I hoped to take some pressure off him when Indian relatives and acquaintances alluded to what they perceived to be his failure to transmit our culture to us. I thought that at least now he could say that his son was learning Hindi and will soon be able to communicate with them in their language. But that never happened. I did study Hindi for several years and still do. I learnt how to write and read the Devanagari script, and I know the everyday vocabulary, the basic grammar rules, the verb tenses, postpositions and cases. But I never reached any level of fluency that would allow me to hold fairy complex conversations with Indians without ending up speaking in English. And this might be because I learnt the wrong language! On that evening at the dinner table, my father’s astonishment that I had started studying Hindi was not so much related to the social pressure that he or I had felt due to the fact that the son of an Indian could not speak in Hindi – it had more to do with the label ‘Hindi’: ‘Zeig mal Buch’ (‘Show me book’). I went to my room and fetched the coursebook: Rupert Snell and Simon Weightman’s (2003) Teach Yourself Hindi: Complete Course. My father skimmed through some of the pages and after a few moments said, ‘Das ist nix Hindi’ (‘This isn’t Hindi at all’). I asked for clarification; if this wasn’t Hindi, what was it? He leaned back, shook his head and said, ‘Mhh vielleicht das ist Hindustani’ (‘Mhh maybe it is Hindustani’). Up until that moment, I was not aware of a language called ‘Hindustani’ and I asked him what he meant. He explained that Hindustani is what people speak on the street or in normal situations; it is the everyday language in northern India. He explained further that Hindustani freely mixes elements from Hindi, Urdu, English, Bengali, Punjabi, Rajasthani, Harianvi, Bihari, Marathi and whatever other language one has at one’s disposal. Hindustani, he deduced, therefore has ‘bad grammar’ and it is a ‘broken language’. He reserved the label ‘Hindi’ to mean the ‘real’ language, with the ‘good grammar’ and the ‘high words’ used by politicians, writers and gurus. What my father introduced me to on that evening was, of course, the concept that we linguists call diglossia (Ferguson, 1959; Fishman, 1967; Gumperz, 1962), where a high language and a low language share social space in a complementary fashion. Hindi, the high language, is used in formal contexts; Hindustani, the low language, is used in informal contexts. The language associated with one context cannot be used in the other context. The low language, as Mikhail Bakhtin (1981) so

24  From Southern Theory to Decolonizing Sociolinguistics

eloquently describes it, is heteroglossic, subversive, carnivalesque and diversifying (a centrifugal force), and the high language is monoglot, conservative, serious and unifying (a centripetal force). Hindi, then, in some ways, is the ‘purified’ language of Hindustani translanguaging. But purified from what? Purified from elements that are perceived as coming from other languages, such as Urdu, Punjabi and English, and purified from elements that emerge from the proverbial street: the sphere of the common, the uneducated and the vernacular culture. My father’s outright refusal that Snell and Weightman’s (2003) Teach Yourself Hindi actually teaches Hindi, but rather Hindustani, points to an ideology that the low language should not be used in educational contexts like schools and universities, where ‘pure’ languages are taught and promoted through prescriptive language testing (Mcnamara, 2005). This might have painfully reminded my father of his own treatment as a Punjabi refugee going to Hindi-medium schools in Delhi in the 1950s. He often told us stories of teachers punishing students when they could not speak the ‘proper’ Hindi, or who were unable to read and write the Devanagari script. In primary school in Rawalpindi, my father had only learnt the Roman script and the Nastaleeq script, which is based on the Arabic script and is used to write in Urdu (but see Ahmad, 2011). I remember vividly a story he repeatedly told us. When the teacher found mistakes in his Devanagari writing, he would take my father’s pen and stick it in between the poor boy’s index, middle and ring fingers and have him put his hand flat on the table. The teacher would then take a book and repeatedly hit it on my father’s hand until the pen broke. My father had broken the language, now the teacher would break his pen (or even his fingers!) – this was the simple moral of this violent pedagogical show of power. My father pointed out to me that many of the words used in my textbook were not ‘pure’ Hindi, but rather loanwords: from Persian and Urdu, such as shukriya (‘thank you’), mez (‘table’), kursi (‘chair’), kitaab (‘book’), makaan (‘house’), bimaar (‘ill’), darvaaza (‘door’), khirki (‘window’), lekin (‘but’) and agar (‘if’); and from English, such as daktar (‘doctor’), gilas (‘glass’), minat (‘minute’), sakuul (‘school’) and relwe (‘railway’). These were words that he himself would use in his everyday communication, and therefore they belonged to the register he called Hindustani, but they should not be used in shuddh Hindi (‘pure Hindi’) where alternative formulations derived from Sanskrit ought to be used. The class of words my father (correctly) identified as deriving from Arabic and Persian can be understood as emblems, i.e. they were immediately recognized by my father to index Urdu speech registers of Hindustani. Asif Agha (2007: 233–277) thinks of emblems as constituting a class of metapragmatic readings of specific linguistic forms (phonetic realizations, words, grammatical structures, accents, registers and entire languages) that are widely recognized as indexing social categories at a

‘Purifying’ Hindi Translanguaging from English and Urdu Emblems  25

given cultural time and place. Agha highlights that linguistic forms are not emblems in and by themselves, but rather that certain forms can be read as emblems. Emblematic readings gain indexical or meaning-­ making value in a society through processes of enregisterment, i.e. ideological associations between linguistic forms and social meanings that are widely circulated through mediated discourses. In the years before he died, my father and I spoke a lot about Hindustani. Hindustani had no rules, it is just how people speak. It was linguistic freedom but also linguistic chaos. At least that’s how I imagined it back then. My dad would tell me that his own Hindustani was sometimes more like Urdu, sometimes more like Hindi, sometimes more like English, depending on whom he was speaking to, a phenomenon we linguists call audience design (Bell, 1984). I asked him how we would know what language the other person would understand. He would laugh and say, ‘Ich kann an seiner Nase sehen’ (‘I can see it by looking at his nose’). Such raciolinguistic ideologies (Rosa, 2019) point to the ocularcentric logics of emblematic readings: we ‘see’ language in our interlocutors’ faces, in the same way we ‘hear’ their ethnicity, race, religion, class, gender, sexuality and age in their language. The dynamic interplay between eye and ear constructs what we perceive to be our instinctual knowledge about who speaks/understands which languages that helps us when choosing the appropriate register in our diverse everyday translingual interactions. As we will see, controlling and policing such raciolinguistic ideologies and behaviours can become part of exclusionary and racist politics in a society. My father himself was a victim of such linguistic racism when he was a refugee in school in Delhi. He could not read or write Devanagari well, probably spoke Hindustani with a Punjabi accent, and relied heavily on vocabulary derived from Persian and Urdu. However, my father never needed ‘pure’ Hindi nor the ­Devanagari script in his life. He was perfectly fine and successful with using ­Hindustani in speech and English in writing. His translanguaging enabled him to make a career as a successful wholesale trader, conducting import/ export business with global business partners and family members in India and across the Indian diaspora. Also, his ‘broken’ German with a strong Indian accent was enough to get by in Germany, and when he needed assistance, my mum, my sisters and I were always there to act as linguistic brokers. Yet, his emblematic reading of my textbook suggests that he must have recognized that his everyday translanguaging practices were in some ways inferior to the ‘pure’ versions of Hindi – and German and English, for that matter. Language Ideological Politics

During the British Raj (1858–1947), in an attempt to categorize, survey and govern the people of India, the many languages of the subcontinent

26  From Southern Theory to Decolonizing Sociolinguistics

were indexically associated with essentialized, racialized and religious affiliations. In the north of India, Hindi was not only considered a high language but it was also associated with Hindus (80% of the population), while Urdu was associated with Muslims (15%) and Punjabi was associated with Sikhs (2%). English came to be associated mainly with the educated elites and also, to some extent, with Indian Christians (2%) and pan-Indian and international communication. Shalini Advani (2009: 40) describes how a Hindi movement began in the 19th century during British imperial times, in the wake of which ‘Hindustani was purged of Arabic and Persian traces and Hindi came to be associated with the Devanagari script rather than the Persian…, a “shuddh” (pure) Hindi came into being associated with a new Hindi nationalism’. This proHindi nationalism, as Advani (2009: 40–41) further writes, was driven by a pro-Hindu nationalist lobby: ‘the north Indian Brahman elite, keen on national dominance, transformed a language of popular use [Hindustani] into a language of power [Hindi], divesting it from its heteroglot past, sanitizing it, and communalizing it’. Thus, the idea of ‘Hindi’ itself was born during British imperial rule and was indexically associated with Hindus as part of an elite Brahmin struggle for independence. However, for the more secular forces of the independence movement, Hindustani remained the preferred register. Arvind Sharma (2002: 13) explains that in colonial India, Hindustani was seen as a ‘middle course between a Sanskritising Hindi, and a Persianising and Arabising Urdu, as the language of the undivided subcontinent’. This unifying ideology of the Hindustani register was then also deployed as part of a symbolic politics of the Indian National Congress, the principle political body in the Indian independence movement in the first half of the 20th century, which also became the dominating party after independence. ‘Pandit’ Jawaharlal Nehru and Mohandas Karamchand ‘Mahatma’ Gandhi, both members of the Congress, proposed the de facto lingua franca Hindustani to become the national language of a united independent India (Ghose, 1993: 216). Hindustani soon became a topic of political contestation. Gandhi’s assassin, Nathuram Godse, a right-wing Hindu fanatic, in his final address before his execution, spoke about the question of India’s national language and how his own ­linguistic/political ideologies differed from Gandhi’s: Gandhi’s pro-Muslim policy is blatantly [sic] in his perverse attitude on the question of the national language of India. It is quite obvious that Hindi has the most prior claim to be accepted as the premier language. In the beginning of his career in India, Gandhi gave a great impetus to Hindi but as he found that the Muslims did not like it, he became a champion of what is called Hindustani. Everybody in India knows that there is no language called Hindustani; it has no grammar; it has no vocabulary. It is a mere dialect, it is spoken,

‘Purifying’ Hindi Translanguaging from English and Urdu Emblems  27

but not written. It is a bastard tongue and cross-breed between Hindi and Urdu, and not even the Mahatma’s sophistry could make it popular. But in his desire to please the Muslims he insisted that Hindustani alone should be the national language of India. His blind followers, of course, supported him and the so-called hybrid language began to be used. The charm and purity of the Hindi language was to be prostituted to please the Muslims. All his experiments were at the expense of the Hindus. (Godse, 1949)

The ideology of the impurity and, in fact, the languagelessness (Rosa, 2019) of Hindustani here is connected to Gandhi’s secular politics of appeasement, which aimed at keeping the various religions in India at a peaceful equidistance from each other. In a classic language–­ideological link between ‘a language’ and ‘a religion’, the ‘purification’ of Hindi indexes a patriotic return to the glorious ancient past in which the Hindus were pure and free from Muslim oppression. Tragically, Godse’s patriotic activism did not stop at the level of language policy. ‘Purification’, taken literally, had to mean the assassination of the Mahatma. For much of the 20th century, Hindu extremism had been kept at bay by the ruling Congress party and the Nehru–Gandhi family. The family and other leading Congress politicians symbolized a Hindi- and English-speaking high-caste cosmopolitan Hindu elite. These elites were powerful in the sense that they could claim to be authentically Indian by way of their caste awareness and their pure ways of speaking Hindi, while at the same time they were often foreign educated and therefore could also speak fluent English. They appealed, therefore, to the Hindu majority of the country who saw in these cosmopolitan elites both global and national representatives of the Indian Republic, upholding the fundamental Gandhian values of truth, non-violence, secularism and appeasement, and keeping right-wing Hindu nationalism under control (Chand, 2011). Yet, Independent India, although multilingual and secular on the surface, Omar Khalidi (2008) argues, had in fact always been a Hindu nation, dominated by Hindi speakers, who throughout the second half of the 20th century made efforts to Hinduize Indian education, politics and society. Although Congress was largely successful in keeping right-wing Hindutva parties and groups out of regional and national political forums, the Hindutva movement has incrementally gained momentum at the grassroots level since the 1970s (for a recent overview, see Leidig, 2020). The most important institution driving the Hindutva movement is the RSS, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (‘National Volunteer Organization’), which is, with possibly over 5 million members, the world’s largest paramilitary volunteering organization. Founded in 1925, the RSS subscribes to a Hindutva (Hindu-ness) ideology and seeks to transform India into a Hindu Rashtra where the Hindu way of life is protected

28  From Southern Theory to Decolonizing Sociolinguistics

against threats that are perceived as coming from outside of India, such as Western modernity, Christianity and Islam, and threats that are perceived as coming from inside India, such as Dalit emancipation, feminism and communist political bodies (RSS, 2012). Facilitated by the RSS, a Hinduization of everyday practices and social infrastructures took place; not always peacefully. Over the last 20 years, vigilante groups that were or had been affiliated with the RSS took violent action against perceived injustices against the Hindu way of life. For example, in 1992, Hindu terrorist mobs destroyed the 16th-­century Babri mosque in Ayodhya. The mosque was believed to have been built on an ancient Hindu temple marking the birthplace of the Vishnu avatar Lord Rama, the protagonist of the great epic Ramayana. The Ram temple movement became a central project of the RSS and helped its political wing, the BJP, to gain political momentum. The BJP briefly appeared on the national stage in the 1970s and then again at the turn of the millennium when Atal Bihari Vajpayee served as prime minister between 1999 and 2004. During those years, the BJP built up a number of high-calibre politicians, such as Narendra Modi, then the chief minister of Gujarat and himself a member of the RSS since childhood (Jaffrelot, 2019). In August 2020, after 20 years of legal disputes, Modi, now prime minister, laid the foundation stone of a magnificent new Ram temple in Ayodhya, thereby fulfilling the lifelong dream of many Hindus (Sengupta, 2020). The success of the Ram temple movement dramatically showcases that the return to a new Hindu Rashtra has become a reality. Saffronizing Indian Education and Research

Some critical scholars use the term ‘saffronization’ to describe this mainstreaming of right-wing Hindutva nationalism (Afreen, 2019; Anderson & Jaffrelot, 2018; Chopra, 2019; Hansen, 1999; Jaffrelot, 2019; McDonald, 1993; Singh, 2021). Saffron is the colour typically associated with India’s majority religion Hinduism, as, for instance, represented in the Indian flag and in the dress of Brahmin priests and sadhus. Hindutva, in its contemporary saffronized avatar, represents a strong masculinist type of right-wing ethnonationalism that rids itself of any pretense of the secularism that earlier postcolonial elites propagated for voter mobilization. Saffronization is the transformation of institutions, politics, culture, architecture, discourse and sociolinguistic practices and aims to protect and celebrate the Hindu way of life and its ancient history by excluding, erasing and downplaying the history of India’s secular architects (like Nehru and Gandhi), as well as opposing Dalit emancipation and Islamization. Saffronization is thus an exclusionist political agenda that is fundamentally anti-secular, casteist and Islamophobic. In 2001, during the BJP’s first appearance in national politics, a group of historians from Delhi University published a position paper

‘Purifying’ Hindi Translanguaging from English and Urdu Emblems  29

protesting against the saffronization of history textbooks commissioned by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT). In the introduction to the paper, Mridula Mukherjee and Aditya Mukherjee (2001) describe Indian history post-independence as a battle of two opposing visions of what the Indian nation was, is and should become. On the one hand, we have the secular Gandhian vision of the unification of all Indians and, on the other hand, we have communal forces that aim to divide Indian society. These ‘communal forces are now attempting to use history textbooks as instruments to further their vision of a narrow, sectarian and “Talibanized” Hindu nation’ (Mukherjee & Mukherjee, 2001: 4). With the rise of the BJP in several states and in national politics, these communal forces gained institutional support. Textbooks have been published by RSS-affiliated institutions, such as Saraswati Shishu Mandir Prakashan (Saraswati Shishu Temple Publications), that ‘portrayed all communities other than the Hindus as foreigners in India, wrongly described the medieval period as the Muslim period and, following the footsteps of the British, portrayed the period as one of great oppression and decline’ (Mukherjee & Mukherjee, 2001). The historians are clear about their judgement: ‘These books, in the name of instilling patriotism and valour among Indians, spread falsehoods, treat mythological religious figures like actual historical figures and make absurd claims such as that the Qutab Minar was built by Samudragupta’ (Mukherjee & Mukherjee, 2001).2 In 2014, the year in which Modi led the BJP to a landslide victory in the general election, the saffronization debate flared up again. The controversy centered on Diananth Batra, a senior Hindutva educationalist, successful lobbyist and textbook author, who became the most vocal advocate for a patriotic Hindu-centric reform of the Indian education system. Batra used to be the leader of the Vidya Bharati, the education wing of the RSS, and currently heads the Shiksha Sanskriti Utthan Nyas, or simply the Nyas, a Hindutva lobbyist group advocating the Indianization of education, science and research. Batra himself wrote a book in 2001 with the programmatic title: The Enemies of Indianisation: The Children of Macaulay, Marx and Madrasa.3 In the book, which seems to no longer be available, Batra outlines what he thinks are misrepresentations of the Hindus and of Indian history that aim to promote Anglicization, communism and Islamization at the expense of the Hindus (Mukherjee & Mukherjee, 2001; Taylor, 2014). The misrepresentation of the Hindus, Batra believes, ‘is part of a conspiracy hatched by the children of [Karl] Marx and [Thomas] Macaulay to tarnish the image of Hindu culture. There are certain pseudo secularists who are behind this conspiracy’ (Batra, quoted in Outlook, 2014). Opposing this ‘conspiracy’, Batra wrote several textbooks that were adopted as supplementary materials in all state schools in Gujarat. He also built networks with Hindutva educationalists across the country to push forward a pan-Indian project of Indianizing education (Firstpost, 2014).

30  From Southern Theory to Decolonizing Sociolinguistics

In 2014, Batra, again using his lobbying power as head of the Nyas, got the NCERT to change some of their textbooks. This time around, he focused on ‘purifying’ Hindi textbooks from obscene language and from foreign elements. In an interview he explains: Whatever is there in the NCERT book is not good. If the students read these books, they will go astray… Filthy language, abuses, and most depressingly unconstitutional words like Chamar and Bhangi [offensive terms for Dalits] have been used in the Hindi books of the NCERT (National Council of Educational Research and Training). ‘Is it not distortion of Hindi language,’ Batra asked. ‘English poems (in Devanagari script) and Persian couplets in Hindi are there in the school books. It is a distortion of Hindi language,’ said the mild-mannered octogenarian who seems oblivious of the debate he has generated. (Batra, quoted in Sharma, 2014)

The Nyas made specific suggestions to ‘purify’ the Hindi language in the textbooks: There were 75 passages that were misinterpretations and defamatory. I went to court and many of these passages were dropped by NCERT. Again they’ve brought new history books. Again we are studying those. There are issues with them too… The condition of the Hindi books is even worse. Have you heard of Hindi books having English poems? There are 180 English words, 170 Urdu words, even Persian poems have been included. We are agitating against those books. (Batra, quoted in Firstpost, 2014)

Similar to my father, the Nyas singled out several non-shuddh Hindi emblems that they wanted to see removed from Hindi textbooks (for a full list, see Bhardwaj, 2017; see also Islam, 2017): • These are among the many words the Nyas wants removed: vicechancellor, worker, margin, business, backbone, stanza, royal academy (in English); betartib, poshaak, taakat, ilaaka, aksar, imaan, jokhim, mehman-navaazi, sare-aam (Urdu/Arabic words); ullu kahin ka, kambakht, badmaash, luchche-lafange, chamaar, bhangiyon (‘abusive’ words). • Ghalib’s couplet, ‘Hum ko malum hai jannat ki haqiqat lekin/dil ko khush rakhne ko Ghalib ye khyal achchha hai’. • A Class IX book has a poem by Ramdhari Singh Dinkar that follows a question on the ‘yearnings of a lover’. Such questions ‘misguide children and cause the loss of their character,’ the Nyas has written.

‘Purifying’ Hindi Translanguaging from English and Urdu Emblems  31

• A Class XI book contains extracts from M.F. Husain’s autobiography. The Nyas wants it removed because the ‘central government considered his activities a threat to the country’s unity and sovereignty’. • A chapter on the Kannada Bhakti poet Akka Mahadevi describes an incident in which she took off her clothes in protest. This ‘description of naked women’ is an ‘attack on Hindu culture in the name of women freedom,’ says the Nyas. (Bhardwaj, 2017: np) In this metapragmatic list, we can observe how the purification of the Hindi language is driven by a wild moralistic assemblage of sexualized, Islamophobic and anti-Western emblematic readings of textual indexes. Women’s freedom, national security, love, character, taboo and etymology are complexly intertwined in an ideological assemblage (Kroskrity, 2018) that marks certain signs as un-Indian or anti-national. To decolonize India and return to a precolonial patriarchal Brahmanical moral order, such anti-national emblems must be purged. Purifying or saffronizing Indian education textbooks would, so it is hoped, guide the younger generation into becoming citizens of the future Hindu Rashtra. With all the purging and purifying of Indian culture by the Nyas, the question arises: What should be taught instead? The new contents of an Indianized education draw on precolonial imaginaries of an ancient knowledge that is ‘pure’ and untarnished by Western (or, to a lesser degree, Islamic) knowledge and epistemologies. Analogous to the shuddh Hindi revival in the last decade, we can observe how the texts of the ancient Indians, such as the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Mahabharata, the Ramayana, the Manu Smriti, the Grammar of Panini or the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, become emblematically mythologized and deployed in contemporary Hindutva education efforts. Ancient Indian knowledge – what is now discussed as Hindu science or the Vedic sciences – is strategically mainstreamed as part of a national decolonial narrative and it thereby acts as an imaginary of a future idiosyncratically Indian science (for a detailed critical analysis, see Subramaniam, 2019). For instance, claims made by politicians and hobby scientists that the ancient Hindus had aeroplanes, plastic surgery, cloning and other highly advanced technologies have entered mainstream media in recent years and such claims have also been included in newly printed school textbooks (Dadawala, 2014; Gupta, 2014; Mathew, 2014; Outlook, 2017; Sharma, 2019). The erasure of knowledges perceived as un-Indian or anti-national is thus accompanied by an enregisterment of newly imagined emblems of ‘pure’ precolonial Indian knowledge. Banu Subramaniam (2019: 61) suggests that Hindutva science ‘is an attempt not to decolonise India but to reinstate Hindu culture and history as the hub

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in which scientific progress of the future is anticipated’. She argues that the deployment of the Vedic sciences in contemporary Indian education and research valorizes Hinduism in a complex – we could say fractal – chronological positioning game that ultimately reproduces modern coloniality and epistemology. Subramaniam (2019: 61) argues that in Hindutva science there ‘is no epistemological critique of Western science but instead an embrace of it – whereby an exaltation of Western science is simultaneously an exaltation of the scientific Vedas and the Vedic sciences and an exaltation of development and an exaltation of Hinduism’. Thus, while decolonial scholars seek to counter modernity/coloniality by subverting and disrupting Eurocentric discourse to imagine freedom anew, Hindutva science mimics the achievements of Western science (aeroplanes, radar, submarines, etc.) and simply claims that Hindus have made these achievements first. This implicitly frames Western sciences as simply having mimicked, or even stolen from, ancient Hindu science. The Hindutva return to ancient science does little to question science and colonial epistemologies themselves, but it merely reorders the chronologies of scientific invention and development. The grand narrative of modern European knowledge is replaced by an even grander narrative of ancient Hindu knowledge. Fractal Coloniality

Madina Tlostanova’s (2015) discussion of post-Soviet Russia’s ‘double colonial difference’ might be helpful to explore the fractal coloniality at play in the Hindutva politics of decolonizing India. Tlostanova uses the notion of double colonial difference to describe the somewhat ambiguous positionality of the Ottoman Empire, the Russian Empire, the USSR and post-Soviet Russia in the global modern colonial world order. These geopolitical spaces were orientalized by First-World imperial centres, while they themselves appeared as colonizers of their own ‘orients’, such as Bessarabia, the Caucasus and Siberia. The so-called Second World, positioned as not quite modern and not quite capitalist, developed a ‘catching up logic’ (Tlostanova, 2015: 46), by means of which it played the part of a ‘caricature civiliser mimicking European colonization models and missions in its own non-European colonies’ (Tlostanova, 2015: 47). Thus, external colonial differences were mirrored internally – a process that we could also understand with what Judith Irvine and Susan Gal (2000) call fractal recursivity, which describes how ideological oppositions at one scale level can be mirrored at another scale level. Yet, double colonial difference is not only a passive semiotic reflex but it also involves reflexive metapragmatic negotiations of knowledges and identities. Tlostanova (2015: 47) thus understands double colonial difference as a ‘sensibility [that] can be defined as a balancing between the role of an object and that of the subject in epistemic and existential sense’.

‘Purifying’ Hindi Translanguaging from English and Urdu Emblems  33

In contrast to Russia, India at first sight appears as not having to deal with such Janus-faced, fractal or double coloniality; rather, the country can be imagined as a prototypical example of Europe’s ‘absolute others’ (Tlostanova, 2015: 46) and thus positioned in a matrix of singular colonial difference. India had been the object of European desires since at least Columbus, some would even say since Alexander. The European colonizers positioned the Indians (i.e. the Hindus) as passive colonial subjects with no desire to conquer other nations themselves. The fact that India never represented a direct threat to Christian Europe, different from the Islamic Orient (we can think of the Ottoman siege of Vienna in 1529 and the Islamic rule in the Iberian Peninsula between the 8th and 15th centuries CE), meant that ‘the Indian Orient could be treated by Europe with such proprietary hauteur – never with the sense of danger reserved for Islam’ (Said, 1978: 75). This European orientalist narrative of Hindu passivity and submissiveness has now been transformed into an Islamophobic Hindutva narrative of victimhood; a positionality that can be used to justify – and frame as decolonial – the movement’s exclusionary discourses, vigilante terrorist practices and divisive politics targeting Indian Muslims (Afreen, 2019; Puniyani, 2018; Singh, 2021). In the case of postcolonial India, the doubling of colonial difference is thus not so much only a spatial fractal recursivity, in the sense that the Indian state is colonizing its own orients (although it can be argued that this is happening too, e.g. in the south and north-east of India, in Kashmir, in the eastern Tribal Belt and in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands). Rather, it is also a historical doubling of British colonial narratives that framed the Hindus as victims of barbaric Muslim rule, as proposed, for instance, in James Mill’s famous The History of British India published in 1817. The British rulers then, and the BJP and RSS now, could use this victim narrative to present themselves as the saviours of the Hindus. Yet, different from the narrative of the future-oriented ‘civilizing’ and ‘industrializing’ British saviours leading India out of the Islamic dark ages and into modern European Enlightenment, the Hindutva double colonial difference is past-oriented, deploying precolonial imaginaries of Hindu ‘purity’ and ancient glory to construct a decolonized future for India, that is Bharat. Southern Theory?

On the surface, we might still say that Hindutva’s revival of the Vedas, the Sanskrit language, yoga and the great Indian epics plays its part in challenging the universality of European science and philosophy since the Greeks, and it thereby helps provincializing the dominant Eurocentric gaze. Is Hindutva, therefore, a decolonial option? Is it a southern theory? Hindutva followers seem to think so. They position themselves as leading the Hindus out of a thousand-year period of oppression, colonialism and conspiracies by foreign forces in their own country. The Hindus,

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they argue, need to return to their own culture and ‘purify’ narratives, laws, linguistic landscapes, discursive formations, science, education and the Hindi language by purging elements that they read as emblematic of this foreign rule. The purification also seems to target what they perceive to be distortions of the Hindu way of life caused by internal emancipation movements that aim to challenge the Brahmanical world order, such as feminism, communism, the Dalit struggle and even secular liberalism. On the level of sociolinguistic ideologies and practices, this purification manifests in a fetishization of shuddh (‘pure’) Hindi, which becomes an index of the true and authentic Hindu national speaker. In what can be described as a double colonial difference, colonial language ideologies are transformed into precolonial imaginaries of Sanskrit ‘purity’ and deployed as a divisive language politics for constructing a future Hindu Rashtra; a fully decolonized Hindu nation. Returning to Fleming and Ansaldo’s (2020) distinction between linguistic revivalism and language revitalization that I quoted at the beginning of this chapter, Hindutva sociolinguistic ‘purification’ must be understood as a linguistic revival movement that, first, abuses Hindi as an instrument of power for state capture and, second, promotes a discriminatory view and exclusionary forms of essentialism, linking language to ethnicity and nationhood. In a contrastive analogy, this would mean that a more inclusive and progressive southern theory for Indian decoloniality would need to focus on language revitalization that is ‘not directed at state capture but rather lobbies for tolerance, accommodation, and political recognition’ (Fleming & Ansaldo, 2020: 5). However, Fleming and Ansaldo (2020: 114–115) also suggest that revitalization and revival might overlap in actual practice, and that essentialism and the erasure of group internal differences might sneak in through the back door of the most genuine revitalization efforts of minoritized and Indigenous groups (see also Wee, 2018). Here, I believe, we can see the value of translanguaging. A translingual perspective can contest centripetal desires to ‘purify’ language and return to some precolonial ideal of the ‘true’ language of the Hindus or other ethnonational groups. Translanguaging is a centrifugal and diversifying force that situates meaning in a transcultural third space of enunciation. Ultimately, what counts as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ southern theory lies in the eyes of the beholder and their emblematic reading of their own and their group’s discursive construction of victimhood in the colonial world system. Also, the difference between conspiracy theories and southern theories, or between reproducing coloniality and challenging coloniality, cannot be ultimately decided by merely observing the discourses and sociolinguistic practices in postcolonial nations. While on the discursive level some aspects of Hindutva might look like decoloniality, interpreting them in the sociopolitical context reveals that these discourses contribute to exclusion, injustice and violence. In my view, Hindutva is thus not a southern theory that represents a decolonial option. As critical scholars

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and democratic citizens, we are now in a position to sharpen our understanding of what decolonization and decoloniality mean to us, and if, and how much, we want to allow right-wing ethnonationalist movements that we see springing up across the postcolony today to engage with some perhaps dangerously similar ideas. Acknowledgements

I thank Ana Deumert and Sinfree Makoni for their incredibly illuminating comments on earlier versions of this chapter. I also thank two anonymous reviewers and my colleagues and friends at the School of English, University of Hong Kong, for engaging with my ideas and providing rich feedback on a presentation of this paper in March 2021. All remaining flaws and inaccuracies are solely my own. Notes (1) Multiple languages, dialects and registers coexist in India, and it is not uncommon for people to use one variety with one person in one moment and another variety with another person in the next moment, performing identities and attending to social hierarchies. The complex language ecology in India is partly promoted through institutional discourses and representations. For example, every rupee note, apart from being bilingual, i.e. containing the same information in Hindi (Devnagari script) and English (Roman script), also represents India’s linguistic heterogeneity by including 15 different scripts. In such representations, the multiscriptality (Choksi, 2021) indexes linguistic heterogeneity. Moreover, to facilitate multilingual literacies, the Indian secondary education system has adopted the so-called three-language formula, in which children receive education in their mother tongue or a regional language, and additionally learn Hindi or English as well as another modern Indian language, depending on where they live. Note that the term ‘regional language’ is commonly used in Indian discourse to refer to any Indian language that is not Hindi or English, which are often termed ‘national languages’ or ‘official languages’. Here, I use ‘regional language’ with caution, aware that the term reproduces a spatial conceptualization of language as having clear geographic boundaries (isoglosses). As people become more mobile and technology unlinks language from space, such a view becomes problematic. (2) The Qutab Minar is one of the most famous Islamic-era tourist sightseeing destinations in Delhi, built under the reign of Qutb al-Din Aibak during the Delhi Sultanate in the 12th/13th centuries CE. Samudragupta was a Hindu ruler of the Gupta Empire who lived in the 4th century CE. (3) In the alliterated subtitle of this book, Batra alludes to Karl Marx, the well-known German sociologist who has become the main inspiration for socialists and communists worldwide; Thomas Babington Macaulay, a British colonial advisor who became famous for advocating an Anglicization of the Indian education system; and the Madrasa, the schooling system that is associated with Islamic cultures and religions.

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Agha, A. (2007) Language and Social Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ahmad, R. (2011) Urdu in Devanagari: Shifting orthographic practices and Muslim identity in Delhi. Language in Society 40, 259–284. Anderson, E. and Jaffrelot, C. (2018) Hindu nationalism and the ‘saffronisation’ of the public sphere: An interview with Christophe Jaffrelot. Contemporary South Asia 26, 468–482. Bakhtin, M.M. (1981) Forms of time and the chronotope in the novel: Notes toward a historical poetics. In M. Holquist (ed.) The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays, 1895–1975 (pp. 84–258). Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Bell, A. (1984) Language style as audience design. Language in Society 13, 145–204. Bhabha, H.K. (1994) The Location of Culture. London: Routledge. Bhardwaj, A. (2017) Dina Nath Batra again: He wants Tagore, Urdu words off school texts. The Indian Express, 24 July. See https://indianexpress​.com​/article​/india​/dina​ -nath​-batra​-again​-he​-wants​-tagore​-urdu​-words​-off​-school​-texts​-4764094/ (accessed 22 January 2021). Bharadwaj, P., Khwaja, A. and Mian, A. (2008) The big march: Migratory flows after the partition of India. Economic and Political Weekly 43, 39–49. Billings, S. (2014) Language, Globalization and the Making of a Tanzanian Beauty Queen. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Canagarajah, S. (2013) Translingual Practice: Global Englishes and Cosmopolitan Relations. Abingdon: Routledge. Césaire, A. ([1950] 2001) Discourse on Colonialism (trans. J. Pinkham). New York: Monthly Review Press. Chand, V. (2011) Elite positionings towards Hindi: Language policies, political stances and language competence in India. Journal of Sociolinguistics 15, 6–35. Choksi, N. (2021) Graphic Politics in Eastern India: Script and the Quest for Autonomy. London: Bloomsbury. Chopra, R. (2019) The Virtual Hindu Rashtra: Saffron Nationalism and New Media. New York: Harper Collins. Clémentin-Ojha, C. (2014) ‘India, that is Bharat…’: One country, two names. SAMAJ: The South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal 10. See https://journals​.openedition​.org​/samaj​/3717 (accessed 22 January 2021). Dadawala, V. (2014) Pseudo-science must not figure in Indian Science Congress. Mumbai Mirror, 31 December. See https://mumbaimirror​.indiatimes​.com​/mumbai​/cover​-story​ /Pseudo​-science​-must​-not​-figure​-in​-Indian​-Science​-Congress​/articleshow​/45698353​ .cms (accessed 22 January 2021). Ferguson, C. (1959) Diglossia. Word 15, 325–340. Firstpost (2014) Birthday cakes bad, ‘Undivided India’: Dinanath Batra’s works now in Guj schools. Firstpost, 25 July. See https://www​.firstpost​.com​/living​/dinananth​-batra​ -to​-saffronise​-guj​-syllabus​-birthday​-cakes​-are​-bad​-burma​-is​-india​-1633781​.html (accessed 22 January 2021). Fishman, J. (1967) Bilingualism with and without diglossia; Diglossia with and without bilingualism. Journal of Social Issues 23, 29–38. Fleming, K. and Ansaldo, U. (2020) Revivals, Nationalism, and Linguistic Discrimination: Threatening Languages. London: Routledge. García, O. and Li, W. (2014) Translanguaging: Language, Bilingualism and Education. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Ghose, S. (1993) Jawaharlal Nehru: A Biography. New Delhi: Allied. Godse, N. (1949) Why I killed Gandhi: Godse’s final address. Punjab High Court, Peterhoff, Simia, India, 5 May. See https://www​.freepressjournal​.in​/india​/why​-i​-killed​ -gandhi​-godses​-final​-address (accessed 22 January 2021). Grosfoguel, R. (2007) The epistemic decolonial turn: Beyond political-economy paradigms. Cultural Studies 21, 211–223.

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Gumperz, J.J. (1962) Types of linguistic communities. Anthropological Linguistics 4 (1), 28–40. Gupta, S. (2014) Ushering India back to a Vedic future. The Print, 20 November. See https://theprint​.in​/national​-interest​/ushering​-india​-back​-to​-a​-vedic​-future​/8771/ (accessed 22 January 2021). Hall, K. (2014) Hypersubjectivity: Language anxiety, and indexical dissonance in globalization. Journal of Asian Pacific Communication 24, 261–273. Hansen, T.B. (1999) The Saffron Wave: Democracy and Hindu Nationalism in Modern India. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Irvine, J. and Gal, S. (2000) Language ideology and linguistic differentiation. In P.V. Kroskrity (ed.) Regimes of Language: Ideologies, Polities, and Identities (pp. 35–84). Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press. Islam, S. (2017) Undoing the soul of democratic secular India: The RSS Pracharak Batra Way. Muslim Mirror, 2 August. See http://muslimmirror​.com​/eng​/undoing​-the​ -soul​-of​-democratic​-secular​-india​-the​-rss​-pracharak​-batra​-way/ (accessed 22 January 2021). Jaffrelot, C. (2019) Saffron ‘Modernity’ in India: Narendra Modi and his Experiment with Gujarat. London: C. Hurst. Khalidi, O. (2008) Hinduising India: Secularism in practice. Third World Quarterly 29, 1545–1562. Kroskrity, P.V. (2018) On recognizing persistence in the Indigenous language ideologies of multilingualism in two native American communities. Language and Communication 62, 133–144. Lee, J.W. and Dovchin, S. (eds) (2020) Translinguistics: Negotiating Innovation and Ordinariness. London: Routledge. Leidig, E. (2020) Hindutva as a variant of right-wing extremism. Patterns of Prejudice 54, 215–237. Mathew, L. (2014) Astrology topmost science, PM Narendra Modi right on Ganesh surgery: Pokhriyal. The Indian Express, 4 December. See https://indianexpress​.com​ /article​/india​/india​-others​/ancient​-india​-tested​-nukes​-modiji​-right​-on​-ganesh​-surgery​ -ex​-cm​-in​-lok​-sabha/ (accessed 22 January 2021). McDonald, H. (1993) Saffron nationalism: Minorities fear upsurge of Hindu revivalists. Far Eastern Economic Review 156, 22. Mcnamara, T. (2005) 21st century shibboleth: Language tests, identity and intergroup conflict. Language Policy 4 (4), 351–370. Mignolo, W. (2000) Local Histories/Global Designs: Coloniality, Subaltern Knowledges, and Border Thinking. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Mukherjee, M. and Mukherjee, A. (2001) The history textbook controversy: An overview. In Delhi Historians’ Group (eds) Communalisation of Education (pp. 4–11). See http://www​.friendsofsouthasia​.org​/textbook​/NCERT​_Delhi​_Historians_​_Group​.pdf (accessed 22 January 2021). Outlook (2014) A conspiracy hatched by the children of Marx and Macaulay. Outlook, 3 March. See https://www​.outlookindia​.com​/website​/story​/a​-conspiracy​-hatched​-by​ -the​-children​-of​-marx​-and​-macaulay​/289719 (accessed 22 January 2021). Outlook (2017) Gujarat university tells students Hindu sages invented aeroplanes, nuclear technology. Outlook, 9 March. See https://www​.outlookindia​.com​/website​/story​ /gujarat​-university​-tells​-students​-hindu​-sages​-invented​-aeroplanes​-nuclear​-techno​ /298181 (accessed 22 January 2021). Puniyani, R. (2018) Muslims and the politics of exclusion. In A. Shaban (ed.) Lives of Muslims in India: Politics, Exclusion and Violence (pp. 66–87). Abingdon: Routledge. Rosa, J. (2019) Looking Like a Language, Sounding Like a Race: Raciolinguistic Ideologies and the Learning of Latinidad. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Roychowdhury, A. (2020) From Meluha to Hindustan, the many names of India and Bharat. The Indian Express, 7 June. See https://indianexpress​.com​/article​/research​/ from​-meluha​-to​-hindustan​-the​-many​-names​-of​-india​-and​-bharat​-6445264/ (accessed 22 January 2021). RSS (2012) Vision and mission. RSS.org, 22 October. See https://www​.rss​.org/​/Encyc​/2015​ /3​/13​/Vision​-and​-Mission​.html (accessed 22 January 2021). Said, E. (1978) Orientalism: Western Conceptions of the Orient. London: Penguin. Sengupta, N. (2020) Modi ‘fulfilled’ dream of Hindus: Ayodhya MP on Ram Temple ceremony. India Today, 3 August. See https://www​.indiatoday​.in​/india​/story​/modi​ -fulfilled​-dream​-of​-hindus​-ayodhya​-mp​-on​-ram​-temple​-ceremony​-1707338​-2020​-08​ -03 (accessed 22 January 2021). Sharma, A. (2002) On Hindu, Hindustān, Hinduism and Hindutva. Numen 49, 1–36. Sharma, G. (2014) Preparing a blueprint to ‘Indianise’ education: Dinanath Batra. Firstpost, 1 August. See https://www​.firstpost​.com​/india​/preparing​-blueprint​-indianise​ -education​-dinanath​-batra​-1644407​.html (accessed 22 January 2021). Sharma, K. (2019) Vedic plastic surgery to test-tube Karna: Non-science claims flowed from Modi downwards. The Print, 9 January. See https://theprint​.in​/science​/vedic​ -plastic​-surgery​-to​-test​-tube​-karna​-non​-science​-claims​-flowed​-from​-modi​-downwards​/174757/ (accessed 22 January 2021). Singh, J.N. (2021) The sociolinguistic saffronisation of India. In I. Theodoropoulou and J. Tovar (eds) Research Companion to Language and Country Branding (pp. 57–71). London: Routledge. Snell, R. and Weightman, S. (2003) Teach Yourself Hindi: Complete Course. New York: McGraw-Hill. Subramaniam, B. (2019) Holy Science: The Biopolitics of Hindu Nationalism. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press. Taylor, M.C. (2014) Hindu activism and academic censorship in India. South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies 37, 717–725. Tlostanova, M. (2015) Can the post-Soviet think? On coloniality of knowledge, external imperial and double colonial difference. Intersections. EEJSP 1, 38–58. Tlostanova, M. and Mignolo, W. (2009) Global coloniality and the decolonial option. Kult 6, 130–147. Wee, L. (2018) Essentialism and language rights. In L. Lim, C. Stroud and L. Wee (eds) The Multilingual Citizen: Towards a Politics of Language for Agency and Change (pp. 40–64). Bristol: Multilingual Matters.

3 The South in the North: Colonization and Decolonization of the Mind Pia Lane

Introduction

When we grew up, there was silence. We grew up embedded in a world that saw no value in the languages spoken by the adults in our home. Like Linda Tuhiwai Smith (2012: ix), I ‘was born into one world and educated in another’; or rather, I was educated in two worlds – the Norwegian national school system and then later as a researcher in the fields of sociolinguistics and multilingualism. In the first educational world, our background was silenced and absent, and in the second educational world, I silenced myself by not including my voice and experiences in my academic publications. Both these worlds were characterized by absences – the unspoken, unsaid and unexplored. In this chapter, I analyze such absences, drawing on interviews conducted by Finnish ethnologists in 1975, my own experiences and extensive fieldwork and recorded interviews that I undertook between 1996 and today. All data come from my home community, Bugøynes-Pykejä in Norway, where I grew up in a multilingual family but was spoken to in Norwegian only. The interviews from 1975 and 2008 are part of the Ruija corpus, a collection of transcribed interviews from multilingual areas in the county of Troms and Finnmark, Norway (Lane et al., 2022). The corpus is hosted at the University of Oslo and co-developed by the Text Laboratory and myself.1 In the examples, pseudonyms of the participants are used. The first part of the chapter is devoted to silences and absences through language shift, whereas the second part addresses emergences and new types of silences in language reclamation. In order to address these issues these issues, I draw on some perspectives from southern theory, particularly Boaventura de Sousa Santos’s (2016) notion of the sociology of absences and emergences, and Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s (1986) exploration 39

40  From Southern Theory to Decolonizing Sociolinguistics

of the colonization of the mind. In line with Santos, I see the south not as a geographical concept, but as a tool for understanding the processes of marginalization, silencing and colonization. The chapter is structured in a chronological manner: I start by giving some background on the Kven people and our language, and outline Norway’s historical assimilatory policies; then I move on to the period of silence and language shift, followed by a section on how reclamation may be a profoundly emotional experience and lead to new forms of silences. I conclude with a short section reflecting on some perspectives that southern theory may contribute to research on language reclamation. This text is also an attempt to build a more reflective analysis, because for me, analyzing language shift and reclamation is not only an academic endeavour but also a way of understanding my own language journey and decolonizing my own mind. In line with Wesley Leonard (2017: 29), I see reclamation as decolonization because reclamation encompasses a community’s ‘efforts to claim its right to speak a language and to set associated goals in response to community needs and perspectives’. Reclamation also brings a focus on those who strive to take their language back; their stories, experiences and emotions are one of the focal points of analysis in this chapter. The Making of a Minority

Northern parts of what today are the Norwegian, Swedish and Finnish nation-states have always been characterized by diversity; there were seasonal migration and intermarriage between groups, and multilingualism was not only common but also the order of the day. In my home area, several languages were spoken: North Sámi, Skolt Sámi, Kven (which also used to be called Finnish) and Norwegian. The Kven language is a part of the Finno-Ugric language group and similar to Finnish in Finland, though there are substantial differences in vocabulary. The Kven people migrated from what today is Northern Sweden and Finland and settled in Northern Norway during the 17th and 18th centuries, when Norway was in a union first with Denmark until 1814 and then with Sweden until 1905. Many settled before the national borders were drawn, and as in many other parts of the world, state borders divided an area where multilingual groups of people co-existed. The Dano-Norwegian authorities initially regarded the Kven people and their migration as an important socioeconomic contribution in the sparsely populated northernmost part of the Dano-Norwegian nation. Northern Norway was an area with few permanent inhabitants possessing farming and forestry skills, and several nations had previously laid down claims to this region. Therefore, the Dano-Norwegian authorities welcomed the Kven people’s farming settlements in the Arctic coastal areas of Norway. This positive attitude towards the northern minorities changed in the middle of the 19th century when the idea and vision of Norway as

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a nation emerged. National romanticism and German ideas of nationalism influenced the formation of the Norwegian nation-state and ideas of nationhood and belonging. Because the nation was defined primarily in terms of ethnicity and language was seen as the most significant sign of this, language also became an important criterion for being a nation, and the young nation-state Norway was built on the idea of a homogeneous, monolingual nation. Two written standards of Norwegian were developed: Bokmål (based on the Danish-influenced Norwegian spoken in cities in southern Norway) and Nynorsk (based on dialects, primarily by the west coast and southern inland areas). These two written standards were seen as the same language. The multilingual and diverse north did not fit the ideology of the nation-state as a well-structured, clearly defined, homogeneous and integrated entity, and the Norwegian authorities established an official national policy aimed at ‘Norwegianizing’ the northern minorities. Language, therefore, played a central role in the Norwegianization process of the Sámi and Kven people in the mid-19th century. The state employed assimilative strategies to limit or in some cases even ban the use of minority languages in domains such as the education system. From the middle of the 19th century, the Kven people were not allowed to use their language with authorities, especially in schools, and parents were encouraged to speak Norwegian only to their children (Pietikäinen et al., 2010). The Kven and Sámis went through a period of substantial linguistic oppression. From 1850, the official Norwegian goal was to make the local population Norwegian speaking. In the 1880s, new guidelines (the so-called language regulations) for the northern schools were issued, where it was emphasized that the use of Kven and Sámi was only allowed as supportive languages when absolutely necessary. This remained the official Norwegian policy until 1959 when the Norwegian parliament allowed Sámi (at least in principle) to be used as a language of instruction. Teachers tended to interpret the language regulations quite strictly – often Kven and Sámi children were not allowed to use their languages – and in some cases, children were beaten if they used their mother tongue (Seppola, 1996). Teachers advised parents not to speak Kven or Sámi to their children, and if the teachers’ efforts were successful, they received a salary increase. Boarding schools were established in the north to ensure a Norwegian environment. In 1940, there were 21 such boarding schools in the two northernmost counties of Norway where the total population was estimated to be approximately 100,000. Norwegian farmers from the south were given land in the northern areas to ensure a Norwegian presence (Lane, 2011: 59–60), and according to the Land Sales Act (abolished in 1964), one had to speak Norwegian in order to buy land (Bull, 2014). The practices of assimilation coercing people to adapt to a Norwegian lifestyle and language intensified after the Second World War. Northern

42  From Southern Theory to Decolonizing Sociolinguistics

Norway lost its material original culture after the German army used ‘scorched earth’ tactics during the autumn of 1944. Thus, after the war, the northern region was rebuilt in a Norwegian style with prefabricated houses designed in southern Norway, and Kven and Sámi material culture such as books, clothes and buildings disappeared (Lane, 2011). The Scandinavian idea of social democracy and welfare was founded on the idea of equality and social homogeneity. The key factor for full entry into and success in Norwegian society was knowledge of the Norwegian language, which resulted in an accelerated language shift, and Norwegian therefore became the main language in the Kven communities during the decades after the Second World War. Absences: Language Shift

As in numerous other contexts, assimilatory and oppressive policies lead to a devaluation of local cultural and linguistic practices, and many Kven and Sámi parents spoke only Norwegian to their children. Many minority language speakers express that they did not wish to place the same burden on their children as the one they had to carry, and therefore they did not speak their first language to their children. Speaking Kven was considered a great shame, so the Kven tried to speak Norwegian as best they could, but their Norwegian was not ‘proper’ Norwegian. The experience of starting school with no room for their mother tongue often silenced the generations of our grandparents and parents, who later as adults passed this heritage of silence on to us by using only the national language (Lane, 2010, 2023). There was a perceived need to leave our language behind, as Norwegian was seen as the future; thus, the education system has the power to influence perception and shape how its subjects see and understand the social world (deSouza, 2017; Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong’o, 1986). In the interviews conducted by Finnish ethnologists in 1975, many of those interviewed expressed that Norwegian was necessary, particularly in the school system. Many of those interviewed referred to their language as Finnish, as this was the most common term in Pykejä then, though it was often modified by words like meän (‘our’), Pykejän (Pykejä’s) or vanha (‘old’), possibly to distinguish this from Finnish spoken in Finland. In 1975, Kven had not yet been recognized as a language in Norway (see below). In the interview excerpts, I have kept the terms used by the participants. The interviews from 1975 were conducted in Finnish as the interviewers were Finns, whereas the recent interviews were carried out in Norwegian. The perceived language hierarchy – with Norwegian in a privileged position and other languages having a negative impact on Norwegian – was expressed by Anny, who when talking about her children’s encounters with the Norwegian school said that there was no place for Finnish in the school:

The South in the North  43

se ei ollu hyvä (.) että suomia norjaa norjan koulu oli (.) ni että ko sehän oppi vasta sitten ko oli nii iso työ ni että ‘it wasn’t good (.) that there was Finnish in the Norwegian school (.) that they learned this later so that [it] was such a big job’2 (Anny, 1975)

Anny did not speak Norwegian when she started school (around 1920). She spoke Kven to her older children but mainly Norwegian – a language she had learned at school – to the younger ones, because ‘it was such a big job’ for them to start school if they did not speak it. Many other interviewees from 1975 brought similar concerns, mentioning that it took so long to learn Norwegian and that Kven would löypi läpi (‘break through’) and ruin the children’s Norwegian. There are many examples of what we may call a monolingual mindset: multilingualism was seen as a problem, and speaking Kven was believed to damage children’s Norwegian. Though the most common reasons for speaking Norwegian to the children in the interviews are pragmatic, as in the example above, there are also stories that shed light on the more emotional aspects of language shift. Parents remembered their own painful and silent encounters with the education system, when observing their children’s encounters with a system that put strong emphasis on Norwegian and a discourse of modernity or progress where Norwegian was seen as the route to future prosperity. Most of the parents chose to only speak Norwegian to their children (Lane, 2010). Some of their stories are heartbreaking. Anne, who belongs to the younger generation (compared to Anny), said that her children understood Kven but did not wish to speak the language themselves: se oli pienempänä se itki ko mie praatasin suomia (.) .h se san et ei hän vastaa ko sie et saata oikeen lailla praataa (.) se itki monta kertaa [soft voice] ‘when she was smaller she cried when I spoke Finnish (.) .h she said that she won’t answer because you can’t talk properly (.) she cried many times [soft voice]’ (Anne, 1975)

Anne explained that her younger children understood Finnish but did not speak it, and recounted that she once asked her daughter how she had experienced her parents speaking Finnish: mie sanoin että (.) olik_sie pannu merkhiin koskhaan että sulla (.) .h hiastaaki tuo ko me (.) mamma pappa praataan suomia (.) oon (.) sano että ja se tekkee kaikille sen (.) ‘I said that (.) have you ever noticed that you get (.) .h disturbed/bothered when we (.) mummy daddy speak Finnish (.) [she] said that yes it’s like this for everybody this (.)’ (Anne, 1975)

44  From Southern Theory to Decolonizing Sociolinguistics

Anne phrased her question in a rhetorical manner, asking her daughter if she had ever felt disturbed by her parents speaking Finnish, and her daughter confirmed that yes, this was the case for everybody. Anne then went on to say her daughter said that Finnish would break through and that she did not do as well in school as those whose parents spoke Norwegian only. This interview was conducted only a few years after the onset of the language shift, so while Kven was the language of communication between adults, there were families where the older children were spoken to in Kven, whereas their younger siblings were spoken to in Norwegian. Hence, the language shift manifested within families as well as on a societal level. Anne introduced this little story by explaining why she did not teach her younger children Finnish, saying that of course they had to learn Norwegian because they lived in Norway and went to a Norwegian school. The interviewer then asked Anne if the teachers should speak Finnish in the school, or if it was better for them to speak Norwegian. Anne seemed a bit surprised by this question, possibly because she had just voiced quite strongly that not speaking Norwegian at home would impede the children’s acquisition of Norwegian, or because the thought of teachers using any other language than Norwegian was inconceivable to her. She stated that even teachers from the village spoke only Norwegian to the children and that teachers said that children who spoke Finnish at home mixed their languages and used incorrect words, and that their Finnish seeped through. These are recurring statements in the interviews. Anne then retold once again what her daughters had said: ne sanoki monta kerran ne on niin vihassaki monta kerran olleet että (.) tuo se sais se suomen kieli mennä pois että me m_emme ossaa opi oikeaa norjaakaan ‘they said many times they are so angry [intensifier] many times they have been (.) that this, this Finnish language can just disappear because we can’t even learn proper Norwegian’ (Anne, 1975)

Anne paused after this statement, then said that she noticed that for her it is difficult to speak Norwegian, and described how for her speaking Finnish is easier, more enjoyable and creates a feeling of unity and belonging. Still, she did not question speaking Norwegian with her daughters and continued to portray Norwegian as the naturalized choice in an educational setting. The common perception of Kven ruining the majority language takes precedence over using the language she felt comfortable in, to the extent that she did not speak her language of home, belonging, humour and relaxation with her younger children. This is a paradox, and in order to address this, we need to acknowledge that the south also exists in the Global North, as European nation-states are also colonized ‘at home’ (Santos, 2016):

The South in the North  45

The global South is not a geographical concept, even though the great majority of its populations live in countries of the Southern hemisphere. The South is rather a metaphor for the human suffering caused by capitalism and colonialism on the global level, as well as for the resistance to overcoming or minimising such suffering […] It is a South that also exists in the geographic North (Europe and North America), in the form of excluded, silenced and marginalised populations. (Santos, 2016: 18–19)

In northern (geographical) contexts, language shift has been analyzed in terms of nation-state building, oppressive minority language policies and language vitality (see Pietikäinen et al., 2010). A key factor not sufficiently addressed is that language is a means for controlling self-definition, and I believe that southern theory provides new perspectives by helping us understand that for language shift to be successful, one has to change and control people’s culture and self-definition. This is, as pointed out by Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong’o (1986), the path to domination: Its most important area of domination was the mental universe of the colonised, the control, through culture, of how people perceived themselves and their relationship to the world. Economic and political control can never be complete or effective without mental control. To control a people’s culture is to control their tools of self-definition in relationship to others. (Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong’o, 1986: 16)

Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong’o (1986: 9) sees language as the key vehicle in this process, describing the bullet as the means of physical subjugation and language as the means of spiritual subjugation. Southern theory researchers have shown that colonialism led to an erasure of cultural memory and made the colonized people feel that their cultures were inferior and that abandoning them to adopt the cultural practices of the colonizer was the way forward to prosperity and civilization (deSouza, 2017: 142). Language shift could happen because of what Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong’o (1986) calls colonization of the mind – when a nation-state succeeds in making its subjects internalize a feeling of interiority and otherness. Northern Norway was not colonized in the same way as non-European regions, but we recognize striking similarities when it comes to views of knowledge production, oppressive policies and the devaluation of local cultural practices that led to what Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong’o describes as the colonization of the mind or mental control, and Santos (2016: 18) describes as epistemicide – ‘the destruction of knowledge through colonial domination’. There are also parallels with regard to the control of land ownership (the authorities attempted to exclude the local Kven and Sámi people from owning land), many children spent long periods at boarding school removed from their culture, and skulls were removed from Sámi graves and brought to Oslo where they were measured (Keskitalo, 2020). This shows that the violence

46  From Southern Theory to Decolonizing Sociolinguistics

of racism was not only present in colonialism in the geographical south, but that in Norway the formation of the nation-state was also carried out in tandem with processes of colonization. The greatest success of the Norwegianization processes was that the Kven and Sámi people Norwegianized themselves. We carried out the Norwegianization process by silencing our languages and ourselves, relegating our knowledges and practices to the home arena, where they were accessible only to the children, like me, who understood Kven. For children who did not have this passive language competence, local ways of knowing were less accessible as knowledge and ways of seeing were shared primarily in arenas where Kven was spoken. The destruction of knowledge may be material (removal or destruction of cultural artefacts, for instance), but also immaterial and less obvious, by making us forget and leave our language and cultural traditions. Sometimes it is easier to forget and leave a language in silence. Paul Connerton (2008) reminds us that forgetting may not be seen as a failure for those who choose to forget, or who have to forget. One type of forgetting is covert, unmarked and unacknowledged. This is what Connerton (2008) describes as ‘forgetting as humiliated silence’: Its most salient feature is a humiliated silence. Perhaps it is paradoxical to speak of such a condition as evidence for a form of forgetting, because occasions of humiliation are so difficult to forget; it is often easier to forget physical pain than to forget humiliation. Yet few things are more eloquent than a massive silence. And in the collusive silence brought on by a particular kind of collective shame there is detectable both a desire to forget and sometimes the actual effect of forgetting. (Connerton, 2008: 67)

In Kven and Sámi communities, this sense of collective shame brought about such forgetting as humiliated silence and, for many, the feeling of shame became internalized to such an extent that people did not even question the hegemonic discourses of the inferiority of languages other than the national official language (Lane, 2010). The idea of Norway as a monolingual nation was promoted through the education system and the church, and the discourse of monolingualism was taken up by individuals, particularly through their encounters with the education system. When we attended school in the 1970s and 1980s, we were taught that Norway was a homogeneous monolingual nation, even though we lived in a highly diverse and multilingual area where Kven, Norwegian, North Sámi and Skolt Sámi were spoken. In my home village, this led to a situation where adults spoke to us in a language that was not their mother tongue, and because of the silencing of Kven and Sámi, we were not aware that we grew up in a multilingual environment. This discourse became so dominant that it was seen as natural and legitimate ‘because it is simply the way of conducting oneself’

The South in the North  47

(Fairclough, 2001: 76), and it shaped both beliefs about language and discursive practices in Kven communities (Lane, 2010). When a dominant discourse is taken up and internalized in this manner, it becomes a part of who people are and how they see themselves, and it is as natural, taken for granted and invisible as breathing. Social practices and ideologies may become internalized and integrated in our historical bodies to such an extent that we are no longer aware of them. Our historical body is the lifetime accumulation of our actions, memories, life histories and experiences, defined by Ron Scollon and Suzie Scollon (2004) in the following way: Different people play the same role differently depending on their history of personal experience inscribed in what the philosopher Nishida calls the historical body. A lifetime of personal habits comes to feel so natural that one’s body carries out action seemingly without being told. Bourdieu referred to this phenomenon as habitus but we prefer historical body because it situates bodily memories more precisely in the individual body. (Scollon & Scollon, 2004: 13)

Often, we are not even aware of how or when attitudes and feelings have been passed on to us and later materialized in practice, because time erases memory of learned practice. Our parents and grandparents, who had experienced the oppressive policies, passed on a practice of silence and silencing to the next generation, who in turn, though not being affected by such policies, perpetuated this practice of silence. Many of those who were interviewed in 1975 seemed to be unaware of the ongoing language shift. In another interview, Kristine told the interviewer that her children did not speak Finnish, though they seemed to understand a few words. When asked by the interviewer whether it looks as if Finnish would disappear from the village, Kristine’s answer was characterized by numerous hesitations and statements of en mie tiiä (‘I don’t know’): ‘eeh en mie tiiä (.) en minä tiiä (.) sanoa siihen mittään va- eeeh minusta nuo (.) eeeh (.) tuntuu että kaikki ny praataavat suomia (.) nii (.) ku ne vaan täytyvät niin ne alkaa praataamaan suomia (.) mutta sehän saattaa että se (.) katuaa poies (.) eeeh (.) ni (.) /om lenge/ joo (.) mutta em_mie tiiä mie (.) mie kuitenkin olen oppinu suomia em_mie tiiä mistä mie olen oppinu [laughter] se on tullu ‘eeh I don’t know (.) I don’t know (.) say anything about this bu- eeeh I think that (.) eeeh (.) it seems like everybody now speaks Finnish (.) yes (.) when they have to they will start speaking Finnish (.) but it might happen that Finnish disappears (.) eeeh (.) yes (.) /in a long time/ yes (.) but I don’t know I (.) I anyway learned Finnish I don’t know from where I have learned it [laughter] came (.) it has come’ (Kristine, 1975)

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The use of phrases such as ‘I don’t know’ in interactions should not be understood as an indication of a real lack of knowledge. Wayne Beach and Terri Metzger (1997) outline several strategical functions of such phrases in interactions; for instance, marking uncertainty, constructing neutral positions to mitigate agreement and disagreement, and avoiding troubling issues. Kristine was interviewed by a researcher from Finland, and the question about the future of Finnish might be difficult for her to discuss with someone from Finland, as this is perceived as their shared language. This topic might also have caused some inner ambiguity for Kristine as she was forced to start thinking about her own language choices. Below, I discuss how Kristine described these choices in a conversation 29 years after this interview. There are a number of other interesting features worth looking at in Kristine’s answer; one of the most striking is her uncertainty when asked if Finnish might disappear. This is somewhat surprising as she had just said that she and her husband speak only Norwegian with their children, and Kristine – like most other people in Bugøynes – had come to see this choice as so natural that she did not question her choice, nor reflect on the consequences. Such a lack of awareness of an unfolding language shift is not uncommon and has been described by, for instance, Don Kulick (1992) and Joseph Gafaranga (2010). Gafaranga (2010: 242) reminds us that while Joshua Fishman (1991) underscores the role of families and community-level actions in reversing language shift, we face a challenge because ‘in situations of language shift, the people involved are usually not aware of the actual interactional processes through which the shift is proceeding’ (­Gafaranga, 2010: 242). This is striking in the interviews from 1975: all those who were interviewed spoke Norwegian only to all their children (or to their younger children), but they still seemed to be blind to the loss of Kven, stating that the children would start speaking Finnish later. When asked about the future of Finnish, they did seem to realize that it might disappear, but this was not seen as problematic, not even by those who said they did not speak Norwegian well. Even when stating clearly that they felt less comfortable and more restricted when speaking Norwegian, they did not question or problematize using Norwegian in interactions with their children. Finnish was seen as a liability, seeping through, ruining their children’s Norwegian and creating problems in school. Thus, Norwegian came to be perceived as the natural choice, unmarked and unquestioned. Our language was silenced, first by the education system, and then by our parents and grandparents. For many in the generations of our parents and grandparents, encountering the Norwegian school ‘without a language’ was a burden they did not wish to place on their children, and therefore they did not speak their mother tongue with us.

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Santos (2016: 26) brings up the body as central for understanding human experiences of both struggle and joy: ‘I think that the epistemologies of the South have focused on the body because the struggles are carried out by fighting bodies and the body suffers, rejoices, and dies’. In recent sociolinguistic research, a focus on the body as a resource in the semiotic repertoire has emerged – an aspect also present in the notion of the historical body (cited above), a lifetime’s accumulation of memories and experiences inscribed in our bodies. This is a key issue for understanding processes of language shift and reclamation, because as we internalize the consequences of oppressive policies, resistance and positive changes in self-perceptions can also be internalized and shape our futures (Lane, 2023). It is our bodies that forget, but it is also our bodies that can turn to remembering and reclaiming a silenced language. Emergences: Language Reclamation

The official minority language policies started to change towards the 1960s, and one of the first political decisions signaling this change was the Educational Act of 1959, allowing Kven and Sámi to be used in schools. Inspired by demands for self-sovereignty and linguistic rights by Indigenous communities internationally, the Sámi people started claiming recognition as an Indigenous people, culminating in Norway’s ratification of the International Labour Organisation (1989) Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention in 1990. In 1989, the Sámi Parliament was established and Sámi was recognized as an official language in Norway in 1992. The Sámi movement in Norway and international minority activism (particularly in Sweden) influenced Kven revitalization, and the Kven began to work towards getting their language recognized and striving for linguistic and cultural rights. Norway has ratified two conventions under the auspices of the ­Council of Europe, namely the European Charter for Regional or M ­ inority Languages (1993) and the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (1998). This has had an impact on N ­ orwegian minority language policies for the Kven language and, in turn, how the Kven themselves relate to their language. Initially, Kven was subsumed under Finnish, but in 2005 Norway accepted it as a ­separate language and not only as a dialect of Finnish (see Lane, 2011, for an analysis of this process). Some perceived the term ‘Kven’ as ­stigmatizing, but during the past decade it has become widely used and accepted. This brought about a change in perspectives. Several of those who were interviewed in 1975 were interviewed again in 2004 (by me) and in 2008 and 2010 (by field assistants). In an interview with Kristine and her daughter Else, we were talking about why families changed to speaking

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Norwegian with their children, and Kristine asked: ‘hvorfor ble det sånn?’ (‘Why did it become like this?’), followed by ‘nå følte æ bare at det var sånn (…) ikke nødvendig’ (‘well, I just felt that it was like (…) not necessary’). Kristine’s comment fits the explanation given by so many in Pykejä: we did what we thought was best for our children. Many people of my parents’ generation told me that it was shameful to speak Kven at school, so they tried to speak Norwegian as best they could, but their Norwegian was not ‘proper’ Norwegian. When meeting national official institutions, such as the education system, many experienced a position of double shame: their mother tongue was worthless, and they could only try to replace it with a foreign language they did not master (Lane, 2011: 67). This was a concern raised by Kristine: før sa vi at (.) ja mamma og pappa sa ikke kan du norsk og ikke kan du finsk (.) du e sånn [5 second pause] du kan ingen ting du (.) kan ingenting ordentlig (.) språkforderva ‘we used to say that (.) yeah Mum and Dad said you can’t speak Norwegian, nor can you speak Finnish (.) you’re like [5 second pause] you don’t know anything (.) don’t know anything properly (.) linguistically ruined’ (Kristine, 2004)

This shows how a feeling of shame and inferiority may be passed on and become internalized and part of people’s historical bodies: we came to see our mother tongue as void of value and this was one of the reasons that our parents did not pass it on to us. They believed that they acted in their children’s best interests, as knowledge of Norwegian was seen as the key to success. Kristine’s daughter, Else, reflected on attitudes she remembered from her childhood when learning two languages was seen as problematic because ‘children would mix languages and not learn any language properly’. Her mother, Kristine, then said with great emphasis ‘det var uvitenhet’ (‘this was ignorance’), a sentiment that was supported by Else (cited in Lane, 2006): også vil noen si det var for det beste (.) sånn vil det bli (.) med det friskt i minne det var jo det de hadde opplevd sjøl ‘yeah (.) and somebody would say that it was for the best (.) that’s what happens (.) with this fresh in their minds it was of course what they’d experienced themselves’ (Lane, 2006: 108)

Many of those I have spoken with since the early 2000s, like Kristine and Else, now question and problematize choices made by themselves, their parents or their grandparents. The loss of the Kven language is one of the issues brought up repeatedly at the open meetings organized by the Norwegian Truth and Reconciliation Commission (a parliamentary

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commission of inquiry established to investigate the Norwegianization policy and injustice against the Sámi and Kven peoples). This grief of a lost language also manifests in interviews in the media, such as in Ruijan Kaiku, the Kven newspaper, where a woman who has reclaimed Kven as an adult says: Det er en sorg at man har tapt ett språk som har vært så nært tilgjengelig, men at man som barn likevel ikke fikk ta del i det. Da jeg vokste opp var ikke kvensk ansett å være et språk for barn. ‘It is a sorrow that one has lost a language that has been so closely available, but that one as a child still couldn’t be a part of. When I grew up, Kven wasn’t seen as a language for children.’ (Monsen, 2016)

She further describes how she erased her Kven accent when she spoke Norwegian, so that she could erase herself to fit into a Norwegian environment. Such absences can make life more bearable. We were shapwed by the Norwegianization process, our education and a heritage of absences and silences, or in the words of Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong’o (1986: 12): ‘Literacy education was now determined by the dominant language while also reinforcing that dominance’. He goes on to describe the journey we, sometimes unawares, embarked on: ‘Thus language and literature were taking us further and further from ourselves to other selves, from our world to other worlds’. Language reclamation may be seen as a possible journey back to ourselves and our worlds, and thereby as having the potential to decolonize our minds. In contrast to language shift and loss, language revitalization is often portrayed as an emancipatory process through which speakers find and develop their own voice, identity and belonging. Nancy Dorian (1987) points out that language revitalization efforts may provide some compensation for the pain of stigma and ridicule experienced by minority language speakers, mitigate negative family attitudes and valorize traditional lifeways and the transmission of ethnic history. In spite of this emancipatory potential, recent research shows that speakers who reclaim a minoritized language may find it difficult and even scary to start speaking the language (see Rasmus & Lane, 2021, and Walsh, 2019, for discussions on Sámi and Irish, respectively). During fieldwork in my home area around 2010, I started noticing that Kven and Sámi people used the term språksperra (‘the language barrier’) when talking about their challenges of speaking Kven or Sámi, in spite of having studied the language in school. This echoed with my own experience of having reclaimed Kven as an adult; I felt that Kven was a language I ought to speak and preferably should speak fluently. A similar experience was also described by Eli who said that even though

52  From Southern Theory to Decolonizing Sociolinguistics

she had studied Finnish for several years, she still found it difficult to speak the language. She spoke Finnish with tourists who were visiting Bugøynes and she did not mind making mistakes when talking to them, but she contrasted this to speaking Finnish with local friends. She juxtaposed these experiences using the prepositional phrase i forhold til (‘in comparison’): æ kan snakk- æ s- æ snakker finsk av og til æ treff p- ee treffer turister og sånn i sånn (.) da kan æ gått (.) det e’kke så farlig om æ gjør feil å sånn men i forhold til ee (.) ee vi har jo masse finske venner og mann min snakker jo flytende finsk (.) å men i sammen med de så ee så bare knoter æ (.) de æ får ikke de til (.) æ syns rett og slett der e litt skummelt (.) og det va ee det e jo en ny erfaring for æ har aldri vært redd for å (.) prate i vei på (.) på ja på eng- ja engelsk e jo greit da ‘I speak I s- I speak Finnish some times when I m- eh meet tourists and such in such (.) then I can (.) it doesn’t matter if I make mistakes and such but in comparison to eh (.) we do have Finnish friends and my husband speaks fluent Finnish (.) and but with them the eh I just babble (.) I don’t manage (.) I find it scary plain and simple (.) and this was a new experience because I’ve never been scared of talking lots (.) in yes Eng- yes English is ok’ (Eli, 2008)

A tension along two axes may be identified in this excerpt: Eli stated that speaking Finnish with tourists or strangers is easier than talking with people she knows, such as her husband or friends. She mentioned sperre (‘barrier’) and described this as scary, underscored by the phrase rett og slett (‘plain and simple’), which is an expression that may be used to emphasize something or underscore something unexpected. In Eli’s case, the expression seems to serve both functions: she repeated that she found speaking Finnish difficult and then underscored that this was unexpected: ‘this was a new experience’. Finally, she contrasted this to her experience with speaking English, which she had never been afraid of doing. Interestingly, she employed the term redd for, which could be translated as ‘afraid of’ or ‘scared of’. Implicitly, she linked this to her previous statement on speaking Finnish by the choice of lexemes: scary, difficult and scared of; thus, there is an emotional undercurrent in this short narrative. Paradoxically, the way out of silence may result in speakers silencing themselves: speakers worry that their way of speaking will be judged by ‘better’ or more proficient speakers, or we might have to overcome an inner barrier. When reclaiming an Indigenous minoritized language, speakers may have to face feelings of insecurity and shame resulting from colonialism, oppressive policies and stigmatization (see Rasmus & Lane, 2021, for an analysis of such experiences in a Sámi context). The history of Indigenous minority languages is associated not only

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with positive belonging to place and family, but also with alienation and shame, described by King and Hermes (2014) as ‘the scars of colonization’. The emotional aspects of language learning in Indigenous contexts run deep because of identity politics and social control as to who has the right to claim the role of an authentic speaker. Therefore, reclaiming a minority language can be a painful experience for the individual; in fact, so painful that the fear of speaking the minority language silences people. Emotional experiences are a key, but often overlooked, aspect of language reclamation. Emotional aspects of language learning are not only psychological, but also physical and embodied experiences (Busch, 2012). This emotional turn in second language acquisition research resonates with what Santos (2016: 26) calls a ‘warm current of reason’, which includes emotions caused by unjust suffering or by victory over oppression. Seeing Our World Anew: Contributions from Southern Theory

In his call for a sociology of emergences, Santos (2016: 22) states that we need other knowledges, other conceptions of time, productivity and spatial scales. Such perspectives might give us new insights into the paradoxes of language reclamation and help us recognize that the decolonization of the mind can be both a profoundly liberating and a very painful experience. If we are to prepare those who embark on the journey of reclaiming their language not only for the healing aspects but also for the tensions, challenges and potentially even painful experiences we encounter when we face the heritage of the past, we need additional ecologies of knowledges (Santos, 2016) that can help us see the world anew. Southern theory shows that there are other possible futures, born out of struggle and awareness of suffering (Santos & Meneses, 2020), which remind us that facing hurt from the past is not in vain because this may lead us to new possible futures. We need to remember that our historical bodies carry our memories and lifetime experiences, and that this, in turn, shapes how we remember, learn and reclaim languages. Notes (1) The Ruija corpus. See https://www​.hf​.uio​.no​/iln​/english​/about​/organization​/text​ -laboratory​/projects​/ruija​/ruija​.html (accessed 8 March 2023). (2) Transcription conventions: (.) pause // segment in Norwegian .h in-breath word- incomplete word _ words pronounced as one unit

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References Beach, W.A. and Metzger, T. (1997) Claiming insufficient knowledge. Human Communication Research 23, 562–588. Bull, K.S. (2014) Jordsalgslovgivning. En rettshistorisk lovgjennomgang av ­jordsalgslovgivningen i Finnmark i perioden 1775–1965. https://www.domstol.no/ globalassets/domstolene/finnmarkskommisjonen/andre-typer-dokumenter/sakkyndige-utredninger/tematiske/rettshistorisk-gjennomgang-av-jordsalgslovgivningen-ifinnmark-i-perioden-1775---1965.pdf (accessed 2 May 2023). Busch, B. (2012) The linguistic repertoire revisited. Applied Linguistics 33, 503–523. Connerton, P. (2008) Seven types of forgetting. Memory Studies 1, 59–71. deSouza, P.R. (2017) The recolonization of the Indian mind. Revista crítica de ciencias sociais 114, 137–160. https://doi.org/10.4000/rccs.6809. Dorian, N.C. (1987) The value of language-maintenance efforts which are unlikely to succeed. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 68, 57–67. Fairclough, N. (2001) Language and Power (2nd edn). Harlow: Longman. Fishman, J.A. (1991) Reversing Language Shift: Theoretical and Empirical Foundations of Assistance to Threatened Languages. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Gafaranga, J. (2010) Medium request: Talking language shift into being. Language in Society 39, 241–270. International Labour Organisation (1989) Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, 1989 (No. 169). Keskitalo, A. (2020) Sametinget og samiske skjeletter i de Schreinerske samlinger. See https://sametinget​.no​/aktuelt​/kronikk​-sametinget​-og​-samiske​-skjeletter​-i​-de​-schreinerske​-samlinger​.7387​.aspx. (accessed 8 March 2023). King, K.A. and Hermes, M. (2014) Why is this so hard?: Ideologies of endangerment, passive language learning approaches, and Ojibwe in the United States. Journal of Language, Identity & Education 13L, 268–282. Kulick, D. (1992) Language Shift and Cultural Reproduction: Socialization, Self, and syncretism in a Papua New Guinean Village. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lane, P. (2006) A tale of two towns: A comparative study of language and culture contact. PhD thesis, University of Oslo. Lane, P. (2010) ‘We did what we thought was best for our children’: A nexus analysis of language shift in a Kven community. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 202, 63–78. Lane, P. (2011) The birth of the Kven language in Norway: Emancipation through state recognition. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 209, 57–74. Lane, P. (2023) From silence to silenced? Contradictions and tensions in language ­revitalization. Applied Linguistics. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amac075. Lane, P., Hagen, K., Nøklestad, A. and Priestley, J. (2022) Creating a corpus for Kven, a minority language in Norway. Nordlyd 46 (1), 159–170. Leonard, W.Y. (2017) Producing language reclamation by decolonising ‘language’. Language Documentation and Description 14, 15–36. Monsen, H.N. (2016) Ville dele sorgen over tapt språk [Wished to share the grief over a lost language]. Ruijan Kaiku, 16 July. See https://www.ruijan-kaiku.no/ville-delesorgen-over-tapt-sprak/(accessed 8 March 2023). Ngũgĩ wa Thiongʼo (1986) Decolonizing the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature. London: James Currey. Pietikäinen, S., Huss, L., Laihiala-Kankainen, S., Aikio-Puoskari, U. and Lane, P. (2010) Regulating multilingualism in the North Calotte: The case of Kven, Meänkieli and Sámi languages. Acta Borealia 27, 1–23. Rasmus, S. and Lane, P. (2021) New speakers of Sámi: From insecurity to pride. Linguistic Minorities in Europe Online. https://doi​.org​/10​.1515​/lme​.12818309.

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Santos, B. de Sousa (2016) Epistemologies of the south and the future. From the European South: A Transdisciplinary Journal of Postcolonial Humanities 1, 17–29. Santos, B. de Sousa and Meneses, M.P. (2020) Conclusion: Toward a post-abyssal world. In B. de Sousa Santos and M.P. Meneses (eds) Knowledges Born in the Struggle: Constructing the Epistemologies of the Global South (pp. 241–245). New York: Routledge. Scollon, R. and Scollon, S.B.K. (2004) Nexus Analysis: Discourse and the Emerging Internet. London: Routledge. Seppola, B. (1996) Norsk skolepolitikk overfor kvenene 1720–1996 = Norjan koulupoliittinen suhtautuminen kveeneihin 1720–1996 [Norwegian education policies directed towards the Kven]. MPhil thesis, University of Tromsø. Smith, L.T. (2012) Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples (2nd edn). London: Zed Books. Walsh, J. (2019) The role of emotions and positionality in the trajectories of ‘new speakers’ of Irish. International Journal of Bilingualism 23, 221–235.

4 Conversation with Ellen Cushman

This conversation took place between Ellen Cushman (Northeastern University, USA), Ana Deumert (University of Cape Town, South Africa) and Sinfree Makoni (Pennsylvania State University, USA) in June 2021. Sinfree: Ellen: Sinfree: Ellen:

Ana:

Ellen:

Hi, Ellen! How are you doing? It is nice to see you, I’m doing well, how have you been? I’ve been doing well! I appreciate the questions you sent in advance for our meeting today, they were challenging, and I hope I’ve had enough time to prepare something. They probably deserve much more than the 12 hours of preparation or less that I was able to give them. So, thank you, they’re wonderful questions. Maybe we could ask you to start by reflecting on the extensive debates about southern theory and decolonization that have happened in recent years; your embedding in them – now and in the past – and how they relate to your work, to your thinking and, possibly, activism? It’s a wonderful question, thank you. It strikes me how one’s work has themes and undercurrents that create a trajectory. Even if we are not using a particular term or phrase or intellectual lens at a particular moment, there is a kind of ethos or set of presumptions about how knowledge should be made, and in what ways. At the heart of the themes running through our work is the question about what disciplinarity is and what discipline is. How do disciplines work to construct knowledge, oftentimes about others, and to replicate difference, or to make a difference? Let me talk about the lines in my scholarship and in that way, we will be able to talk about history. For me,

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reciprocity with the communities that I’m working with has always been a really important aspect of my work. Though I didn’t necessarily call it decoloniality, to begin with, it was always such a very basic turn of thought that I was raised with. Reciprocity remains a very central way of thinking, but also an Indigenous way of thinking. The idea is that when making knowledge with people, we try to bring to life the questions, concerns, and challenges they have and to enlist their knowledge, strategies and hopes they have used to address these. We bring together scholars, students, community members, policymakers, institutional representatives, etc. from various perspectives to answer those questions, and to explore those in ways that create scholarship, with and for the people we hope our scholarship serves. Scholarship has always been for me, something we do with and for our people, as opposed to establishing a career. When the scholarship has an impact, the position and platform that impact gives allows us to have more impact down the road and to be able to give back along the way, with the effect of bringing more people into the fold of knowledge-making. So that idea of reciprocity is at the very core of scholarship and research for me. Early on in my career, I was very enamoured with critical theory and how critical theory really helps to develop a kind of consciousness through a plan of naming or detecting oppressive constructions. And what I learned along the way is that academics had not cornered the market on critical perspectives. Critical theories are written and circulated in the everyday discourses of communities. And if we are able to hear in their own terms how they construct their own positions and situations within power structures and the ways in which they negotiate those, then we will be able to understand that many people are already critical theorists and doing the work of critical activism for their own selves, their own families and their own communities. I came to realize that critical theory was perhaps doing the naming, detecting circulations of power, maybe even opposing those circulations with tactics, but was not necessarily helping to name, plan, design, create and practice alternatives to those systems of power. Through reciprocity, I was able to understand the knowledge and sense making in the everyday discourses that individuals

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Sinfree:

already use, and to talk back to and shape disciplinary knowledge making within education, literacy studies and to a much lesser extent, sociolinguistics; especially as this everyday knowledge related to African American English, or Black English (as community members called it), which was at the heart of my first book. I came to decolonial theory later in my career; actually, as I turned to my community and the creation of the Cherokee syllabary writing system. I came to decoloniality as a literacy scholar thinking through how it was/is that the Cherokee syllabary helps our people to encode their own understandings since 1821. It was powerful to learn just how unique the writing system is and how Cherokee people stand by the syllabary and say ‘no’ to the introduction of other orthographies. We use the syllabary to make and encourage knowledge in, and on, our own terms, and we will continue to create a legacy to encode our history and our stories. This raises, I think, the question about whether decoloniality can be solely done in English, it’s such a great question. I think decoloniality needs multiple tools and technologies for meaning-making, multiple graphisms if you will. But also, it needs to be done in and through multiple languages. Much of my work lately has been looking at the Cherokee language, thinking about American Indian language perseverance and preservation. To use digital tools to help us build collectives to translate manuscripts in order to not just recuperate and document, but also to really consider how a turn of phrase or word’s structure can repattern ways of thinking and being in the world, allowing us to understand relationships profoundly and deeply. What happens to some of your constructions when you repattern and you begin to imagine alternatives even as you are within them? I have just taken you through my own intellectual trajectory, how it changed and shifted, but at the end of the day it has always followed this form of naming and detecting, and opposing, and I don’t think we can replace so much as re-place: finding a way to be multiple within and alongside in collectives. This is very interesting. I like the way you went about explaining how your own work eventually feeds into decoloniality. Let me give you a small anecdote about myself and some of the work on southern theories. I

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Ellen:

wasn’t doing much work, if any at all, on southern theories until a couple of years ago when Ana suggested that we meet in New Zealand. What was interesting was, I knew she was doing something that was of interest to me, but I hadn’t found the vocabulary yet. So, when I met her and she was explaining what she was doing, I remember sending an email to a colleague and saying that I think she gets it. Then that colleague said: ‘That’s why I told you to go and attend that conference because she gets it’. What was interesting is that she was talking to me about what I would have wanted to talk about. I like the way you handled the issues about the critical scholarship because if I may repeat to you what you said in one of your papers is that critical scholarship had run out of steam, and what I tend to do, I go back to that phrase on that paper and try to find out what was Ellen talking about. Now I can see how and why you have argued in this way. For example, you use expressions like the ‘kind of ethos that governs your work’. That’s what I want you to elaborate on, what exactly is this ethos that governs your work, which for example, you think critical scholarship didn’t easily provide you with? That’s a great question. The ways in which critical scholarship has been doing its work in the 1990s to early 2000s, had a particular style system related to that, particular to Americans and scholars from the south (Australia), who were at the forefront of doing critical scholarship and critical race theory. It was wonderful stuff, very exciting and impactful. And yet most of the conversations tended to revolve more around them and their work than the communities, and ways in which the communities frame their understandings. I think that the reliance on Marxism at the heart of it strikes me as a limitation. That was until I started looking at how the other amazing scholars in Latin America were doing their work, and then I realized that there is a way in which critical theory has created a very good territory for itself, a scholarly area for itself and it seems to really circulate among some scholars, more so than others. Then I read this really impactful book called Red Pedagogy (Grande, 2004) and about that time Linda Tuhiwai Smith’s book came out ([1999] 2008) – Decolonizing Methodologies – and those books

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Sinfree:

Ellen:

were spot on regarding all the methodological work that I have been doing, where I work with communities to acknowledge with them on how we do our work. Those two books, in particular, along with other American Indians’ scholarship, help shape my uncertainty of how far critical race theory could take you. It was very good at detecting and naming the systems of oppression, I’m not sure if it was good at opposing and offering alternatives to these. Many colleagues have done a lot of really terrific work in the classrooms using critical theory, and they’ve asked their students to take that up and move that forward. But being critical, for me, is not enough, and has never been enough. I was thinking of this interesting work in unsettlement as important to the work that we can do when reimaging the future. I like that because it’s a way of understanding the moment that we are in and what is unsettled about it for so many people, but also for us to think about what happens at the third and fourth moments of decoloniality. The first two moments of decoloniality are naming and detecting, the third moment is opposing, and the fourth moment is re-placing. If the opposing is really thinking through how to unsettle and delink, then re-placing is really the creative work and the collective work that comes after that. That’s for me the exciting moment that we are in as well. So, while I’m no longer sure if critical theory allows us to do that, I think that the kind of pluriversality I’m describing is made more possible with decoloniality. What I like about your work, and I will link it up with this question that we have here, is that it is embedded within the Cherokee nation. So, within the decolonial moves that you are talking about; naming, opposing and re-placing: can you elaborate more on what the replacement aspect looks like within your research with and for the Cherokee nation? Thank you, I’m really glad that you asked about that, part of that re-placing, from a larger context, this is of the moment – Covid has had a horrible impact on many tribes in terms of the number of Indigenous language speakers. The recent government act for pandemic relief has given many nations the ability to create several initiatives and run those initiatives. Working with Cherokee, across all three federally Cherokee recognized tribes (Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, United

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Ana:

Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians and Cherokee Nation), we’ve gathered community members, speakers, learners, linguists and archivists to create collective translations of several archived manuscripts written in the Cherokee language. We present these in ways that help facilitate not just the documentation of the language, which is important because it helps build on our dictionaries and the history of the language and understanding of the word, but also to build upon the understanding of how reading and writing were used to forward and sustain our own thinking and our own ways of understanding the world (DAILP, ‘Digital Archive if Indigenous Language Persistence, https://dailp​ .northeastern​.edu). The thing that excites me about this, is that different people have come together to create this and have contributed to it. Right now, we have about 30 documents deeply translated, presented in the Digital Archive for American Indian Language Perseverance and Preservation, and we are in the process of reading, gathering audio for each one of these documents. I really like the way you’ve talked about critical theory and the need to have hopes and dreams and to imagine different futures. Robin D.G. Kelley’s (2002) Freedom Dreams speaks exactly to the expansive archive that we have of people imagining other worlds, other futures. And even though we have not, yet, succeeded in creating this world, the freedom dreams we have are so important. Following from this, I sometimes feel uneasy about discourses that see decoloniality primarily as an epistemological project, that remains rooted in the academy, as a discourse that is articulated by academics. Thus, I feel that that work of Walter Mignolo does not engage enough with the politics of decoloniality. What about land? What about the end of capitalism? Can we, as scholars, work with a decolonial vision that doesn’t engage with the materialities of existence, with what Cedric Robinson ([1983] 2000) called ‘Black Marxism’? I would be interested to hear your thoughts on this because I just attended a panel on Decolonizing Sociolinguistics (organized by Jaspal Singh, Sociolinguistic Symposium 23, 2021), and I think that in the panel discussion some of these tensions became visible. For some, decoloniality appeared to be primarily about surfacing other voices, about pluriversality, and the epistemological project of

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Ellen:

Ana:

dismantling Eurocentrism. Yet, others were saying that we have to change the world, not just the discourses, not just the voices, but we’ve got to give the land back, we’ve got to give people the means of production. I would love to hear your thoughts on it because it’s something that is occupying me politically as well as academically. I think that is a wonderful question because it’s certainly something that is crucial to how it is we can envision change, the materiality of our work, and the ways in which we can have an impact. The epistemic for me is a way to help with the first two or three moments of decoloniality I mentioned earlier (e.g. detecting, naming, opposing), but I don’t know how that necessarily helps with different material realities (alternatives to that which is opposed). For me, the material reality can also instantiate itself in practices, in different kinds of writing and reading practices, in ways in which we read and write the world together and differently, to create something together. When it comes to land in particular, the epistemic cannot be separated from the land, and I agree with you, this has been a whole other area of thinking not well addressed in decolonial literature, perhaps more so in discourses of settler colonialism. I’ve often wondered how to take up the importance of land, epistemologies and languages – not just in the semantic sense, but how our understanding of this world is created in relation to land and mediated by and through language. So, I agree that epistemic delinking is not the only activist intervention we do, nor can it be seen as separate from the material intervention, the re-placing. Said another way, we really have to think about ways beyond the philosophy and the distanced critique which is central to academic literacy, and to think more about the ways in which we can create change with communities, when invited to do so. And maybe, if I can follow up from that, you mention the academy and the kind of work we do and how a focus on the epistemological fits so nicely into disciplinary trajectories. That brings me to the question of whether universities are the right spaces of decolonial work? Or whether the universities will not in the end start taking over the radical project, will co-opt it and tame it? Can we decolonize our universities? I think that’s a question that’s close to all our hearts because

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Ellen:

Ana:

a lot of our practice is about trying to decolonize the space in which we work, and at the same time I’m not sure that we can do so, or whether we are in a space that will always recolonize, will even recolonize decolonization, embed it within the neoliberal realities of contemporary universities. Work that has been important to my thinking is the idea of ‘undercommons’ (Moten & Harney, 2004), that we actually have to delink from the university. But what does this mean? We are still receiving our salaries, we still apply for promotions and the like. I would love to hear your thoughts on it because for me this is something that keeps me awake at night. I agree with you about the importance of these questions. Having recently completed a six-year administrative appointment, I have experienced how administrators must necessarily think to be able to keep the students in classes and to retain the faculty and build sustainable departmental ecologies. It’s quite challenging to decolonize these practices at the same time as to keep them all going smoothly. It’s very slow and deliberate work that takes all hands on deck, but decolonial practices can materialize in small changes to processes, framings, perceptions, values and directions – directions for not just hiring but directions for understanding the work we do. Some universities now are thinking about applied work, that is to say, thinking about how it is that knowledgemaking serves a purpose in communities, organizations and policies, so that knowledge-making advances disciplinary understanding as it advances important social projects that need to be addressed at the moment. But to get the other point of this is that even applied work becomes a brand, and a thing that draws the students because when knowledge is applied, it gives them job skills. You can’t blame students or anybody for wanting to be employed and have food on the table at the end of the day. But it’s always this conundrum, to what extent can we move out of the economics of universities and labour? Are there any economists who have taken up decoloniality? Indeed! Political scientist, yes – but economists? Maybe some scholars such as David Graeber who was an anthropologist but also involved with questions of economy (for example, Graeber, 2011)? Yet, those tend to be people who are very committed to an anti-capitalist Marxist view, and my thinking is that such an approach

64  From Southern Theory to Decolonizing Sociolinguistics

Ellen:

Sinfree:

Ellen:

works well with aspects of decoloniality because it’s about similar things, it’s about owning the means of production, including land, communities and collective struggle, about undoing power structures. But I do think it would be uncanny if a neoliberal economist would take on decoloniality, I would get very worried. Even when you are thinking of those global designs, so much of them are ideas of imperialism and imperial wealth, and the idea that legacy wealth and that accumulating more wealth is at the centre of capitalist agendas. So, what does collective wealth look like? What do tribal economics look like outside of capitalism? Do we really have a full account of the value system of knowledge work and the often invisible labour it entails? I haven’t yet met that person or met any decolonial economists who will even begin to engage with me in these questions. What strikes me is the other part of your question, Ana, let me get back to it. There are millions of acres of land in this country and in the world that are not occupied, though many Indigenous people have been displaced from those acres of land that remain unoccupied. Why were Indigenous peoples removed from them in the first place? Another question: what it would mean if everybody who receives housing and urban development funds were allowed to rent-to-own the place, what would happen to cities and surrounding neighbourhoods, if people were allowed to rent-to-own at the end of one generation of 30 years, and that family gets to own their property. Would there still be the precarity? Poverty? The idea of ownership itself fascinates me. What can and can’t be owned, what has value what doesn’t, how we all are to live in this world and what we as scholars can really achieve in the neo-liberal university to change these systems of knowing and valuing? Let me take you back to one of the key questions that you were addressing about the university, the academy, and all that. How do the Cherokee people some of whom might not have the experience of attending the university, respond and react to the various projects that you are putting together which involve them? What is their conceptualization of the work scholars actually do? That’s a great question. We were invited by one of the Cherokee tribes to submit a proposal for funds to expand DAILP. We were told, in no uncertain terms,

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Sinfree:

that there would be no ownership and authority other than shared ownership and authority over anything created. They asked whether or not my university would support such an ethos. At the heart of their question is the idea of intellectual property – that language and collective work could be considered property. So there was this very clear understanding that this will be done in the terms and ethos that sustain people outside of academia, at the end of the day everyone was very supportive of doing either a much reduced or completely forgiven cost-share, and intellectual property rights would be the tribe’s. In terms of my team working on DAILP, reciprocity again is shot through all our work, where everyone, as a collective, comes together to share their knowledge, with nobody’s knowledge being more important than the other person’s knowledge. With people checking their egos at the door, and with people being willing to contribute fully and deeply without the expectation of any substantive pay, other than hourly wages or small honoraria. The sharing itself and the collective appreciation of what you’ve shared is one thing of some measure of value that helps to sustain you or helps to sustain your work. So, it’s a very different ethos, did I answer your question Sinfree? You did, because I always wanted to get an idea about how people who are not part of the academy think and imagine what we are doing. The reason being, when I was in Kenya, for example, on a candidate fellowship, I had the opportunity of spending a lot of time with the security personnel. They never went higher than elementary school, but they were always curious to know, what exactly do academics do? Over the weekends, when I would walk to the office, all of the sudden, they would come and sit down. They wanted to know what it is that I’m doing over the weekend. What is it about academia that keeps you working, what do you academics actually do? It was interesting to try and explain to people who are protecting the property, but are not very clear what those individuals who go into those buildings really do. What exactly does Ana do as a professor of linguistics? They were very keen to know what it is we call knowledge, how did we set up these projects that generate knowledge? What are the mechanics that you put in place to set up some of these very fascinating projects that you have worked on with the Cherokee

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Ellen:

Ana:

Ellen:

nation? How do you negotiate with them the topics, and how you go about ‘engaging’ with those individuals? That’s an interesting observation because in a very real way so much of the work that we do is incomplete, and so much of it is intangible, invisible, and it doesn’t have that material manifestation that others might see as a ‘product’. Working with the Cherokee nation, and other Cherokee people, generally speaking, the material was realized in the practices of the work, maybe equally as much as the product, say the publication or curricular materials. These were and are always so humble, partial and incomplete attempts to address the larger goals the Cherokee community has set (language perseverance). To get back to your reflections and the incompleteness from the perspective of individuals who are associated with the university, but are not part of academia – perhaps we might focus on the latent potential of what was built. Try to imagine what could be there after understanding what/why and how it came to be only partially completed in the first place. I would like to come back to the role of English, the dominance of English, or Spanish or German, in which scholarship is produced. This is a challenge, and how we negotiate that ethically? If we talk about pluriversality, how are we going to get there? It comes back to the university and our labour, because we write our articles in a language that is accessible and that gets into high-impact journals. We have the Sociolinguistic Symposium – all in English; and we have a panel on Decolonizing Sociolinguistics – all in English; and this book is also in English. So, although we know that it has to be multilingual, how are we going to get there? I guess if we talk about the moments: we have named it, we have opposed it, but how are we going to change it? I’m asking all these tough questions to which I don’t have answers myself. I publish in English, and this is an ethical conundrum; I give my students grades, but I don’t believe in grading from a radical-pedagogy point of view. My ethics are constantly being compromised. These questions, they trouble me. Me as well. I have experience with the difficulty of doing scholarly work in languages other than English. When I was a co-editor of a journal, Research in the Teaching of English, Mary Juzwik and I had similar questions. We took a decolonial approach to our

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Ana:

editorial team, trying to think about the pluriversality, the different ways of presenting knowledge, different kinds of methodologies that were being presented there, different kinds of Englishes being present there. And we begin to publish abstracts in different languages. So, this initially posed a few problems for the publisher. They didn’t have a way to copy edit those translations, so they had to trust that those translations and what was said in the articles, is accurate. The other conundrum we had was that we had a hard time finding individuals who could or would be willing to write those translations for the pittance we had at our disposal and the number of hours it takes to translate these abstracts. So, they were doing these translations more or less as a gift to the field. Just to get the abstracts written in languages other than English was so much of a lift in terms of labour and reconceptualization of the practice of editing and producing the journal. And the conceptualization of why you would want to invite readers from Arabic-speaking countries into an article that is written in English? Were we creating greater access or were we baiting with one language and switching to English in half-measure to extend the reader base into an international audience? We were never able to get even one article per journal translated fully, so we had to satisfy ourselves with only the abstracts, which we did, but it still felt partial, inadequate and incomplete. Certainly, I would have wished for more gestures towards the pluriversal. During the time we served as co-editors, I met a journal editor from France who was lamenting the fact that in French universities, scholars were being asked to publish their articles in both French and English. The editors and the university argued that by publishing in English, French scholars’ knowledge became potentially more visible and would obtain more citations. So, English in that context was seen as an equalizing language, by some, but as an imposition by others (the scholars who were told to write in English). I think I would like to share a story like Sinfree did. It was a few years back, during a farmworkers’ strike in the farm areas near Cape Town. And the Centre for African Studies invited the workers to come to the university to speak about the struggle and the strike. When they started, you know, it is the University of Cape Town, a very English space, so everybody tried

68  From Southern Theory to Decolonizing Sociolinguistics

Ellen: Ana:

to speak English. About 30 minutes into the symposium, it became clear that this is not working, so the organizers made the decision to allow any language to be spoken, even though there were no translators. When you talked about being a learner and coming with that ethic of not knowing, it reminded me of that day. People would speak Afrikaans, isiXhosa and English and, spontaneously, mini-translation communities formed in the audience: somebody might know some Afrikaans and would be able to relate what someone said to others, the same with isiXhosa and English. It went on for an entire day. We had many hours of discussion in three languages without translators and without a fully trilingual audience – instead we relied on each other to negotiate meaning, to help each other to understand. It created a sense of community, and I remember coming out of that day, I was walking on clouds, because I had seen and experienced what is possible, we don’t need to translate, we don’t need these kinds of multiple monolingualisms, we don’t need any of that if we give ourselves the space to talk and to listen and to learn. I always think back to that moment, and I wonder, how come we can’t have academic conferences in this way? Because it creates exactly that posture and that ethics of accepting the not-knowing: I’m not just going to walk out because somebody speaks in a language I don’t know, I’m going to sit, I’m going to try and I’m going to ask others and there is going to be some negotiation, and over time we will come together. In this context we also need to consider that the temporality that is imposed on academic practice is actually very limiting, we are on the clock, driven by the academic calendar, rushed and stressed – yet, to imagine and engage in decolonial practice, we need time. I’ve been thinking a lot about temporalities of hope and the importance of bringing time into our thinking as well, and whether that can open up something theoretically. I like that idea of temporalities of hope. Is that a book you’re writing? It was a conference paper recently presented, reflecting on hope which for me is a very troubling word. I never know if I’m hopeful, but it is an interesting word. For that paper, I was thinking a lot about time, about past,

Conversation with Ellen Cushman  69

Ellen:

Sinfree:

Ana:

Sinfree:

Ellen:

present and future, and the passage of time, trying to move away from the clock, to stop listening to the minutes and seconds ticking. Right, and that you will have the luxury to be together in that moment to make mutual sense of something important to you both and understand how the other person is making sense of it. That’s deeply meaningful, and much more so because you are both placing your understanding on the table and saying this is our understanding. I like your idea though that if we could do that during a conference, to be able to bring multiple languages to the table and have a different understanding of time and place, to do the slow work of fugitive listening across languages – that would be amazing! One of the reasons that I like your work, Ellen, is that, whether it’s critical theory or decoloniality, it is embedded in concrete projects. It’s not simply an exercise in epistemology, there is something that you are trying to create with the Cherokee nation that I think is very helpful as a way of pushing back against an idea that decoloniality just operates at a university level and that’s where we end up. Your work shows that you can do meaningful decolonial work within an actual context, seeking to realize specific objectives. I like the way you conceptualize the importance of the collective. That is so important, you know, the way you were talking about the importance of not seeing ourselves as individuals, the whole western ideology of individualism, but to foreground the collective. The struggle has to be collective, the project has to be collective, and it cannot be about any of us, it has to involve many, everyone. Thank you for that, it inspired me. And the way you keep coming back to the notion of an ethos of reciprocity. That is very encouraging, that the challenges are bigger than us, than each one of us individually, but we need to develop some ethos of reciprocity. Thank you for this conversation. To think about pluriversality, generally speaking, and how it enables the collective work as being productive, and capacious enough to allow for many different avenues of practice toward various ends. This has been such a wonderful conversation; I really appreciate it.

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References Graeber, D. (2011) Debt: The First 5000 Years. Brooklyn, NY: Melville House. Grande, S. (2004) Red Pedagogy. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Kelley, R.D.G. (2002) Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Moten, F. and Harney, S. (2004) The university and the undercommons: Seven theses. Social Text 22, 101–115. Robinson, C. ([1983] 2000) Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. Smith, L.T. ([1999] 2008) Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. London: Zed Books.

5 From Douglas Firs to Giant Cuttlefish: Reimagining Language Learning Alastair Pennycook

Introduction

Since the focus of this book is on decolonizing sociolinguistics, we might ask what a discussion of second language development (psycholinguistics) is doing here. The fact that such a distinction exists, however, is precisely part of the problem, and one of many aspects of the field that need decolonizing: How did language learning become separated off into something called psycholinguistics as if it has nothing to do with (socio)linguistics?1 Language learning is a sociolinguistic question and the sooner it can be reclaimed from the claws of cognition the better. Just as ideas such as distributed cognition (Hutchins, 2014) have returned processes of thought to the social and material world – suggesting that the only way to understand cognition is by studying it ethnographically – so language development can be usefully reclaimed from its cognitive confines. This is not in itself, of course, an adequate decolonizing project, but it is a starting point for the rewilding (Thorne et al., 2021) of language learning and education. Once we have made this first move, language learning can be reassembled from alternative perspectives. Apart from the problems with each of the three terms – second (enumerable progression), language (discrete system) and acquisition (gaining possession) – several more general points can be made about studies in second language acquisition (SLA). They developed with a narrow focus on the ‘linguistic–cognitive’ (Ortega, 2014: 33) dimensions of additional language learning, assuming that language was a set of grammatical and lexical items learned in sequential order and that this learning was something that occurred in the head. This cognitive information processing model, with its computer-oriented metaphors – input, output, language data, attention-getting devices and so forth (Johnson, 2004) – has long dominated the field, and has its roots in a set of Euro-American traditions that separated languages and humans in particular and rather peculiar ways. Languages, it was claimed, could be divided up internally into structural parts and externally into nameable languages, while humans 71

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could be divided internally into minds and bodies, and externally into creatures separated from other animals and the world around them (Pennycook, 2018). This strange way of thinking about language and humans led to a vision of language development where the brain operated more or less independently of the body as a kind of computing machine, a cognitive sandwich (Waters, 2012) which processed language input before emitting forms of output. There have, of course, long been a range of critiques and correctives, most notably from sociocultural theory (Johnson, 2004; Lantolf, 2000), which have insisted that psychology is always already social, and that to understand language development we have to focus on interaction and activity (Lantolf & Thorne, 2006). In a similar vein, Alan Firth and Johannes Wagner (1997) argued that rather than the deficient communicator trying to overcome their lack of competence in a second language as they strove to attain native speaker-like targets, it was important to focus on the contextual and interactional dimensions of language use to understand processes of language development. These can be seen as part of the more general ‘social turn’ in SLA studies (Block, 2003). Other critiques have pointed to the need to get beyond the linear input–output model via an engagement with complexity theory (Larsen-Freeman & Cameron, 2008; Ortega & Han, 2017). The cognitive sandwich approach to language learning – even though it may now include a discussion of sociocultural approaches to language learning (VanPatten et  al., 2020) – nonetheless remains the dominant framework taught across fields such as applied linguistics. Ortega (2018: 65) has suggested, however, that it is possible for SLA as a field to ‘make space for social views of language learning’ by moving beyond ‘essentialist’ language ontologies, and embracing multilingualism rather than monolingualism as the norm (Ortega, 2019). My interest in this chapter is not to engage with the history of northern dialogues about second language development, but rather to explore what it might mean not only to bring the social into language learning but also the decolonial. In order to do this, I explore the metaphors used to examine languages and learning, with a particular focus on trees, mangroves and cuttlefish. The second part of the chapter then proposes various moves that might be made to open up the study of second language development to a more thorough southern epistemological examination. First, however, I examine a little further the extent to which proposals for non-essentialist and social approaches to language learning can start to orient thinking towards the south. Trying to Look South: World Englishes and Douglas Firs

A great deal could be said about SLA models and their northern assumptions about learners, languages, resources and contexts. Among

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the many problems with the standard models of second language development has been, as Ortega (2018) makes clear, their lack of social theory: language learning needs to be socially rather than structurally defined (what people can do with linguistic resources rather than what structures can be ticked off); learners are social beings not processing machines. If it is true that a lot of work on social aspects of language ‘makes it seem as if sociolinguistics does not take place outside of North America and Western Europe’ (Levon, 2017: 280), this is even more so with studies of language development that have focused on universal and decontextualized processes of cognition (we are all human, so whatever we have to say about humans here, will apply to humans there) rather than social and political domains. Given that the dominant tradition of SLA studies scarcely addresses the social conditions of learning, moves towards more social and multilingual frameworks should be welcomed. Contrasting the models of language in SLA studies and World Englishes, Lourdes Ortega (2018: 65) laments the lack of attention to questions of language ontology, and the fact that SLA studies have ‘implicitly embraced an essentialist ontology of language that locks research into a monolingual worldview’. Recent changes to the field, she argues, particularly in the work of the Douglas Fir Group (2016), nonetheless indicate a possible shift towards non-essentialist, social accounts of language learning. If such moves might suggest the first steps towards a decolonial escape from universal and decontextualized accounts of language learning, it is worth, first of all, asking whether the non-essentialist ontology (if indeed it is) of World Englishes suggests sufficient ways of thinking decolonially, and whether the kind of model the Douglas Fir Group presents can really help here. The challenges that the World Englishes framework brings to the normalized version of English prevalent in SLA were raised long ago (Sridhar & Sridhar, 1986) and have still not been met. Pluralized, unstable, multilingual Englishes raise serious questions for the bounded monolingual systems assumed in SLA studies. The World Englishes movement has sought to turn English into a language of the Global South. By insisting that English is the property of all, that ownership of English no longer rests in the hands of its so-called (northern) native speakers, that English can be understood as global, variable and multilingual, it has aimed to uncouple English from its origins, sever ties of claimed ownership and shift the centre of English from the Global North. While it has arguably achieved some success in this endeavour – making it possible to see English as locally inflected, as unencumbered by normative conventions, as no longer tied to particular speakers and places – it also remains encumbered by the kinds of language ontology it needs to get beyond. The focus on plurality in World Englishes does not do enough to challenge either what language is – creating a plurality of Englishes along methodologically nationalist lines (Schneider, 2018) – or how it can be

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understood in relation to decolonial politics – the need to delink English from forms of coloniality (Kumaravadivelu, 2016). The ‘other Englishes’ that such work needs to focus on (Parakrama, 1995) are not well served by being named as national forms of English (Indian, Nigerian, Chinese English); they need instead to be understood within greater forms of alterity than a pluralist framework offers (Kubota, 2018). By looking at the unequal distribution of linguistic resources in relation to other resources (Dovchin et al., 2016) rather than making the native speaker or standard English the central foes, and by pushing the ontological boundaries of what counts as English (Pennycook, 2020a, 2020b), an unequal Englishes focus might hold possibilities for thinking about English in decolonial terms. The Douglas Fir Group (2016: 39) model meanwhile aims to incorporate social dimensions to a ‘new, rethought SLA’ that can ‘contribute to the development of innovative and sustainable lifeworld solutions that support language learners in a multilingual world’. It reiterates the common contemporary trope that multilingualism is nothing new but has grown more salient in recent times. While this usefully highlights multilingualism, it rather problematically suggests a continuity to what it means and a short-sightedness to its geographical and historical background (Flores & Lewis, 2016). While the authors suggest that their views on language development have been ‘enriched by the diverse parts of the world in which each of us has worked, done research, and collaborated with others’ (Douglas Fir Group, 2016: 20), this is somewhat undermined by the subsequent concern that ‘we must recognize that our affiliation with institutions in only two parts of the world, the United States and Canada, bound our intellectual views’. The project is thus open to the critique that despite its ‘social’ orientation, it remains both northern focused and decontextualized. Despite – or perhaps because of – its claims to incorporate a wide diversity of views and contexts, it ends up as a model centred on the idea of complexity. It operates with embedded circles (much like the World Englishes model) – the micro level of individual social interaction, the meso level of sociocultural institutions and communities and the macro level of ideological structures – and interspersed boxes – semiotic resources, social identities and belief systems – that end up modelling complexity without engaging with locality. Looking at this model from the perspective of language educators in different parts of the world, Claire Kramsch and Lihua Zhang (2018: 132) remark that there is a ‘clash between this futuristic (some would say “utopian”) manifesto and the global reality of language instruction’. This put-everything-in model, while commendably broad, moves away from graspable aspects of practice. As I argue later, a more parsimonious way forward is to find simple ways to explain complex ideas rather than complicated models to explain concepts that are actually not so complex (Yunkaporta, 2019).

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By emphasizing multilingualism as part of a new global order, offering ‘a transdisciplinary framework’ that addresses ‘multilingual and multiliterate development, social integration, and performance across diverse globalized, technologized, and transnational contexts’, the Douglas Fir Group framework marginalizes language educators around the world, relegating them to ‘the role of “stakeholders” on the side of business leaders, politicians, and other organizations interested in “multilingualism”, not as an educational project but as a subject of a neoliberal agenda of “globalization, technologization and mobility”’ (Kramsch & Zhang, 2018: 132). While World Englishes and the Douglas Fir Group approaches thus open up social considerations of language learning and enable a push towards ‘considering multilingualism as the central object of inquiry and embracing social justice as an explicit disciplinary goal’ (Ortega, 2019: 24), it is unclear that the kinds of multilingualism, pluralization, complexity or interdisciplinarity envisioned really make it possible for models such as these to open up to the Global South. Trees, Rhizomes, Mangroves and Littoral Thinking

Rather than pluralism or complexity as ways in which current paradigms can adapt towards the Global South, modes of thought need more profound disruption. One way forward is to look at the underlying metaphors that inform our work. The ‘Douglas Fir’ of the Douglas Fir Group (2016) framework for SLA is only an incidental term derived from the room at a Portland (Oregon) hotel where the authors assembled to frame their approach. And yet, despite not starting out as a metaphor for language or language learning, it is hard not to see it in these terms. As Thorne et al. (2021) point out, a Douglas fir seeded in rich soil may develop in a very different way from one seeded in less fertile soil. This can help us understand not only phenotypes and genotypes but also why the Douglas Fir Group model (growing in well-endowed soil) has become much more influential than other models elsewhere. While it commendably complexifies the picture, moving away from some of the mechanistic and simplistic models of the past (the input/output cognitive sandwich), it remains northern hemispherical, fir tree-like in its conception. Trees, however, as Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari (1987) note, are not good metaphors for language (Chomskyan trees enforce grammaticality). The linguistic tree metaphor that came to stand for ‘a family tree, a picture of kinship relationship as well as taxonomic classification’ (Alter, 1999: 6) developed in the mid-19th century – when science, colonialism and racism were becoming deeply intertwined – and was borrowed by Charles Darwin and others from the early work of the philologists. Once philology ‘literalized metaphors of descent, language and linguistic change could be made to stand, part for whole, for communities of humans and their histories’ (Errington, 2008: 83). Comparative

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philology, through its use of trees, thus ‘demonstrated the underlying dynamics of civilizational progress, from industrialization to imperialism’ (Errington, 2008: 83). As Bernard Cohn (1996: 55) remarks, the trees that Europeans used for their mappings of languages and their origins ‘always seemed to be northern European ones, like oaks and maples, and the British never seemed to think of using the most typical south Asian tree, the banyan, which grows up, and out, and down at the same time’. If trees are to be our models, the banyan tree at least provides us with a better metaphor, suggesting, as Ofelia García (2009: 17) notes, a way of thinking about bilingual education ‘like the banyan tree, allowing for growth in different directions at the same time and grounded in the diverse social realities from which it emerges’. A related move has been to opt for rhizomes (subterranean plants from whose nodes roots and shoots emerge) instead of trees, since they are less directional, capturing a ‘restless search for new, nonhierarchical strategies for understanding how time and space feel’ (Heller & McElhinny, 2017: 254). The metaphor of rhizomes, with multiple roots and indistinguishable branches, suggests ‘a different starting point for learning and proficiency, complicating the competence/ performance distinction’ (Canagarajah, 2018: 51). A rhizome metaphor favours ‘a performative orientation to meaning-making rather than relying on preconstructed cognitive or grammatical representation. Meaning and thinking can emerge at many different points of the rhizome, in the liminal spaces of body, objects, and spatial resources’ (Canagarajah, 2018: 51). Another useful way to reconsider these relations involves ‘thinking-with the mangrove’, enabling us to expand on rhizomatic frames, and to think of borderlands and interconnected ecosystems (Deumert, 2019). The mangrove is a plant of the tropics, a littoral tree that makes the divide between land and sea unclear, a crucial part of marine ecosystems and a domain under threat from human destructiveness.2 The dense network of interrelations, the relational ontology of the ‘mangrove-world’ is ‘enacted minute by minute, day by day, through an infinite set of practices carried out by all kinds of beings and life forms, involving a complex organic and inorganic materiality of water, minerals, degrees of salinity, forms of energy (sun, tides, moon, relations of force), and so forth’ (Escobar, 2016: 18). These and other metaphors take us away from the linear and branching frameworks of trees. Like Nancy Bou Ayash’s (2019) tangled electricity cables, which, as I have suggested elsewhere (Pennycook, 2020a) can give us a way of thinking about the entanglements of English (or other languages) in the context of urban impoverishment, as well as forms of resistance (tangled wires may also be a product of the illicit use of state or private ownership of power), the rhizome usefully challenges ways of thinking about language and lineage, and helps us to see complexity, multiplicity and that much of what goes on is hidden. Entangled wires, like banyan trees, point to the polydirectionality (Bou Ayash, 2019: 45)

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of language flows and influences. Mangroves, as a particular instance of rhizomes, help us to think littorally, in less terracentric terms, in ways that challenge boundaries, and open us up to more assemblage-oriented relational thinking. It is to water-based ways of thinking that I now turn. Towards Other Waves of Knowing

Karin Ingersoll’s (2016: 5) seascape epistemology suggests an ‘approach to knowing presumed on a knowledge of the sea, which tells one how to move through it, how to approach life and knowing through the movements of the world’. This is an ‘approach to knowing through a visual, spiritual, intellectual and embodied literacy of the āina (“land”) and kai (“sea”): birds, the colors of the clouds, the flows of the currents, fish and seaweed, the timing of ocean swells, depths, tides and celestial bodies all circulating and flowing with rhythms and pulsations’ (Ingersoll, 2016: 6). Bringing together the Hawaiian practices of he’e nalu (‘surfing’), ho’okele (‘way-finding or oceanic literacy’) and lawai’a (‘fishing’), she shows how entering the water is to ‘enter an Indigenous thought-world stimulated by cultural memory, imagination, perception, and understanding’ (Ingersoll, 2016: 115). Such waves of knowing include remarkable navigation skills that enabled Polynesian people to settle and move between the islands of the Pacific (Hutchins, 2005; Thompson, 2019). Polynesian navigation techniques used a set of common components, including detailed knowledge of stars and star paths, different ways of understanding orientation and various means of finding land (from reading swell and waves to interpreting clouds and knowing the feeding habits of seabirds). Some of these can be ‘translated into Western conceptual terms’ while others ‘reflected ways of seeing and thinking with no obvious corollary in the European tradition’ (Thompson, 2019: 265). This is not only a question of knowledge as commonly understood in the Western tradition, but also about how navigation is experienced as an embodied practice, a range of learned ways of experiencing the world, coupled to ‘the deep, inherited cultural understanding of island and ocean that was shared by those who for thousands of years lived in and with the sea’ (Thompson, 2019: 272). Such navigational expertise is therefore not just an alternative knowledge but rather ‘knowing in a different way’ (Thompson, 2019: 293, italics in original). For one Hawaiian navigator, this meant achieving an intuitive sense of the sea and sky, of ‘thinking not just with his conscious mind but with his body, in some sense feeling his way across the ocean’ (Thompson, 2019: 293). Thinking differently about our relation to water (Hayman et  al., 2018) also brings us to alternative ways of thinking that include underwater creatures such as sharks (Appleby & Pennycook, 2017). Giant cuttlefish (to be found in the southern seas and around Sydney) are remarkable

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creatures, with their high degree of embodied intelligence (like other cephalopods; Godfrey-Smith, 2017).3 With their many arms and fluid bodies they present a more flexible analogy than the trunk and branches of a tree, a rhizome, or electric cables. Coleoid cephalopods (octopus, squid and cuttlefish) have the largest nervous systems among the invertebrates and present other striking morphological innovations including camera-like eyes, prehensile arms and a remarkably sophisticated adaptive colouration system. Cephalopods are ‘evolution’s only experiment in big brains outside of the vertebrates’ (Godfrey-Smith, 2017: 160) and the octopus, with its intelligence distributed through its eight-legged invertebrate body has shown significant intellectual capacities. Cephalopods provide insights into embodied cognition not so much because they are also smart beings but because their bodies and minds differ in very important ways from vertebrates, having a much less determinate shape, size or form and an even less clearly demarcated line between brain and body: ‘The octopus is suffused with nervousness; the body is not a separate thing that is controlled by the brain or nervous system’ (Godfrey-Smith, 2017: 75). Cephalopods are often overlooked for several reasons. We give special attention to vertebrates because humans recognize backbonedness in others. Yet, by exploring the other 95% of the animal kingdom – the invertebrates – we can learn vast amounts about life and diversity, and, in the case of cephalopods, other ways of being and thinking. Thinking about cephalopods forces us to engage with ‘alien minds’, levels of difference that we do not understand: ‘Octopuses represent the great mystery of the Other. They seem completely alien, and yet their world – the ocean – comprises far more of the Earth… than does land’ (Montgomery, 2015: 2). Godfrey-Smith’s (2017: 77) question ‘What does it feel like to be an octopus?’ takes us beyond Thomas Nagel’s (1974) reliance on subjective experience (what is it like to be a bat?), and focuses instead on the feeling of life: ‘Waking up, watching the sky, eating – these things all have a feel to them… How can the fact of life feeling like something slowly creep into being?’ (Godfrey-Smith, 2017: 78). This suggests that to understand questions of consciousness – one of Godfrey-Smith’s (2017) central concerns – the issue is not one of the brain in the head becoming aware of itself, but of the feeling of life. And like Ian Bogost’s (2012: 10) question ‘What’s it like to be a thing?’, it is a relational question, one that raises ontological rather than epistemological concerns. To ask what it’s like to be a thing, or what it feels like to be an octopus, compels us to start to think otherwise, to move away from assumptions about humans, knowledge, subjectivity and things, and to pursue different questions about the edges of what and how we know. By looking at cephalopods, I am trying to draw on an unexpected analogy from the south to challenge our thinking, and to ask why such majority (underwater, invertebrate) worlds are so easily ignored. We

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need to tread carefully here too: by talking of the south and the majority, I am by no means drawing any (potentially racist) close analogy between cephalopods and disadvantaged populations. Nor am I seeking to return to that treacherous domain of over-extended language ecology arguments, where languages have been seen as akin to species (Pennycook, 2004). I am wary too of suggesting that the different kind of intelligence of cephalopods – fluid, flexible, distributed, embodied – or the importance of affective domains – what does it feel like to be an octopus? – should be taken to imply that such a focus is a necessary corrective of northern rational-cognitive thought. There is a danger generally as we seek alternative ways of thinking from a southern perspective that in a rush to reject mind–body dualism or forms of rational and scientific thinking, we end up projecting a world of bodies and emotions onto southern epistemologies, a project that can start to look uncomfortably like a perpetuation of the colonial distinction between the rational European mind and its bodily others (Nandy, 1983). Arboreal analogies – and particularly certain types of tree – restrict our possibilities of thought. The polydirectionality of rhizomes and electric cables, and the littoral thinking enabled by mangroves can open up very different perspectives. Cuttlefish analogies provide alternatives for thought. Building new, complex, catch-all models of language learning won’t get us there since the question is one of engagement with difference. What would the study of language learning look like if we could take on radically different perspectives about what language and learning mean, differences as deep as the cuttlefish? By trying to think with mangroves and feel with cuttlefish, I am suggesting ways to reflect otherwise. The fact that cuttlefish are so little on many people’s radar also speaks to the ways our vertebratocentrism – our backbonedness – hasn’t allowed us to consider other creatures as intelligent. There is an obvious parallel here with the ways the majority world (like the underwater world) has not been part of mainstream thinking. Above all, a decolonizing project has to take up alternative ways (or waves) of knowing and being. Decolonizing Language Learning

Returning to questions of language learning, several points can now be re-addressed. On one level, there is the need to engage with a much wider variety of contexts and languages than those that have so far been the object of study: other languages and other contexts. As Ortega (2019: 32) notes, ‘the individuals and the contexts from which SLA researchers extrapolate knowledge about the human capacity for adult language learning are severely restricted. Grassroots multilingualism and the multilingualism of marginalized and minoritized communities rarely makes it into SLA pages’. The absence of a diversity of contexts perpetuates ‘a particular geopolitics of knowledge that privileges Northern perspectives

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and prevents Southern scholars from contributing a differently positioned interpretation of events and practices that concern them’ (Levon, 2017: 280–281). The celebrated multilingual turn in SLA (May, 2019; Ortega, 2014) is to a large extent still concerned only with learning in and around a narrow selection of European and East Asian languages (English, German, Dutch, French, Italian, Spanish, Chinese and Japanese; Spinner, 2010). Much of the writing about multilingualism occurs in English and a handful of other languages: ‘the vast majority of languages have never even been used to produce academic publications about multilingualism’ (Piller, 2016: 27). Tony Liddicoat’s (2016: 11) study of citation and research practices in journals on multilingualism suggests that ‘English-language monolingualism is a normal research practice in work in multilingualism’. The problem, as he explains, is that ‘languages other than English, and their associated epistemologies, are made almost invisible in the research practice of the field and are represented as making only a peripheral contribution to the field and to its theoretical bases’ (Liddicoat, 2016: 12). The use of English as the dominant language of academic research and publishing (Lillis et al., 2010), as well as the failure of search engines and citation indexes to capture what else is being published, means that research in and on English dominates the field while obscuring ‘the considerable scholarly activity that continues to take place around the world in multiple languages, signaling the value these languages have for academic writers as well as readers’ (Curry & Lillis, 2022: 1). A substantial body of work is published in and on Chinese, as well as Japanese and Korean, that passes under the radar of much northern scholarship. So too with Brazilian Portuguese: it may be a European language (though the World Englishes framework suggests that English is an Asian language, Portuguese a South American language, French an African language and so on), but it may also be used to discuss a range of non-European contexts and languages. The problem remains, however, that the focus is still all too often on European languages – English or Portuguese in Brazil or Timor-Leste, for example – with implications for overlooking sources, research and knowledge in and on other languages and for continuing to overlook the possibility of publishing in a language such as Tetum in Timor-Leste (Quinn, 2022), or in and on South Asian or African languages. Drawing on Santos’ (2007) discussion of an ecology of knowledges (uma ecologia dos saberes), Liddicoat (2016: 12) suggests this creates ‘an absence of knowledge and of academic traditions from outside English-speaking academic practice and in so doing represents them as not having a contribution to make when understanding the field’. This is, then, not just a question of contexts and languages outside the Global North, but rather a much wider set of concerns to do with epistemological and ideological frameworks in research, the importance not only of a diversity of contexts but also of pursuing alternative ways

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of knowing. The dominance of English as a ‘universal language’ renders research written in English universally applicable, while research in other languages is deemed local, particular to a context. There is therefore ‘a construction of certain epistemologies of multilingualism as being less relevant or as hierarchically inferior or less important for academic work than others’ (Liddicoat, 2016: 14). Generalizations (the pernicious ‘universals’ of Eurocentric coloniality) are proposed based on findings across a narrow selection of European languages, while other patterns of learning and multilingualism that may be quite different are rarely considered (Spinner, 2010). The concern, then, is not just to expand contexts but to rethink what multilingualism may mean (Makalela, 2018), to understand that the conventional understanding of multilingualism is a colonial construct in need of decolonization, that unlike ‘mainstream approaches that proceed through counting putative language-things’, an approach to multilingualism that starts with language practices and experiences ‘holds the promise for decolonising the field of study’ (Ndhlovu & Makalela, 2021: 173). To decolonize studies of language learning, therefore, several approaches are needed beyond an expanded inventory of languages and contexts. This will depend on the place from which any such project is conceived. From the perspective of the Global North, Alison Phipps (2019: 89–93) proposes five pathways towards a decolonized multilingualism: doing it (praxis) by learning the languages of contemporary immigration (Tamil, Arabic, Kurdish, Pashto, for example); being knowingly mischievous, that is to say perforating assumptions and getting other things to happen; representing the multilingual speaker, or a ‘collective engagement’ with languages other than those commonly learned; engaging with acoustics and kinaesthetics, or bodily forms of language learning and use; and understanding the spiritual/ritual/ceremonial dimensions of language, or getting in touch with all those other things languages may do. This does not just challenge assumptions about which languages are being looked at, but rather much wider assumptions about language and learning. Across the social sciences, it has been acknowledged that research ‘needs emancipation from hearing only the voices of western Europe, emancipation from generations of silence, and emancipation from seeing the world in one colour’ (Guba & Lincoln, 2005: 212). As Bagele Chilisa (2011: 1) puts it, ‘current academic research traditions are founded on the culture, history, and philosophies of Euro-Western thought’ and ‘exclude from knowledge production the knowledge systems of formerly colonized, historically marginalized, and oppressed groups’. This requires the decolonization of research methodologies and the development of alternative approaches (Smith, 2012). Ndhlovu (2021: 199) makes a case for convivial research, devoted to ‘finding connections, points of confluence, and opportunities for transfer of concepts, among members of academic

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communities, and between them and the nonacademic communities they serve’. Socio- and applied linguistic research needs to be understood as ‘an act of decolonisation’ (Stebbins et al., 2018: 237). The research process needs to be seen in decolonial terms, involving different ways of understanding language and its relation to community and place, different relations between linguists and community members, different knowledge status between academic and community ways of knowing, different ways of writing and exploring voice. For Lynn Mario De Souza (2017: 206), the problem remains that while some researchers claim a ‘pro-Indigenous’ stance ‘in favour of the preservation of Indigenous languages and epistemologies’, too much of this thinking remains ‘trapped within the bounds of their own Enlightenment epistemologies’. When these researchers ‘claim to listen to the Indigenous other, they apparently only hear their own voices and values’ unable to escape from the ‘bounds of lazy thinking, and thus liable to waste the wealth of experience of the ecology of knowledges that surrounds them but remains invisible to their eyes’. De Souza (2017) is here taking up Santos’ (2012) notion of ‘lazy reason’ (razão indolente) – the critique that dominant modes of thinking cannot understand or engage with alternative modes of thought. This is to start to do research and frame forms of knowledge differently, of thinking, for example, in terms of Ingersoll’s (2016) seascape epistemology – drawing on Indigenous Hawaiian ideas – which aims to ‘decenter the conversation toward independent and alternative ways of knowing and producing knowledge that allow for empowerment and self-determination within a multisited world’ (Ingersoll, 2016: 3). When Indigenous people say that their language is ‘sleeping’ rather than ‘dead’ (Perley, 2012) – ‘My tribal heritage language, myaamia, was sleeping for a long time’ (Leonard, 2017: 17) – it is important to consider the different ways of thinking that this invokes, the implications for language in relation to landscape, seascape, people and use. As Paul Monaghan (2012: 53) puts it, language and stories are understood as still being ‘in the land, having been placed there by the ancestors’ and to reclaim such sleeping languages may be as much a spiritual process as one involving documentation. In order to change the ways of thinking about this, and in order to enable language projects to meet community interests, it is essential to ‘decolonize “language”’ (Leonard, 2017: 32). This, in turn, is to take seriously Tyson Yunkaporta’s (2019: 167) injunction ‘to avoid putting all your cognitive eggs in one basket’ and instead to understand how ‘nothing exists outside of a relationship to something else’ (Yunkaporta, 2019: 169). These forms of relationality can be seen in different forms of learning from a Wik Mungkan (Cape York Peninsula, Northern Queensland) perspective: mee’-aathan (‘learning through close observation’), ma’-aathan (‘helping others learn and stepping back’), thaa’-aathan (‘passing on knowledge through yarning

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[talking]’), konangam pi’-pi’an (‘learning through deep listening’) and ngantam ngeeyan (‘reflecting and understanding’) (Yunkaporta, 2019: 269–270). These ways of learning, Yunkaporta suggests, are complex social and cognitive processes. They could be mapped against northern traditions in SLA, such as ‘focus on form’ or the ‘zone of proximal development’, but that would be to make the mistake of seeking equivalences, assuming similarity of knowledge, or attempting to judge other forms of knowledge by their apparent northern matches. As Yunkaporta also explains, they can be represented in simple terms by using the hand: different ways of learning, like different relations between social and cognitive processes – kinship-mind, story-mind, dreaming-mind, ancestor-mind and pattern-mind – spread across the knuckles and fingers of your hand. Complex ideas with simple representations, rather than simple ideas with complex representations. Conclusion: Towards a Decolonial Sociolinguistics of Language Learning

SLA is a sociolinguistic enterprise in desperate need of decolonization. While considerable dissention from normative SLA has brought social elements to the table, and encouraged discussion of non-­essentialist language ideologies, social justice and multilingualism, these are only stepping-stones (and quite slippery ones) towards a decolonized language development. A decolonial sociolinguistics of language learning needs to do at least two things. First, it has to operate with a serious politics of knowledge, one that engages with the coloniality of knowledge and the raciolinguistic hierarchies embedded in institutions and theoretical frameworks concerned with SLA, with the implication of the white listening subject making judgements on the language performances of racialized others (Flores & Rosa, 2019). Such raciolinguistic ideologies cannot be undone merely by incorporating others and other contexts into mainstream studies of language development. Rather, Nelson Flores and Jonathan Rosa (2019: 147) insist, this can only be done ‘through structural change that dismantles the white supremacy that lies at the foundation’ of those institutions that set the SLA agendas, thus challenging the ‘raciolinguistic policing’ that is at the heart of assumptions about norms and difference. This is about confronting the ‘global colour line’ (Lake & Reynolds, 2008: 5), the technologies of distinction and surveillance that divide speakers along racial lines. The global colour line of SLA and language education includes not only areas that have now received considerable attention – such as the insidiously racial native/non-native speaker divide (Kubota & Lin, 2009; Romney, 2010) – but also a range of other domains. White normativity sits at the heart of English language teaching, part of a ‘system of racial discrimination that is founded on White privilege,

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saviorism and neoliberalism’ (Jenks, 2017: 149). As Salikoko Mufwene (2001: 107) has noted, ‘the naming practices of new Englishes’ and particularly the exclusion of pidgins and creoles, has more to do ‘with the racial identity of those who speak them than with how these varieties developed and the extent of their structural deviations’. The definitions, inclusions and exclusions of varieties of English cannot be understood without an understanding of the raciolinguistic hierarchies they perpetuate (Reyes, 2017). In some ways, World Englishes may at least present a less essentialist ontology than other language models in SLA, but this way of thinking all too often reproduces colonial frames of thought. No decolonial project can rest on some general ‘social justice’ platform. Common framings of social justice do not start with a critique of current conditions – capitalism, neoliberalism, racism or gender inequality – so much as a normative vision of social equity. Social justice, Panayota Gounari (2020: 14) suggests, has become an established set of skills and competencies embedded in a liberal worldview, rather than a more critical ‘exploration of an uncharted and problematic terrain that would push students to understand themselves in the world and name the perpetrators of social injustice’. The idea of social justice draws its inspiration from the liberal tradition of justice and moral philosophy whose ‘individualistic liberalism’ fails to deal with the politics of language adequately (Ives, 2015: 65). As Charles Mills (2017: 147) argues, the inability to deal with race from this perspective in any meaningful way ‘is structural and symptomatic of white political philosophy in general’. Settler social justice thinking all too easily absorbs decolonial thinking while trying to avoid the ‘unbearable searchlight of complicity’ (Tuck & Yang, 2012: 9), following the ‘extractive logic of whiteness’ (Dutta, 2020: 233), and becoming thus a new form of colonial thinking under the guise of liberal hopes for equality (Dominguez, 2017). Rather than social justice, a decolonial, anti-racist and anti-capitalist politics needs to take centre stage (Coulthard, 2014). Decolonial projects have to take other ways of thinking about language and learning seriously. This is not about starting with multilingualism as the norm so much as asking what is meant by multilingualism, what frames of language are being used, what it means to ‘know’ a language in different places and for different reasons, how multilingualism works differently in different places (Di Carlo, 2018; Ndhlovu & Makalela, 2021). This is therefore not only a question of making evident and resisting the norms of whiteness in the field, but also of getting away from the predefined frames of thinking that have operated for too long (Washington, 2020). A decolonial sociolinguistics of language learning needs to take up ontological as well as epistemological questions. The pluralization of epistemologies, Martin Savransky (2017) suggests, remains the ultimate goal of postcolonial and many decolonial approaches alike, and unless we can move towards questions about language ontologies (what languages are, rather than how we think about

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them; Pennycook, 2020b), there are limited possibilities for a deeper set of changes to how language may be understood. A decolonial sociolinguistics of language learning therefore has to make space for, and be seriously informed by, Indigenous and other ways of knowing, while also treading carefully lest the turn towards other (Indigenous) ways of knowing becomes not so much an acknowledgement of alterity as yet another form of appropriation (Cusicanqui, 2019). This is about framing knowledge, people and languages differently, about trying to move away from creating ever more complex models of language learning to show that we know more, and that more needs to be included, but rather about stepping back and looking at how complex ideas may be parsimoniously illustrated (Yunkaporta, 2019). For Mufwene (2020: 290), the idea of decolonial linguistics ‘entails reducing the Western bias and hegemony in how languages of the global South and the (socio) linguistic behaviours of their speakers and writers are analysed’. It is only then that it becomes possible to think of a decolonized sociolinguistics of language learning as both a political enterprise and a practice of thinking otherwise. This is about transforming knowledge through exposure to the differences that decolonial thought makes salient, the possibility of imagining a different relationship between knowledge and reality, and thus different ways of doing research, writing and teaching in applied linguistics (Pennycook & Makoni, 2020). This is not only a question of the development of epistemologies of the south and an ecology of knowledges but also the cultivation of a decolonial imagination (Savransky, 2017: 13). The ‘lingering inheritance of coloniality and its unequal distribution of knowledges, bodies, and languages’ has to be taken seriously in any decolonial project if we are to ‘avoid, albeit unwittingly, continuing the legacy of coloniality’ (De Souza, 2017: 206). This is why it is important to think with mangroves and cuttlefish, to find other frames beyond branching trees. The suggestion here is not, to be sure, that thinking with mangroves or cuttlefish provides an answer to these concerns, but rather to propose the need for new ways of imagining that make alternative forms of littoral thinking possible. ‘Epistemologies of the South and political ontology’, Escobar (2016: 29) explains, are ‘efforts at thinking beyond the academy, with the pueblos-territorio (peoples-territory) and the intellectual-activists linked to them’. This is not only about showing the limits of northern social theory, but also about joining in political struggle, and seeking alternative ways of thinking, researching and understanding. Notes (1) The linguistic–sociolinguistic distinction is equally problematic: we only need sociolinguistics to the extent that linguistics managed to define itself in asocial terms. We will do well to be rid of all these distinctions. (2) The Coastal Conservation and Education Foundation in Cebu (Philippines) for which I volunteer my work as a diver for reef surveys stresses the importance not only of

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coral reefs but also of mangroves for the survival of fish populations and by extension many other creatures, including humans. See https://www​.coast​.ph​/ccef​-news​/04​ /mangroves​-a​-link​-between​-the​-land​-and​-the​-sea/. (3) I have a particular fondness for giant cuttlefish, having, like Godfrey-Smith (2017), spent many hours hovering motionless in the waters off Sydney watching these remarkable creatures.

References Alter, S. (1999) Darwin and the Linguistic Image: Language, Race and Natural Theology in the Nineteenth Century. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Appleby, R. and Pennycook, A. (2017) Swimming with sharks, ecological feminism and posthuman language politics. Critical Inquiry in Language Studies 14, 239–261. Block, D. (2003) The Social Turn in Second Language Acquisition. New York: Routledge. Bogost, I. (2012) Alien Phenomenology, or What It’s Like to Be a Thing. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Bou Ayash, N. (2019) Toward Translingual Realities in Composition: (Re)working Local Language Representations and Practices. Logan, UT: Utah State University Press. Canagarajah, S. (2018) Translingual practice as spatial repertoires: Expanding the paradigm beyond structuralist orientations. Applied Linguistics 39, 31–54. Chilisa, B. (2011) Indigenous Research Methodologies. New York: Sage. Cohn, B. (1996) Colonialism and Its Forms of Knowledge. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Coulthard, G.S. (2014) Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Curry, M.J. and Lillis, T. (2022) Multilingualism in academic writing for publication: Putting English in its place. Language Teaching. https://doi.org/10.1017/ S0261444822000040. Cusicanqui, S.R. (2019) Ch’ixinakax utxiwa: A reflection on the practices and discourses of decolonization. Language, Culture and Society 1, 106–119. Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F. (1987) A Thousand Plateaus (trans. B. Massumi). London: Athlone Press. De Souza, L.M. (2017) Epistemic diversity, lazy reason, and ethical translation in postcolonial contexts: The case of Indigenous educational policy in Brazil. In C. Kerfoot and K. Hyltenstam (eds) Entangled Discourses: South-North Orders of Visibility (pp. 189–208). New York: Routledge. Deumert, A. (2019) The mangrove or moving with and beyond the rhizome. Diggit Magazine, 27 September. See https://www​.diggitmagazine​.com​/column​/mangrove​-or​-moving​-and​-beyond​-rhizome (accessed 6 March 2023). Di Carlo, P. (2018) Towards an understanding of African endogenous multilingualism: Ethnography, language ideologies, and the supernatural. International Journal of Sociology of Language 254, 139–163. Dominguez, M. (2017) ‘Se hace puentes al Andar’: Decolonial teacher education as a needed bridge to culturally sustaining and revitalizing pedagogies. In D. Paris and H.S. Alim (eds) Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies: Teaching and Learning for Justice in a Changing World (pp. 225–246). New York: Teachers College Press. Douglas Fir Group (2016) A transdisciplinary framework for SLA in a multilingual world. Modern Language Journal 100, 19–47. Dovchin, S., Sultana, S. and Pennycook, A. (2016) Unequal translingual Englishes in the Asian peripheries. Asian Englishes 8, 92–108. Dutta, M.J. (2020) Whiteness, internationalization, and erasure: Decolonizing futures from the Global South. Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 17, 228–235,

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Errington, J. (2008) Linguistics in a Colonial World: A Story of Language, Meaning and Power. Oxford: Blackwell. Escobar, A. (2016) Thinking-feeling with the earth: Territorial struggles and the ontological dimension of the epistemologies of the South. Revista de Antropología Iberoamericana 11, 11–32. Firth, A. and Wagner, J. (1997) On discourse, communication, and (some) fundamental concepts in SLA research. Modern Language Journal 81, 285–300. Flores, N. and Lewis, M. (2016) From truncated to sociopolitical emergence: A critique of super-diversity in sociolinguistics. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 241, 97–124. Flores, N. and Rosa, J. (2019) Bringing race into second language acquisition. The Modern Language Journal 103, 145–151. García, O. (2009) Bilingual Education in the 21st Century: A Global Perspective. Oxford: Wiley. Godfrey-Smith, P. (2017) Other Minds: The Octopus and the Evolution of Intelligent Life. London: William Collins. Gounari, P. (2020) Introduction to the Special Issue on Critical Pedagogies. L2 Journal 12, 3–20. Guba, E. and Lincoln, Y. (2005) Paradigmatic controversies, contradictions, and emerging confluences. In N.K. Denzin and Y. Lincoln (eds) Handbook of Qualitative Research (pp. 191–215). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Hayman, E., James, C. and Wedge, A. (2018) Future rivers of the Anthropocene or whose Anthropocene is it? Decolonising the Anthropocene. Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society 6, 77–92. Heller, M. and McElhinny, B. (2017) Language, Capitalism, Colonialism: Toward a Critical History. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Hutchins, E. (2005) Material anchors for conceptual blends. Journal of Pragmatics 37, 1555–1577. Hutchins, E. (2014) The cultural ecosystem of human cognition. Philosophical Psychology 27, 34–49. Ingersoll, K.A. (2016) Waves of Knowing: A Seascape Epistemology. Durham, CT: Duke University Press. Ives, P. (2015) Global English and the limits of liberalism: Confronting global capitalism and challenges to the nation state. In T. Ricento (ed.) Language Policy and Political Economy: English in a Global Context (pp. 48–71). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jenks, C.J. (2017) Race and Ethnicity in English Language Teaching: Korea in Focus. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Johnson, M. (2004) A Philosophy of Second Language Acquisition. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Kramsch, C. and Zhang, L. (2018) The Multilingual Instructor. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kubota, R. (2018) Unpacking research and practice in World Englishes and second language acquisition. World Englishes 37, 93–105. Kubota, R. and Lin, A. (2009) Race, culture, and identities in second language education. In R. Kubota and A. Lin (eds) Race, Culture and Identities in Second Language Education: Exploring Critically Engaged Practice (pp. 1–21). New York: Routledge. Kumaravadivelu, B. (2016) The decolonial option in English teaching: Can the subaltern act? TESOL Quarterly 50, 66–85. Lake, M. and Reynolds, H. (2008) Drawing the Global Colour Line: White Men’s Countries and the Question of Racial Equality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lantolf, J. (ed.) (2000) Sociocultural Theory and Second Language Learning. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Lantolf, J. and Thorne, S. (2006) Sociocultural Theory and the Genesis of Second Language Development. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Larsen-Freeman, D. and Cameron, L. (2008) Complex Systems and Applied Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Leonard, W. (2017) Producing language reclamation by decolonising ‘language’. Language Documentation and Description 14, 15–36. Levon, E. (2017) Situating sociolinguistics: Coupland – Theoretical debates. Journal of Sociolinguistics 21, 272–288. Liddicoat, T. (2016) Multilingualism research in anglophone contexts as a discursive construction of multilingual practice. Journal of Multicultural Discourse 11 (1), 9–24. Lillis, T., Hewings, A., Vladimirou, D. and Curry, M.J. (2010) The geolinguistics of English as an academic lingua franca: Citation practices across English-medium national and English-medium international journals. International Journal of Applied Linguistics 20, 111–135. Makalela, L. (2018) Introduction: Shifting lenses. In L. Makalela (ed.) Shifting Lenses: Multilanguaging, Decolonisation and Education in the Global South (pp. 1–18). Cape Town: CASAS. May, S. (2019) Negotiating the multilingual turn in SLA. The Modern Language Journal 103, 122–129. Mills, C. (2017) Black Rights/White Wrongs: The Critique of Racial Liberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Monaghan, P. (2012) Going for wombat – Transformations in Wirangu and the Scotdesco Community on the far west coast of South Australia. Oceania 82, 45–61. Montgomery, S. (2015) The Soul of an Octopus. London: Simon & Schuster. Mufwene, S. (2001) The Ecology of Language Evolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mufwene, S. (2020) Decolonial linguistics as paradigm shift: A commentary. In A. Deumert, A. Storch and N. Shepherd (eds) Colonial and Decolonial Linguistics: Knowledges and Epistemes. (pp. 289–300). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Nagel, T. (1974) What is it like to be a bat? The Philosophical Review 83, 435–450. Nandy, A. (1983) The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self Under Colonialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ndhlovu, F. (2021) Decolonising sociolinguistics research: Methodological turn-around next? International Journal of the Sociology of Language 267–268, 193–201. Ndhlovu, F. and Makalela, L. (2021) Decolonising Multilingualism in Africa: Recentering Silenced Voices from the Global South. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Ortega, L. (2014) Ways forward for a bi/multilingual turn in SLA. In S. May (ed.) The Multilingual Turn: Implications for SLA, TESOL, and Bilingual Education (pp. 32–53). New York: Routledge. Ortega, L. (2018) Ontologies of language, second language acquisition, and World Englishes. World Englishes 37, 64–79. Ortega, L. (2019) SLA and the study of equitable multilingualism. The Modern Language Journal 103, 23–35. Ortega, L. and Han, Z.H. (eds) (2017) Complexity Theory and Language Development: In Celebration of Diane Larsen-Freeman. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Parakrama, A. (1995) De-hegemonizing Language Standards: Learning from (Post) ­Colonial Englishes about ‘English’. Basingstoke: MacMillan. Pennycook A. (2004) Language policy and the ecological turn. Language Policy 3, 213–239. Pennycook, A. (2018) Posthumanist Applied Linguistics. London: Routledge. Pennycook, A. (2020a) Translingual entanglements of English. World Englishes 39 (2), 222–235.

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Pennycook, A. (2020b) Pushing the ontological boundaries of English. In C.J. Hall and R. Wicaksono (eds) Ontologies of English. Reconceptualising the Language for Learning, Teaching, and Assessment (pp. 355–367). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pennycook, A. and Makoni, S. (2020) Innovations and Challenges in Applied Linguistics from the Global South. London: Routledge. Perley, B. (2012) Zombie linguistics: Experts, endangered languages and the curse of undead voices. Anthropological Forum 22, 133–149. Phipps, A. (2019) Decolonising Multilingualism: Struggles to Decreate. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Piller, I. (2016) Monolingual ways of seeing multilingualism. Journal of Multicultural Discourses 11, 25–33. Quinn, M. (2022) Who’s reading who? Surveying languages of research in Timor-Leste. Journal of English for Research Publication Purposes 3, 198–224. Reyes, A. (2017) Inventing postcolonial elites: Race, language, mix, excess. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 27, 210–231. Romney, M. (2010) The colour of English. In A. Mahboob (ed.) The NNEST Lens: Non-native English Speakers in TESOL (pp. 18–34). Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Santos, B. de Sousa (2007) Conhecimento e transformação social: Para uma ecologia dos saberes. Somanlu: Revista de Estudos Amazônicos 7, 175–189. Santos, B. de Sousa (2012) Public sphere and epistemologies of the South. Africa Development 37, 43–67. Savransky, M. (2017) A decolonial imagination: Sociology, anthropology and the politics of reality. Sociology 51, 11–26. Schneider, B. (2018) Methodological nationalism in linguistics. Language Sciences 76, 1–13. Smith, L.T. (2012) Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples (2nd edn). London: Zed Books. Spinner, P. (2010) Review article: Second language acquisition of Bantu languages (a mostly untapped opportunity). Second Language Research 27, 418–430. Sridhar, K.K. and Sridhar, S.N. (1986) Bridging the paradigm gap: Second language acquisition theory and indigenized varieties of English. World Englishes 5, 3–14. Stebbins, T., Eira, K. and Couzens, V. (2018) Living Languages and New Approaches to Language Revitalisation Research. London: Routledge. Thompson, C. (2019) Sea People: The Puzzle of Polynesia. London: William Collins. Thorne, S., Hellerman, J. and Jakonen, T. (2021) Rewilding language education: Emergent assemblages and entangled actions. The Modern Language Journal 105, 106–125. Tuck, E. and Yang, K.W. (2012) Decolonization is not a metaphor. Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society 1, 1–40. VanPatten, B., Keating. G. and Wulff, S. (eds) (2020) Theories in Second Language Acquisition: An Introduction. New York: Routledge. Washington, M. (2020) Woke skin, white masks: Race and communication studies. Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 17, 261–266. Waters, D. (2012) From extended phenotype to extended affordance: Distributed language at the intersection of Gibson and Dawkins. Language Sciences 34, 507–512. Yunkaporta, T. (2019) Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World. Melbourne: Text Publishing.

6 Making the Secular Sacred: Sociolinguistic Domains and Performance in Christian Worship Nana Aba Appiah Amfo and Dorothy Pokua Agyepong

Introduction

In this chapter, we interrogate Domain Theory (Fishman, 1972; Parasher, 1980) within the context of some modern African Christian worship activities. This study is conducted within the framework of the sociology of language and religion (SLR; Omoniyi, 2010; Omoniyi & Fishman, 2006). In conjunction with Joshua Fishman’s (2006) Decalogue of Theoretical Principles for SLR, we interrogate the adoption of sociolinguistic principles such as the Domain Theory in SLR within multilingual contexts. Within the linguistic context, domains are considered social spaces of activity which are associated with specific language practices. Speech communities are considered to be made up of a number of domains which not only organize aspects of our social lives but actually define them. Thus, domains are expected to have distinctive, domain-specific features such as addressee, setting and topic. In multilingual communities, domains may be deciphered by the assignment of different languages to transactions that occur in them. This chapter draws inspiration from Boaventura de Souza Santos’ (2014) work, in which he identifies four main dimensions of epistemologies of the south: • the understanding of the world is much broader than the Western/ Eurocentric understanding of the world; • there are alternatives to challenging this worldview – what we need is unconventional thinking of those alternatives; • the epistemic multiplicity of knowledges in the world is infinite and no general theory can understand it; • an ecology of knowledges combined with intercultural translation is one alternative to a general theory. 90

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We explore the relevance of these dimensions and argue that Domain Theory is not universally applicable to all contexts. Using the context of an African (multilingual) community, and Christian worship services, we demonstrate that the association of the religious domain with a particular ‘religious’ language may be misleading and rather single dimensional. Therefore, we suggest an alternative way of analyzing language use in religion within multilingual settings. We provide specific examples where the religious space has been used for education on health issues (talk on HIV/AIDS by a medical doctor), as an information source on community and national news (a makeshift radio station where news on current affairs, sports, etc. is presented), announcements relating to social needs (job advertisements, fitness programmes, etc.) and an avenue for the performance of traditional ceremonies (child naming). Our conclusion is that what pertains within a domain (in terms of both topic and language choice) is driven by the needs of the community, and a captive audience may be used for several purposes. These real-life examples, obtained through participant observation, demonstrate that perhaps more often than it has been suggested, there are no clear-cut domains, and this realization provides the impetus for a consideration of multi-domain analysis rather than the existing theoretical strait-jacket.1 The rest of this chapter is organized as follows. In the next section, we present the relevant section of Fishman’s (2006) Decalogue of Theoretical Principles for SLR. As background to our case studies, we provide a summary of the sociolinguistic context and the data collection methods in the subsequent section. The section that follows discusses contexts wherein the churches (our case studies) are reconstructed as educative/ social spaces, spaces for performing traditional ceremonies (child naming) and information sources, by virtue of the types of activities that take place within those spaces. The discussion of the data and its analysis is followed by the conclusion. Fishman’s Decalogue of Theoretical Principles and Domain Theory

Fishman’s Decalogue of Theoretical Principles formulated in the wake of SLR makes certain predictions about the use of language in religion. His first principle predicts that ‘[t]he language (or “variety”) of religion always functions within a larger multilingual/multivarietal repertoire’ (Fishman, 2006: 14). The larger societal multilingualism cannot be lost on the language of religion and religious practices. This, in part, accounts for the fifth principle that ‘the rise and spread of newly sanctified and cosanctified varieties (also of less sanctified ones) within the sociolinguistic repertoire of a speech community renders that repertoire more complex and more functionally differentiated than heretofore’ (Fishman, 2006: 17). Following from the seventh principle, multiple language varieties

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may co-exist within the same religious community. Considering that sociolinguistic change is a gradual process and may not be evenly spread, different languages/varieties may gradually gain acceptance. Sometimes, other languages may start on the fringes of worship services. These may gradually find their way into hymnals, praise and worship songs, Bible study sessions and eventually sermons. The domain concept popularized by Fishman (1972) is originally attributed to Schmidt-Rohr. Domain Theory provides a framework for demarcating language use in the speech community. Within multilingual settings, domains are considered as theoretical constructs which initiate specific language choices. Within this framework, domains are distinguished by the assignment of different languages/varieties to the transactions that occur in them. In some instances, these are backed by formal language policies, or they may result from conventional practice often inextricably linked to national language policies. Within the African context, formal language policies are often synonymous with languagein-education policies. What language(s) should be used as a medium of instruction in the classroom is often captured in a well-articulated policy document. However, the fact that, in Ghana, the language of the courts is English follows from the adoption of the colonial language on independence as the country’s official language. On the other hand, the dominance of the use of a local language in an open-air community market is the result of cultural and communal conventions. And even though language use in religious contexts may be fairly regulated, this is likely to result from communal convention rather than the result of a properly documented language policy. Mooney (2006) proposes that in multilingual contexts, in spite of the dominance of specific languages in identified domains, other languages are likely to be found in operation to varying extents. Domains are constructed, rather than given. Therefore, they vary for each multilingual community. In traditional sociolinguistics, the speech community is considered to be made up of several domains. These domains are distinguished by configurations of person, place and topic. Examples of domains cited in the literature (Fishman, 1972; Hymes, 1964; Parasher, 1980) include family, religion, education, workplace, playground/recreation and friendship. Different languages are dominant in different domains, in multilingual communities. Holmes (2013) describes five domains that are likely to be found in different communities. For her, a ‘domain involves typical interactions between typical participants in typical settings’ (Holmes, 2013: 22; see Table 6.1). Sociolinguistic Context and Data Collection

Ghana is considered a highly religious country, with Christians being the dominant population. There is freedom of religion, thus any

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Table 6.1  Domains of language use Domain

Addressee

Setting

Topic

Family

Parent

Home

Planning a family party

Friendship

Friend

Beach

How to play beach tennis

Religion

Priest

Church

Choosing the Sunday liturgy

Education

Teacher

School

Solving a maths problem

Employment

Employer

Workplace

Applying for a promotion

Source: Adapted from Holmes (2013: 22).

form of religious discrimination is constitutionally prohibited (Ghana International Religious Freedom Report, 2018). Nana Aba Appiah Amfo and Tope Omoniyi (2019) report that the highly religious nature of the country is often characterized by public displays of religious faiths, especially the Christian faith. A case in point is when, on 6 March 2018 (61st anniversary of Ghana’s independence), the president of Ghana, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, unveiled plans for the construction of a new national cathedral in Accra (capital city of Ghana). He explained that when completed, the cathedral will provide a space where people of all faiths can gather and practice their faith. During national events such as Independence Day celebrations, leaders of the different religious faiths are given the opportunity to open the ceremony with prayers. In schools, Christian prayers are said by pupils before the start of the day’s activities. Prayers are also said at the start of meetings or other significant corporate events in some companies and organizations (Amfo & Omoniyi, 2019). The linguistic landscape and (human) naming systems are dominated by metaphors and inscriptions which point to the belief in a supernatural or supreme being. Examples of some Ghanaian shops’ names include ‘Lord of Glory Kebabs’ and ‘Holy Ghost Cosmetics’ (Gifford, 2004). Names such as Nyameye (‘God is good’, Akan; Agyekum, 2006) and Sitsofe (‘God is my refuge’, Ewe; Agbedor & Johnson, 2005) given to children when they are born also suggest the parents’ belief in God. More recently, names like Ayeyi (‘Praise’), Aseda (‘Thanks’), Nhyira (‘Blessing’) and Nyamedea (‘God’s own’) have become commonplace within the Ghanaian Christian community. According to the 2010 Population and Housing Census (the most recent available), approximately 71.2% of the Ghanaian population is Christian and 17.6% is Muslim; 5.2% of the population adhere to traditional religion, while 5.3% has no religion (Ghana Statistical Service, 2012).2 There are also smaller religious groups, some of which include the Baha’i Faith, Eckankar, Buddhism and Judaism. Examples of some Christian denominations are Roman Catholic, Methodist, Anglican, Presbyterian, Evangelical Presbyterian Church, Evangelical Lutheran, Pentecostal, Seventh-day Adventist, The Church of Jesus Christ of

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Latter-day Saints and other numerous non-denominational Christian groups. The Muslim communities also include Ahmadiya, Shia, Sunnis and Sufis (Ghana International Religious Freedom Report, 2018). It is important to state that there is no significant link between ethnicity and religion; however, geographical locations are associated with certain religious identities, to an extent. For instance, while Christians can be found throughout the country, a large population of Muslims live in the five northern regions and the display of traditional religious activities are most prominent in rural areas. Linguistically, Ghana is a multilingual country. There are an estimated 81  languages, 73 of which are Indigenous and eight are non-­ Indigenous (Eberhard et  al., 2020). The official language of Ghana is English. This follows from the country’s British colonial heritage. Thus, English occupies a privileged position in the country. It is the language of education, official government/non-government proceedings and interactions, diplomacy and justice delivery. It is also the language used in the formal private sector. Akan (Kwa sub-group of the Niger-Congo family) is the most widely spoken Indigenous language in Ghana. It is Indigenous to the Asante, Eastern, Central, Oti, Western, Western North, Bono East, Ahafo and Bono regions (nine out of the 16 regions) in Ghana. Eberhard et al. (2020) report the language as having 9,100,000 speakers (8,100,000 first language users and 1,000,000 second language users). According to Frederica Guerini (2008: 4), Akan enjoys ‘considerable prestige and is currently employed in a variety of Domains: in religious ceremonies, in politics, in television and radio programmes, within the judicial system and even in formal education’.3 About two thirds of the Ghanaian population use Akan as a lingua franca. Among literates, English may also be used as a lingua franca if the interactants do not share a common local language. Due to its extensive usage, Kweku Osam (2004: 3) argues that ‘even though no official declaration has been made, Akan is growing in its influence as a potential national language, especially since people who speak other languages sometimes use it as a lingua franca’. For instance, in Accra (the capital city of Ghana and Indigenous to Ga), people who speak different languages adopt either Akan or English as their means of communication in many public spaces (markets, churches, offices, bus stations) and for this reason, in Accra ‘Akan not Ga, has become the lingua franca’ (Dakubu, 2005: 52). Another language that is used in everyday interactions is Ghanaian Pidgin English. There are two distinct varieties: non-institutionalized/ uneducated Pidgin English (GhaPE) and institutionalized/educated Ghanaian Pidgin English (EGPE; Agyepong & Amfo, 2022; Dako, 2002a, 2020b; Huber, 1999; Osei-Tutu, 2018; Rupp, 2013). The uneducated variety is transmitted and used as a lingua franca in multilingual settings by people with minimal or no formal education. The educated variety is predominantly used as an in-group or solidarity language by young males

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who have attained at least a senior high-level education (Agyepong & Amfo, 2022; Dako, 2002a, 2020b; Dako & Bonnie, 2014; Huber, 1999). Unlike GhaPE, EGPE does not fulfil a communication gap. Over the years, EGPE has expanded its domains, that is, from informal settings to cover ‘formal’ spaces such as offices, churches and newsrooms (Agyepong & Amfo, 2022; Frimpong, 2012). Below, we discuss an instance where Pidgin English is used during a sermon. This study is based on primary data gathered from six church locations, five of which are branches of one church. The two main churches discussed here are the Redeemer Church of Paradise (RCP) and the Blessed Church of Paradise (BCP).4 Both churches are located in Accra. The data was collected through participant observation over an eightmonth period. The first set, which was from RCP, was collected from September to December 2015. Data for BCP was gathered from April to July 2017. Observation of the churches took place during Sunday morning services. The discussion on RCP is based on preliminary findings by Amfo and Omoniyi (2019). For BCP, we present primary data gathered from our participant observations. Case Studies

In the subsections that follow, we describe the two main churches used in this study, paying particular attention to their language practices. We first discuss RCP, which is a medium-sized interdenominational church. Following this, we focus on the two main branch types of BCP. Redeemer Church of Paradise5

Amfo and Omoniyi (2019: 81) describe RCP as follows. RCP is a medium-sized interdenominational church located in Accra. It can be described as an African Independent Church (AIC) (Asamoah-Gyadu, 2005; Gifford, 2004; Omenyo, 2006) or a stand-alone church, because it is not part of a ‘franchise’ of a particular church. Its establishment and way of functioning is, however, different from AICs described in the above studies, in the sense that it is more community than individually driven. This has implications for the church’s way of operating. Due to its interdenominational nature, in its liturgy it incorporates features of both mainline churches as well as those of Pentecostal and Charismatic churches. For instance, hymns, a feature associated with mainline churches, are sung during services. Aspects of the service such as praise and worship, offering and sermons are typically associated with Charismatic or Pentecostal churches (Gifford, 2004). The church also incorporates group Bible studies as part of its service. This is also characteristic of Pentecostal churches. RCP has no documented language policy (the same holds true for most Christian denominations in Ghana). However, it operates some

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form of flexible multilingualism, with Akan and English the dominant languages used during services. Ga (Indigenous language of Accra) and Ewe (language of the Volta region) are also used in the services. Key members of the congregation who lead aspects of the service (officiant or moderator of the service and the preacher) choose between the two dominant languages, i.e. Akan or English. The two languages are chosen mainly for pragmatic purposes, as both are the languages of wider communication in Ghana as well as the community in which RCP is located. In addition to these languages, the significant number of Ewe settlers in the community makes it symbolically relevant to include Ewe in their services. Also symbolically appropriate is the inclusion of Ga especially because it is the language of the capital city (where RCP is located). It is further motivated by the fact that there are identifiable numbers of Indigenous Ga speakers within the congregation. Note that conducting a single service in all four languages, Akan, English, Ga and Ewe, would make the services unnecessarily long and time-consuming. For this reason, the church opts to use English and Akan as its main language of worship (even though English is used more than Akan), while marginally using Ga and Ewe. The church service is divided into different segments and led by different performers. For example, the praise and worship session is led by a team of four or five singers with a leader. The songs are mostly in English and Akan (the dominant languages), with Ewe and Ga songs featuring minimally. During this session, some members of the congregation (mostly women) move out of their seats to dance in front of the rostrum. Hymns sung are mostly in English. Occasionally, Akan hymns are performed. The hymns are led by a member of the choir and the congregation joins in unison while standing. Unlike the praise and worship songs that are accompanied by a full set of instruments (keyboard, lead and bass guitars, trumpet, drums), hymns are sung in solemn manner and accompanied by the keyboard. The choir mostly sings songs in Akan and English, and sometimes Ewe and Ga. Occasionally, songs in foreign languages (isiZulu or Nigerian languages) are incorporated during the praise and worship session. These songs, which reflect the mobility of culture (i.e. language), are often enthusiastically received and enjoyed by the congregants, even if they have minimal understanding of the lyrics. For them, the fact that the songs are performed within the confines of the church is an indication that they are derived from a shared faith in Christ. As part of the worship service, there is the reading of a pre-selected Bible passage in four languages: English, Akan, Ga and Ewe. The sermon (word ministration) is bilingual. With the help of an interpreter, the sermon, which is in English, is interpreted into Akan. The preacher, who is located behind a lectern on the rostrum, uses preaching aids including a tablet/computer and/or a Bible. Throughout the sermon, the congregants remain seated. It is only when the sermon comes to a close that they are

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invited to stand and join in the performance through prayer and singing. The service also includes a Bible study which is done in small groups. The congregants reorganize their seating by forming (semi)-circles in different sections of the auditorium. For each Bible study group, there is a leader, also known as the teacher. They are responsible for stimulating and leading discussions on a specific topic of biblical interest. These are topics which were provided earlier and discussed among the Bible study leaders. The discussion is guided by an outline compiled by the leadership of the church and distributed to every member of the group prior to the meeting. The members are put into groups that reflect the languages that were used during the Bible reading. Ewe and Ga have one group each. Akan and English, however, have multiple groups. Both the Bible reading and discussions are done in the language of the group. With the exception of instances of code-switching, group members adhere to this language requirement. Blessed Church of Paradise

BCP generally has two kinds of branches, depending on the main language of interaction – English or Akan – located in different parts of Accra (the capital city).6 Sometimes, the two branches meet within the same space at different times. The services start from 7am through to about 11.30am. As branches of the same church, both BCP-English and BCP-Akan follow the same order of service – pre-service prayer meeting, Bible study (in small groups with a leader),7 praise and worship, reading of pre-selected texts, testimony session, sermon/word ministration, offertory, introduction of first-time visitors, announcements for the week, closing prayer and benediction. The main difference between BCP-­ English and BCP-Akan is the languages used for the services (i.e. predominantly English and Akan, respectively). However, certain practices seem to align with the language choice of the branch church. In what follows, we present a description of each of the two BCP services, highlighting their differences as pertaining to their language choices and practices. BCP-English

The English-speaking branches have predominantly youthful memberships. A few of the members, though, are above the age of 50. The dominant language used during services is English. It is used by selected members of the congregation who lead different segments of the service. For instance, during the pre-service prayer session, a leader raises prayer topics in English. The congregants follow their directive and pray based on the topic provided. Some of the congregants code-switch between praying in English and tongues (also known as glossolalia). The prayers are often accompanied by songs in the local languages, especially Akan.

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The praise and worship session is led by the choir, comprising a lead singer and a number of backing vocals. The songs are mostly in English, with a few Akan songs sometimes incorporated. Other Ghanaian languages such as Ga, Dangme and Ewe feature minimally during this session. Occasionally, Nigerian or South African songs are incorporated during this session. As observed by Amfo and Omoniyi (2019: 83), ‘this is indicative of mobility of cultural products, even mobility of languages, often made accessible through the internet and television and radio’. During the praise and worship session, members of the congregation join in the singing, while standing. Those members who feel like dancing move out of their seats to the space in front of the rostrum to dance. As a prelude to the sermon, there is a reading of a pre-selected Bible verse in English. Then, members who have submitted their names in advance to share their testimonies with the congregation, are invited onto the rostrum. The testimonies are shared in English. Those giving their testimony often accompany their narrations with predominantly Akan songs. The congregation joins in the singing as a way of sharing in the excitement of the person giving the testimony. The sermon is also delivered in English. Occasionally, the preacher inserts a word or two in Akan during the course of the sermon. As and when it becomes necessary, he explains certain keywords or concepts (used in the preaching) with dictionary meanings as well as biblical definitions. The preaching is incorporated with a call and response performance which involves the preacher calling out Amen (after some utterances) and the congregation responding Amen oo.8 This is a way of engaging the congregation and getting them to participate in what one may expect is a one-sided delivery. To bring the service to a close, the congregation, led by the preacher, together recite 2 Corinthians 13: 14, known as ‘the grace’ and receive benediction, all in English. After the service, the congregants usually gather in small groups to socialize. The languages used during these small gatherings are mostly the local Ghanaian languages and Pidgin English (mostly by the young men). BCP-English branches make use of a good number of modern technologies in their services. For instance, at the entrance to the auditorium, there is a fingerprint scanner used for checking attendance of the services. There are flat screen televisions and projectors in the auditorium. These are used to project the lyrics of all songs (English and local languages) during praise, worship and offering time. Also, Bible verses and sometimes PowerPoint presentations of sermons are projected onto screens for the benefit of the congregation. At the back of the auditorium is a sound engineering section where the technical team controls the sound produced by the microphones and the musical instruments. As part of the service, announcements highlighting the activities of the week are shared with the congregation. This is done in one of two ways. They are either projected onto the screen while being read by the church secretary or

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they are pre-recorded and played back to the congregation. In addition to these, the church also takes a video of all the proceedings that take place in the auditorium every Sunday. BCP-Akan

Comparatively, members of the Akan-speaking branches are generally older in age (above 40 years) than those in the English service. The service is predominantly in Akan. For example, the pre-service prayers are led in Akan. The congregants code-switch between praying in Twi (a dialect of Akan) and tongues. For the praise and worship session, the choir leads the congregation to sing (predominantly) Akan songs. On the particular Sunday we visited, one of the members of the congregation was invited to pray at the end of the worship session. This individual prayed in Ewe. This provides an indication of the acceptability of multilingualism even within a formal domain where there is the understanding that a particular language (in this case Akan) is the medium of communication. There is a recognition that, in spite of this branch being an Akan-medium congregation, there are people from different language backgrounds who feel more comfortable expressing themselves in their own language, in this case, Ewe. Generally, the sermon is delivered in Akan. However, the preacher makes use of a few English utterances from time to time. During the sermon (on the day we visited), the preacher chipped in some sentences from Pidgin English too, for example, igo bee, don’t lose hope, (translated as ‘everything will be fine, don’t lose hope’). This appears to be targeted at the young men in the congregation. As already explained, Pidgin English in Ghana has been identified as a code predominantly used by young males who have been educated to at least senior high school level. The use of Pidgin English in this context supports the argument that this code has crossed boundaries into formal spaces such as the church and offices. BCP-Akan uses less modern technology in their services. For instance, announcements are not pre-recorded or projected onto flat screen televisions. Rather, a member of the leadership team is delegated to read the announcements to the congregation (in Akan). For the two case studies discussed in this section, performance is an integral part of their worship services. For instance, there is a reconceptualization of the family. As reported by Amfo and Omoniyi (2019: 81) for RCP (and also applicable to BCP), ‘by virtue of a shared faith, fellow church members become brothers and sisters, and, as such, the use of such address terms such as Sister X or Brother Y is not uncommon. In certain churches, the spiritual leader (head pastor) is referred to as “Papa”, reflective of the father in the home, of whom leadership is expected. As a result, some form of role play is expected and actually pertains in these contexts’. Additionally, older women (above 40 years)

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or women who have leadership roles in the church, such as the pastor’s wife, and other female leaders within the church are also referred to as ‘Mama’, suggestive of the motherly roles expected of them within the church. Within our national context, all of these religious spaces are considered formal spaces; therefore, in line with Domain Theory, one would expect the use of a particular ‘religious’ language in this domain. On the contrary, RCP and BCP’s cases show that in multilingual communities, the use of different languages is permitted within a specific space or domain. Thus, even where a predominant language is used as the medium of communication (such as English or Akan), there is still a certain level of accommodation of other languages. This is in consonance with Mooney’s (2006) proposal that, within multilingual spaces, other languages are likely to be found to be in operation to varying degrees, in spite of the presence of a dominant language(s). Critically, the case studies demonstrate that certain languages which start on the fringes (e.g. Ewe and Ga, cf. RCP) may gradually manage to find a place in the liturgy. In reference to Santos’ (2014) dimensions of epistemologies of the south, we argue that the fact that these religious spaces cannot be associated with a specific ‘religious’ language is an indication that, indeed, the understanding of the world goes beyond Western/Eurocentric dimensions. That is to say that different things happen in different parts of the world, thereby producing an infinite multiplicity of knowledges, which no general or single-dimensional theory such as Domain Theory can completely understand. The language practices of RCP and BCP therefore present an alternative way of analyzing language use in religion within multilingual communities. Another important point to note is that even within the same church, as in the case of BCP, the choice of English as the language for the service comes with certain practices such as the extensive use of modern technologies, thereby associating English with modernity and technological advancement. It is noted that where Akan is the language of the service, the technological aid is restricted to the use of microphones and musical instruments. Data Presentation and Analysis

This section provides specific contexts where events that are typically non-religious or secular take place within the church spaces. We start by discussing the church as a space for providing health education. This is followed by a discussion of the church as a space where traditional ceremonies (child naming) are performed. We conclude the discussion with an illustration of the church space as a mass media platform where secular community and national news is provided. It also serves as an avenue for responding to the social needs of members.

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The church as a space for providing health education

This subsection focuses on findings from RCP previously reported in Amfo and Omoniyi (2019: 84ff.). The day of their visit (a Sunday in late October 2015) was characterized by some form of peculiarity in the service which redefined the church as a social/educative space and therefore reconstituted the religious domain and space. The service followed the usual order – prayer, praise and worship, Bible reading, etc. The sermon session, however, was used to educate the congregation about HIV/ AIDS. The preacher for the day was a guest medical officer, instead of the reverend minister. The service moderator who introduced the guest preacher, presented her to the congregants as a member of the Christian community. Such an introduction was expected to increase the level of acceptance of her and the duty she was to perform. Mindful of the religious context, she introduced her lecture by setting the context and establishing the importance of desiring good health and the requirement to be knowledgeable, using scriptures from the Bible. Two of the scriptures she cited were ‘Dear friend, I pray that you enjoy good health and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well’ (3  John  2) and ‘My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge’ (Hosea 4: 6a).9 The texts were aimed at setting the appropriate tone for a health talk in a Sunday morning church service. As a way of decontextualizing and recontextualizing (Bauman & Briggs, 1990; Fairclough, 2003) the messages from the above scriptures (i.e. removing them from their religious context and fitting them into the health talk context), the medical officer described good health as a biblical desire, requiring an individual to be knowledgeable of health issues. Amfo and Omoniyi (2019: 84) explain that ‘the medical officer’s own awareness of her audience and her attempt to contextualize the secular scientific within the sacred (biblical scripture) provides an indication of the unexpectedness of her talk with that space’. The delivery by the medical officer was in English. However, as and when it became necessary, she provided explanations for scientific terms in Akan. She also supported these with elaborations and illustrations in Akan. Her talk was aided by a PowerPoint presentation, which was projected onto flat screen televisions for the benefit of the congregation. Her presentation was in the form of a classroom session. To make the session more interactive and interesting, she invited members of the congregation to participate by asking them questions and soliciting responses. These were also aimed at keeping them fully engaged in the process. At the end of her talk, she invited the congregation to ask questions – an offer which was enthusiastically received. Thus, what would have been a postsermon prayer session was turned into a discussion segment. According to Amfo and Omoniyi (2019: 85), the case of RCP is an example of a religious domain reconstructed into a social/education

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domain. They argue that despite the fact that certain topics are anticipated with certain domains and settings (see Table 6.1), RCP’s case demonstrates that the correlation between domains, settings, topics and even language variety cannot be static and predetermined (contra Holmes, 2013). They explain further that probably, for RCP, that particular Sunday sermon was replaced with a health talk because the leadership of the church found it appropriate to turn one of the Sunday’s sessions into a health lecture. In fact, according to Amfo and Omoniyi (2019: 85), ‘the quest for a holistic approach to the spiritual and physical needs of the congregation is not entirely alien’ to RCP. This is because, as part of the props for Sunday services, the congregants are provided with bulletins as they enter the auditorium. The bulletin contains information such as the order of service or liturgy (including the names of the officiants and leaders of the various segments of the service), the hymns for the service, programmes scheduled for the week and a 250-word write-up titled ‘Reflection for the Week’. Also included in the bulletin is a section on health tit-bits (about a 70-word bulleted section) which provides brief information on a specific health topic. This is evidence that for the members of RCP, health issues within this linguistic landscape are not completely new. What was significant that day was the replacement of the sermon (the zenith of the service) with a non-religious topic such as a talk on HIV/AIDS. The church as a space for performing traditional ceremonies (child naming)

On the particular Sunday we visited BCP-English, the preaching session was immediately followed by a baby naming ceremony. Two parents were called upon to mount the podium with their babies. The pastor of the church directed the two fathers to take the babies from their mothers and hold them in their arms. Both children were individually named, prayed for and presented with certificates and an undisclosed amount of money as a gift token from the church. After this, the other family members of the couples naming their children, the majority of whom were visiting the church for the first time, were also invited to join their respective families on the podium. An opportunity was given to the families to show their appreciation. One of the fathers, who spoke on behalf of the two families, expressed their gratitude for the support given to them during the nine-month pregnancy of their wives. Similar to the RCP case, in this example, we see a reconstruction of the religious space and domain into a social/traditional domain. Within the Ghanaian culture, child naming is a rite of passage usually performed seven days after a child is born. This ceremony mainly involves immediate family members and close friends of the baby’s parents. Typically, naming ceremonies are performed at dawn or very early in the morning.

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The naming of the baby is performed by an elder of the family. As part of the ceremony, the elder first dips his forefinger into water and then drops it on the baby’s tongue. He repeats the process using alcohol. While dropping both liquids on the baby’s tongue, he says (we provide a rough English equivalent) ‘NAME, this is water. If you see water, say it is water. NAME, this is alcohol. If you see alcohol, say it is alcohol’. This act symbolizes the recognition of the difference between truth and lies, i.e. the child is advised to be truthful in every aspect of his or her life. Within the religious domain, the church becomes the family, with the pastor as the head of the family who performs this rite of passage, while the church members and other visiting family members play the role of witnesses. The naming ceremony ritual itself is condensed into a prayer. We argue that, for Christian parents, placing such a traditional ceremony within the religious space of the church allows them to avoid those aspects of the ceremony (e.g. the use of alcohol) which they find are in conflict with their Christian or denominational convictions. A naming ceremony performed in church as part of the Sunday service provides a safe haven for Christian parents to observe this traditional obligation without violating their Christian values. This is within the context that in Africa, certain traditional rites of passage are seen to contradict some religious values. In opening up its space for the performance of such traditional rites of passage, the church allows their members to be both Africans and Christians without totally abandoning their traditional obligations nor creating any conflicts in their mind. Mass media: Information source on community and national news

During a visit to one of the BCP-English branches, we observed that the service for that particular Sunday was characterized by a peculiarity, which redefined the church space as an information centre for the dissemination of various types of non-religious news and announcements. As part of the service for that day, a makeshift radio station was set up on the podium. This role-play session had some members of the church featuring as radio show hosts, panellists, producers, etc. The radio station was given the pseudonym Kapa 99.4. Two youthful members (male and female) played the role of hosts. They provided a summary of the major news highlights over the past week (e.g. flooding in certain parts of the capital city, illegal small-scale mining; popularly known as ‘galamsey’ in local Ghanaian parlance). This segment was followed by sports news, which was presented by a much older man, who updated the congregation on recent happenings within the Ghana Football Association. This role play provides an avenue for some church members to hone their journalistic skills while updating the membership on current affairs. Ultimately, the church sought to go beyond its primary mandate of providing

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spiritual support for its members, to attend to their social, intellectual and even professional needs as well. Another context where the church was reconstructed as an information source was during the announcements segment. In addition to information on the activities scheduled for the upcoming week, announcements that focused on social needs such as job advertisements (a company hiring, vacancies in a vocational institution, etc.) were shared with the congregants. Regarding sports, the church secretary announced that there was an opportunity for interested members of the church to register to join a volleyball team that was being constituted by the church. Members were also invited to participate in a sports event that had been scheduled for the following Saturday. They were encouraged to come along with others who may not be members of the church. Such sporting activities organized by the church serve the dual purpose of providing an avenue to recruit new members for the church, while allowing members to enjoy their hobbies within the physical religious space. This is preferred to the members engaging in sports within secular spaces or among predominately non-religious people. The reconstruction/reconstitution of these religious spaces into a centre providing health education, a place for performing traditional ceremonies and a space for disseminating secular community and national news demonstrates that there are no clear-cut domains. Topics or performances within specific spaces may vary depending on the needs of the community. Therefore, there is a need to consider a multi-domain analysis rather than the existing single-dimensional theoretical approach. Again, in accordance with Santos’ (2014) dimensions of epistemologies of the south, the reconstruction of these religious spaces is an indication that there is an infinite epistemic multiplicity of knowledges in the world and no general theory can understand it. As an alternative to a general (Eurocentric) theory, such as Domain Theory, an ecology of knowledges (which takes into account cases such as those of RCP and BCP) combined with intercultural translation should be considered in order to fully understand the world and what goes on it. Conclusion

This chapter explored the language and performance practices of two Christian churches in Accra. Through the lens of the Decalogue of Theoretical Principles for SLR (Fishman, 2006; Omoniyi, 2010; Omoniyi & Fishman, 2006), we interrogated the adoption of sociolinguistic principles such as Domain Theory in SLR within an African multilingual religious context. It was observed that for both RCP and BCP, the entire Sunday service is a performance that follows a specific order – pre-­service prayers, Bible study, praise and worship, sermon, announcements,

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closing prayer and benediction. Each segment is led by a different performer designated by the leadership of the church. Both the leaders and the congregation perform their different roles in each of the segments with identified language practices. Note that the use of specific languages for specific aspects of the service is more a matter of utility and convenience rather than strictly keeping language boundaries. For instance, in the case of BCP-Akan, during the sermon the preacher inserted the Pidgin English phrase igo bee, don’t lose hope (‘everything will be fine, don’t lose hope’). As explained, this phrase was aimed at the young males in the congregation (since Pidgin English is considered a maledominated code). So, in that particular context, Pidgin English was used to achieve a specific purpose. Moreover, even without a documented and well-articulated language policy, both RCP and BCP practice some form of liberal yet controlled multilingualism. For instance, RCP uses four languages – Akan, English, Ewe and Ga – during its services. English and Akan are the dominant languages for their services, while Ewe and Ga are featured minimally (for Bible reading and Bible study). In the case of BCP, each of its two kinds of branches have a dominant language that it uses. BCP-English has English as its mainstream language while Akan is dominant for BCP-Akan. In spite of this, other languages are used during the services, providing an indication of the acceptance of multilingualism within formal spaces in multilingual communities such as the one featured in our study. We provided instances where languages that one would ordinarily not expect within a religious space (e.g. Pidgin English) were featured in the liturgy. Based on the above, we argue that the association of the religious domain with a particular ‘religious’ language may be misleading and rather single dimensional. Thus, it cannot be sustained, especially in multilingual communities (Amfo & Omoniyi, 2019). As further asserted by Amfo and Omoniyi (2019: 86), ‘the existence of multiple languages, combined with the desire to make religion culturally and linguistically accessible and acceptable, drives the desire to use multiple languages in a single religious Domain. The religious Domain can only be a reflection of the larger community. Thus, in multilingual contexts, such diversity is to be expected and accommodated even in seemingly formal contexts like religious ones’. The second aspect of the present study focused on the reconstruction/ reconstitution of the religious space into a social/educative space, a place for the performance of traditional rites of passage and a mass media outlet, as and when the need arose. We demonstrated that there seems to be a growing acceptance of non-religious activities within the church space. This could be seen as a means of attending to the holistic needs (spiritual, social, intellectual, cultural, etc.) of church members while still keeping their religious focus. An attempt to make the secular sacred by performing non-religious activities within religious spaces.

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Exploring the relevance of Santos’ (2014) dimensions of the epistemologies of the south, we conclude that the practices of BCP and RCP are indeed an indication that the Eurocentric understanding of the world (in this case, the association of the religious domain with a ­particular ‘religious’ language or activity) is not the only way to view the world. Both cases present an alternative way of viewing the language practices and performances within religious spaces. Consequently, a single-­dimensional theory such as Domain Theory cannot be sustained, especially in such multilingual spaces. This notwithstanding, it is imperative to state that by this, we do not claim exclusivity with respect to African multilingual contexts. That is, the fact that the case studies presented here focus mainly on African multilingual spaces does not suggest that this phenomenon is only peculiar to this context. Indeed, research has shown that this phenomenon also exists in the Global North, thus problematizing any rigid notions of domains. Notes (1) We acknowledge the fact that this situation is not exclusive to African (multilingual) contexts. In fact, examples of this same phenomenon exist in the Global North and have been reported on in the media (e.g. during the COVID-19 pandemic) and documented in communication and religion research. Within religious spaces, religious figures such as ministers vary their language use to share health information, advocate for voting and political action, etc. For instance, in the United States, dominant White as well as bidialectal/bilingual African-American and Latino/a congregations share a range of information that is not strictly religious, and the register and style of the language used vary in accordance. Further, studies such as Lumkins et al. (2011) discuss health communication from the pulpit of African-American churches. We argue that these cases, in addition to those discussed in this chapter, problematize any rigid notions of domains and language, thereby challenging Fishman’s argument. (2) Even though in practice some people may subscribe to more than one religion, this was not reflected in the statistics. The mode of data collection did not allow for the selection of double choices, as respondents were required to choose one religious group. (3) Amfo and Omoniyi (2019: 86) posit that ‘Ghana has had a checkered history with regard to its language in education policy. It has varied between using a Ghanaian language or English as medium of instruction for the first years of primary and kindergarten education. Invariably, however, there seems to be a preference for the use of English as a medium of instruction, as parents believe that would improve the proficiencies of their children and give them access to desired jobs in the formal (public and private) sectors’. (4) Redeemer Church of Paradise (RCP) is a pseudonym created by Amfo and Omoniyi (2019). Blessed Church of Paradise (BCP) is our own pseudonym for the church. (5) The findings reported in this subsection are based on a previous study by Amfo and Omoniyi (2019). Their study focused solely on the Redeemer Church of Paradise (RCP). (6) Even though we visited five branches of BCP, we have selected two of these as our case studies. Thus, the discussions presented under these subsections are representative of all five branches.

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(7) The cell groups are organized based on the location in Accra (the capital city) where the members reside. For each cell group, there is a leader who also lives in the same locality as his or her group members. The Bible study discussion is followed by a Q&A session based on what has been discussed. This session is also moderated by the leader who reads the questions out from a manual put together by the leadership of the church. Once a question is posed, members are invited to share their views on the subject matter. As part of the Bible study, group members are given a verse from the Bible to memorize and recite before the study is brought to an end. (8) Oo is a discourse marker that is used to place emphasis on statements. (9) All scriptures cited are from the New International Version (NIV) of the Bible.

References Agbedor, P. and Johnson, A. (2005) Naming practices. In N.L. Benjamin (ed.) A Handbook of Eweland: The Ewe of Togo and Benin (pp. 161–182). Accra: Woeli Publishing Services. Agyekum, K. (2006) The sociolinguistic of Akan personal names. Nordic Journal of African Studies 15, 206–235. Agyepong, D.P. and Amfo, N.A.A. (2022) Ghana: Ghanaian student pidgin English. In P. Kerswill and H. Wiese (eds) Urban Contact Dialects and Language Change: Insights from the Global North and South (pp. 86–104). London: Routledge. Amfo, N.A.A. and Omoniyi, T. (2019) Sociolinguistic domain analysis, linguistics practices and performance in religious worship. In A. Rosowsky (ed.) Aspects of Performance in Faith Settings: Heavenly Acts (pp. 76–89). Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Asamoah-Gyadu, J.K. (2005) African Charismatics: Current Developments within Independent Indigenous Pentecostalism in Ghana. Leiden: Brill. Bauman, R. and Briggs, C.L. (1990) Poetics and performances as critical perspectives on language and social life. Annual Review of Anthropology 19, 59–88. Dako, K. (2002a) Pidgin as a gender-specific language in Ghana. Ghanaian Journal of English Studies 1, 72–82. Dako, K. (2002b) Student pidgin (SP): The language of the educated male elite. Research Review 18, 53–62. Dako, K. and Bonnie, R. (2014) I go SS; I go vas: A Ghanaian youth language of secondary and tertiary institutions. In H. Kotthoff and C. Mertzlufft (eds) Jugendsprachen: Stilisierungen, Identitäten, Mediale Ressourcen (pp. 115–126). Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. Dakubu, M.E.K. (2005) The syntax of focus in Ga and Akan and the significance of related constructions. Paper presented at the Conference on Focus in African Languages, Humboldt University, Berlin, 6–8 October. Eberhard, D.M., Gary, F.S. and Fennig, C.D. (eds) (2020) Ethnologue: Languages of the World (23rd edn). Dallas, TX: SIL International. http://www​.ethnologue​.com. Fairclough, N. (2003) Analysing Discourse: Textual Analysis for Social Research. New York: Routledge. Fishman, J.A. (1972) The relationship between micro- and macro-sociolinguistics in the study of who speaks what language to whom and when. In J.B. Pride and J. Holmes (eds) Sociolinguistics (pp. 15–32). Harmondsworth: Penguin. Fishman, J.A. (2006) A decalogue of basic theoretical perspectives for a sociology of language and religion. In T. Omoniyi and J.A. Fishman (eds) Explorations in the Sociology of Language and Religion (pp. 13–25). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Frimpong, G.K. (2012) Pidgin English Ghanaian churches. Legon Journal of the Humanities (special edition) 1, 149–176.

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Ghana Statistical Service (2012) 2010 Population and Housing Census: Summary Report of Final Results. Accra: Ghana Statistical Service. See https://www.statsghana.gov. gh/gssmain/storage/img/marqueeupdater/Census2010_Summary_report_of_final_ results.pdf. Gifford, P. (2004) Ghana’s New Christianity: Pentecostalism in a Globalizing African Economy. London: Hurst & Company. Guerini, F. (2008) Multilingualism and language attitudes in Ghana: A preliminary survey. Ethnorema 4, 1–33. Holmes, J. (2013) An Introduction to Sociolinguistics (4th edn). New York: Routledge. Huber, M. (1999) Ghanaian Pidgin English in its West African Context. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Hymes, D.H. (ed.) (1964) Language in Culture and Society: A Reader in Linguistics and Anthropology. New York: Harper & Row. Lumkins, C.Y., Greiner, A.L., Daley, C., Mabachi, N. and Neuhaus, K. (2011) Promoting healthy behavior from the pulpit: Clergy share their perspectives on effective health communication in the African American church. Journal of Religion and Health 52, 1093–1107. Mooney, A. (2006) Maligned and misunderstood: Marginal movements and UK law. In T. Omoniyi and J.A. Fishman (eds) Explorations in the Sociology of Language and Religion (pp. 291–305). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Omenyo, C.N. (2006) Pentecost Outside Pentecostalism. A Study of the Development of Charismatic Renewal in the Mainline Churches in Ghana. Zoetemeer: Boekencentrum Publishing House. Omoniyi, T. (2010) The Sociology of Language and Religion: Change, Conflict and Accommodation. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Omoniyi, T. and Fishman, J.A. (eds) (2006) Explorations in the Sociology of Language and Religion. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing. Osam, E.K. (2004) The Trondheim Lectures: An Introduction to the Structure of Akan: Its Verbal and Multiverbal Systems. Legon: Department of Linguistics. Osei-Tutu, K. (2018). I get maf wey you get mɔf: Pronunciation and identity in Ghanaian Student Pidgin. American Language Journal 3 (2), 8–25. Parasher, S.V. (1980) Mother tongue-English diglossia: A case study of educated Indian bilinguals’ language use. Anthropological Linguistics 22, 151–162. Rupp, L. (2013) The function of student pidgin in Ghana. English Today 29 (4), 13–22. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0266078413000412. Santos, B. de Souza (2014) Epistemologies of the South: Justice against Epistemicide. New York: Routledge. US Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (2018) Ghana international r­ eligious freedom report. https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/GHANA-2018-­ INTERNATIONAL-RELIGIOUS-FREEDOM-REPORT.pdf.

7 The Relevance of Experience: Decolonial and Southern Indigenous Perspectives of Language Cristine Severo and Sinfree Makoni

Introduction

This chapter is in line with current discussions committed to problematizing and expanding the epistemological field concerned with language policies for Indigenous peoples (Hauck & Heurich, 2018; Kovach, 2009; Severo, 2016; Smith, 1999; Wilson, 2008). In recognition of UNESCO’s initiative to promote the International Decade of Indigenous Languages (2022–2032), we aim to focus on southern perspectives of language(s) that take into account Indigenous people’s experiences. This means that we advocate for a radically contextualized perspective of language, for which the condition of production (Kubota et al., 2022; Makoni & Criss, 2017) is embedded in Indigenous people’s lives. It follows that any concept of language diversity should be able to problematize power relations and structural asymmetry: ‘True linguistic diversity and justice can be attained by both problematizing structural obstacles and recognizing that ideologies and structures are entrenched in unequal and unjust relations of power regarding race, gender, class, and sexuality, which influence diverse language users to communicate in certain way’ (Kubota et  al., 2022: para. 1). Such a view includes the role played by language activists in shaping our contextualized understanding of language and language revitalization, such as the case of several Indigenous languages. In this regard, we agree that ‘interventions on behalf of a threatened minority language that leave intact all other aspects of social evolution that link the community with the world have generally resulted in failure’ (Makoni & Criss, 2017: 535). Along the same lines, the concept of experience matters since it allows us to broaden the concept of language inscribed in the meaningmaking process of personal experiences connected to real-life social practices: ‘Linguistic phenomena thus take place in the same space as 109

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our shared everyday experience of the real world’ (Inkpin, 2016: 7). Such a perspective is consistent with integrationist principles of language and communication insofar as ‘Personal experience is the nearest thing Integrationism has to a foundation in its thinking about language. [Roy] Harris even speaks of the terra firma of individual experience’ (Pablé & Hutton, 2013: 8). Integrational linguistics is critical of the language myth (Harris, 1990), which alludes to the ‘fixed-code fallacy’ and the ‘fallacy of telementation’: ‘The former refers to the belief that languages exist as internally structured systems of invariant units and regularities and the consequent view that the description and analysis of these systems constitute the proper subject matter of a scientifically orientated linguistics’ (Orman, 2013: 2). We problematize such fallacies by engaging with the notion of experience as a core dimension to define language practices. We argue that this line of thought is consistent with Hans-Georg Gadamer’s (1975: 386) concept of language as experience that deeply connects the personal with the interpersonal meaning-making process: ‘Language is the medium in which substantive understanding and agreement takes place between two people’. This means that language experience definitely matters if we want to claim for a politics concerned with plurality, dialogue and comprehension. The underpinning hermeneutical principle we assume is that ‘[c]onversation is a process of coming to an understanding’ in which ‘each person opens himself to the other’ (Gadamer, 1975: 387). One of the objectives of intergrationism seeks to explore lay people’s experiences of language. Phenomenology seeks to analyze individual experiences. Integrationism and phenomenology intersect because language is part of individual experience. By highlighting Indigenous language experiences, we assume that such non-default perspectives can ‘shed light on what is involved in language use more generally, and in this sense might reasonably be expected to be of interest to and/or illuminated by philosophy of language’ (Inkpin, 2016: 4). This means that we seek to go beyond a representational or informative dimension of language use to consider several kinds of experience that people may have with language, including the spiritual, aesthetical, educational and ritualist dimensions of language practice. By doing so, we aim to contribute to the debates on southern perspectives of language (Makoni et  al., 2022; Pennycook & Makoni, 2020; Severo & Makoni, 2021) that problematize colonial concepts of Indigenous language that are alien to how local people understand and experience their practices. By focusing on the questions that really matter from the perspective of Indigenous peoples, we aim to contribute to a southernized concept of language policy and planning. This means that the concept of politics adopted by us is radically based on the idea of plurality: ‘plurality is specifically the condition – not only the conditio sine qua non, but the conditio per quam – of all political life’ (Arendt, 1998: 8).

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In this chapter, we assume that both the decolonial and anti-colonial perspectives propose an epistemological, political and cultural revision of the categories that have been used to narrate and define the Indigenous world (Cusicanqui, 2015; Kovach, 2009; Krenak, 2020; Lander, 2005; Leonard, 2017; Martin & Mirraboopa, 2003; Mignolo, 2008, 2015; Morana et al., 2008; Quijano, 2000; Smith, 1999; Walsh, 2013; Wilson, 2008; Yunkaporta, 2009, 2010; Zaffaroni, 2017), such as ideas of ethnicity, Indigeneity, diversity, language extinction and language revitalization. The decolonial and anti-colonial perspectives work as critics of the colonial apparatus, problematizing the use of race as the main classificatory category of people and their languages. Although such a critical perspective is strongly embedded in Latin American colonial experiences, we understand that there is a cross-cultural Indigenous movement that has strongly affected the politics of knowledge concerning Indigenous issues. We understand that Indigenous movements have worked as both local and global movements mainly after 1980. This means that they ‘are not unified under any single authority but rather relate to each other in a network structure’ (Hardt & Negri, 2004: 86). Indigenous activism has resignified the terms ‘Indigenous’ and ‘Indigeneity’ in global movements, although there is still a gap in understanding how global activism relates to local and regional uses (Merlan, 2019). Positionality is an important concept in this chapter, since it connects our reflections to the role played by Indigenous people in the process of knowledge production, dissemination, transmission and reception. Positionality has been a widely debated topic in qualitative research, in the face of the researcher’s interference in the research process and its results. Positionality implies a self-reflexive attitude in research for the purpose of ‘understanding of the self and identifying the discourses which have impacted on the lenses through which the researcher views the world and participants under study’ (Grbich, 2004: 71). The academic politics of Indigenous positionality is in line with other academic movements that have been struggling for visibility. One example is the publication Black Linguistics: Language, Society and Politics in Africa and the Americas (Ball et al., 2003), where the authors explicitly engage with positionality as a central element to the process of knowledge production, as we notice in the opening of their book: This book foregrounds contributions to research on Black languages by Black scholars in Africa and the Americas. It identifies key epistemological and political underpinnings of what we are here calling ‘Black Linguistics’: a postcolonial scholarship that seeks to celebrate and create room for insurgent knowledge about Black languages. Black Linguistics is committed to studies of Black languages by Black speakers and to analyses of the sociopolitical consequences of varying conceptualizations of and research on Black languages. (Ball et al., 2003: 1)

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Even though we – Cristine Severo and Sinfree Makoni – are not Indigenous, we believe that our academic positionality as southern scholars, from Brazil and African contexts, and our critical and public engagement with a series of discussions concerning southern perspectives of language may contribute to expanding the debate by including an Indigenous framework and problematizations in the academic debate concerning the decolonial perspectives of language. This chapter is divided into two parts: first, we explore a southern perspective of language based on the decolonial critique of the concept of language; next, we present some examples that illustrate why Indigenous experience matters, to define not only languages but also the basis of a politics of plurality, which means that even Indigenous movements are confronted with pressures that may push them to downplay their diversity and homogenize them. On Decolonial Perspectives of Language

The decolonial vision assumed in this text proposes a critique of the coloniality of power – a political matrix that operated, in the context of colonization, by controlling a series of interrelated elements involved in Indigenous life and practices, such as control of the economy, authority, nature, natural resources, gender, body, sexuality, subjectivity and knowledge (Mignolo, 2010). Such a decolonial critical approach implies a review of theoretical and methodological frameworks that, to a large extent, have dominated the process of knowledge production about colonized peoples, such as the concept of land, as signalled by Eugenio Raúl Zaffaroni (2017), an Argentine judge of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights: The Earth ceased to be the Magna Mater of the ancients, the Pachamama of the Andes and the Gaia of the contemporaries, therefore something alive and life-giving, to be transformed into an inert thing (Descartes’ res extensa), in a market of resources made available to the unlimited voracity of human beings. (Zaffaroni, 2017: 10, translated from Portuguese)1

Similarly, we assume that language has been transformed into this ‘inert thing’, a product of objectifying and crystallizing processes of knowledge construction, which contributed to invisibilizing a broader view of language practices closely connected to the way Indigenous people name, narrate and experience their languages. The way Indigenous languages​​ have historically been ‘researched’ – following a careful and bureaucratic protocol for collection, description, documentation and exemplification – has been questioned by Indigenous researchers, such as the Maori linguist Linda Tuhiwai Smith (1999) who queries, among so many

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categories, the pejorative use of the term ‘research’ to define studies of Indigenous communities: From the vantage point of the colonized, a position from which I write, and choose to privilege, the term ‘research’ is inextricably linked to European imperialism and colonialism. The word itself, ‘research’, is probably one of the dirtiest words in the Indigenous world’s vocabulary. (Smith, 1999: 1)

Such methodological concern is epistemologically oriented and has been problematized by researchers who have been working with Indigenous issues, such as the concept of Indigenous educational policies, or of the revitalization and maintenance of ‘endangered’ or ‘minority’ languages. We problematize the methodology that has largely been used to define the idea of endangered languages, based on the ideology of languages as units capable of being counted and named by predefined standardizing frameworks (Appadurai, 1993; Heller & McElhinny, 2017). The rhetoric of ‘endangered languages’ does not always dialogue with how Indigenous peoples comprehend and experience their practices. Very often, the linguists’ perspectives operate against the local perspective, as signalled by Nevins (2004) writing about his research involving an Indigenous community in the White Mountain Apache Reservation in Arizona; in such a context, the educational model used by the ‘specialists’ for language revitalization raised ethical concerns, such as undermining the relationship between the older and younger people which was a core issue for the local community. Such disconnection between the perspectives of the specialists and the local community has motivated conflicts and tensions in relation to, for example, the ideas of legitimization and education. Nevins (2004) writes: I argue that the expression of ambivalence or opposition toward these programs by some Apache people was not the result of apathy or confusion…, but more often involved perceptive, incisive critique of real challenges to Apache ways of speaking and authority within Apache pedagogical practices. (Nevins, 2004: 270)

This example of a ‘misunderstanding’ between researchers and local subjects whose languages are ​​ seen as an object of revitalization is illustrative of the importance of an epistemological and methodological review of the way in which ‘data’ has been generated or, in other words, ‘invented’ (Makoni & Pennycook, 2007). We are adamant that modern linguistics is predicated upon a process that silences other voices, particularly those from the south which, if included in analytical models, are treated as anonymous informants. The construction of educational

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programmes and pedagogical materials has devoted little attention to the local meanings attributed to these languages, which has helped to build stereotypes and crystallized monolithic views about these languages. The protectionist and salvationist discourses underlying work in language endangerment are often based on romantic and acritical views. Regarding the ideological bias inscribed in this salvationist vision, we quote Smith (1999: 2) for whom: ‘the belief in the ideal that benefiting mankind is indeed a primary outcome of scientific research is as much a reflection of ideology as it is of academic training’. We understand that to deal with the linguistic tradition produced by Indigenous peoples, linguistics has to change how it analyzes people’s language experience. Rather than investigating language as abstract things passed down from generation to generation, we follow Gadamer’s (1975: 391) proposal that ‘What has come down to us by way of verbal tradition is not left over but given to us, told us – whether through direct retelling, in which myth, legend, and custom have their life, or through written tradition, whose signs are, as it were, immediately clear to every reader who can read them’. This means that the very idea of language and knowledge transmission has to be radically contextualized into the way people collectively experience language. Nevertheless, as many educational programmes targeted towards Indigenous peoples consider in their proposals the idea of reciprocity, ​​ it is necessary to consider that ‘the relationship between such programs and members of the local language community is often quite a bit more complicated and problematic than reciprocity implies’ (Nevins, 2004: 272). The idea of reciprocity should consider how power relations have historically helped to legitimize scholars’ discursive positions to the detriment of local knowledges. This fictional discourse of reciprocity is often reinforced by the idea that ‘having been there and having been with them’ is sufficient to produce and legitimize knowledge about local practices. The use of a naïve empiricism – having been there – has underpinned the rhetoric of many researchers, attributing to themselves the authority to speak ‘for them’ (Smith, 1999; Wilson, 2008). It should be noted that similar rhetoric was used by missionaries in the African and Latin American contexts (Severo, 2019). By submitting the concept of research to such problematization, we seek to comprehend how scholarship has reproduced silencing (Makoni & Severo, 2022) and invisibilizing practices: ‘community members are for the most part excluded from the research process, they have become resentful of research in general’ (Wilson, 2008: 15). We argue that it is our responsibility to deal with such resentful feelings as part of the problem invented by scholarship. In addition to the methodological and epistemological revisions concerning Indigenous language studies, the concept of language also demands a reconsideration of generic and hierarchical identity categories, such as the terms ‘Indigenous’, ‘native peoples’, ‘forest peoples’,

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‘Aborigines’ and ‘peoples of the fourth world’. The very idea of what counts as Indigenous is politically constructed and must be kept under constant revision, mainly because such a concept inherited European, Christian and Western outlooks that have helped to shape how modern identities have been systematically and carefully narrated (Mignolo, 2007). Such an epistemic matrix operates through the following orientations: by classifying societies into categories; by grouping complex images of other societies into a given simplified representational system; by creating standardized models for comparative analysis; by establishing evaluation criteria by which others are ranked (Hall & Gieben, 1992); and by reproducing both a politics of invisibility and a politics of hypervisibility (Santos, 2002). Such a focus on classification also underpins concepts of language. An example is the influence of a hierarchical typological model inspired by biblical genealogies in language classification (Irvine, 2011). Such classificatory frameworks were used in the colonial context. Other colonial frameworks of language include ​​ the enumerability of linguistic diversity, naming practices, the construction of Indigeneity and the use of dictionaries and grammars as reflecting a theory about languages (Makoni, 2018). Such concepts and categories have been widely used in language planning and policy studies, with little attention given to epistemological and methodological issues concerning local interests and demands. We argue that Indigenous peoples should be able to choose to create and conduct their own language policies. Such a position is in line with a Global South perspective that claims for ‘a major shift from treating Southern others as research objects and informants to a more inclusive and disruptive role as knowledge creators and co-constructors’ (Pennycook & Makoni, 2020: 13). This means that Indigenous peoples are challenged to also produce a critical response to how their histories, languages and subjectivities have been colonized and appropriated by neocolonial powers. Indigenous positionality is also about a discursive position that helps to change the rules that have historically defined what counts as Indigeneity and Indigenous language experiences. Such positionality can contribute to expanding the discussion on the meanings and roles of research, as the following principles underlying what counts as an Indigenous research framework: Recognition of our worldviews, our knowledges and our realities as distinctive and vital to our existence and survival; Honouring our social mores as essential processes through which we live, learn and situate ourselves as Aboriginal people in our own lands and when in the lands of other Aboriginal people; Emphasis of social, historical and political contexts which shape our experiences, lives, positions and futures; Privileging the voices, experiences and lives of Aboriginal people and Aboriginal lands. (Martin & Mirraboopa, 2003: 205)

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Decolonial and Southern Experiences and Initiatives

In this section, we present some examples of how Indigenous experiences and initiatives can articulate decolonial and southern visions of language policy and planning. We focus on the importance of Indigenous voices in shaping not only concepts of language, but also projects concerning language policies. By recognizing that ‘Indigenous scholars are in the process of shaping, redefining, and explaining their positions’ (Wilson, 2008: 54), we prioritize the role played by experience in southern and decolonial language policies and planning. Such a perspective has to do with the concept of positionality; that is, the position of the researcher in relation to the political, economic, cultural and social context of the research. In this regard, for example, Bourke (2014) addresses the importance of positionality in his research on racial issues in higher education, in which symbolic aspects of identities were in question. He writes: Throughout my preparations to conduct this research, from the formulation of the initial research questions to the drafting of the focus group protocol, my positionality as a White man studying issues of race remained at the forefront of my mind. (Bourke, 2014: 1)

Positionality definitely matters when we talk about language policy and planning in the Global South, since it helps to redefine power relations towards the legitimation of emancipatory scripts (Santos, 2002). Examples of how Indigenous positionality has played a role in creating and disseminating Indigenous concepts of language and politics in Brazil are what have been called ethno-media or ethno-communication (‘etnomídia’ or ‘etnocomunicação’; Baniwa, 2017; Tupinambá, 2016). The idea of ethno-communication is deeply concerned about who communicates what to whom and how. Ethno-media has been used by Indigenous peoples as a form of media activism, linked to the reorganization and visibility of social movements. Such media produced by Indigenous peoples has contributed to organizing horizontal, crossnational and cross-cultural networks among different groups. We argue that ethno-media carries a decolonial orientation by providing ‘the possibility of producing new ways for these groups to narrate themselves and the circumstances that affect them’ (Gargioni, 2019: 59). Indigenous claims for autonomy and control of communication and knowledge production also include the precious knowledge ‘of the Indigenous populations of the Amazon, who know how to live with the forest and whose activity is necessary for keeping the forest alive’ (Hardt & Negri, 2004: 132). In several African contexts, traditional media has been used as a mechanism in social and political resistance (Salawu, 2015). This is an example of a decolonial and southern approach to communication,

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since it is based on strategies engaged with deconstructing stereotypes and crystallized perspectives about Indigenous culture. It carries a broader concept of language that includes ‘different ways of thinking and reporting things, which can seem poetic or even playful for those who do not know native philosophies. The word is not the only way of communication’2 (Tupinambá, 2016: para. 8, translated from Portuguese). Other examples of ethno-media are Indigenous radio stations, blogs and vlogs, as well as a series of homepages and social networks created and maintained by the Indigenous peoples themselves. Rádio Yandê, for example, was the first Indigenous radio station created in Brazil in 2013. All the presenters at this radio station are Indigenous, belonging to different ethnicities and communities, such as Terena, Tupinambá, Pataxó Ha-hã-hãe, Baniwa and Tukano. Ethno-media aims to deconstruct ‘old stereotypes and prejudices caused by the lack of specialized information in non-Indigenous communication vehicles’ (Yandê, n.d.). It is interesting to point out that all these presenters are studying undergraduate or graduate courses, which means that the very idea of activism and ethnomedia is also affected by academic discourses of resistance in line with a process of decolonizing higher education. The station uses Portuguese, English, Spanish and several Indigenous languages. The songs played are Indigenous, and the themes addressed are directly linked to the interests of Indigenous peoples. Regarding the linguistic scope of programming, we mention the interchangeable use of Indigenous languages, Portuguese, Spanish and English: Yandê Connection – A talk program with Indigenous people around the world. Un programa de conversación con pueblos indígenas alrededor del mundo ‘A conversation programme with Indigenous people around the world’ Papo na Rede é um programa de variedades com protagonistas indígenas sobre como são suas vidas e curiosidades que surgem no dia a dia ‘Papo na Rede is a variety programme with Indigenous protagonists about their lives and curiosities that appear in their daily lives’ (Yandê, n.d.)

The written use of Portuguese is predominant in Brazil, serving as a kind of ‘general language’ for the transmission of Indigenous voices and debates. In this context, the appropriation and nativization of Portuguese means that it operates as an Indigenous discourse, turning it into an Indigenous language, since it carries Indigenous meanings. However, we must differentiate such strategic use of Portuguese from the language colonization process, which means that the idea of a common

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language as a condition for mutual understanding should be continuously problematized: Having a common language, however, has not served to increase cultural understandings. Rather, it has put Indigenous culture at risk. This suggests that a common language is not the panacea for a common understanding. Instead, understanding is a layered endeavour. (Kovach, 2009: 24)

We argue that such a decolonizing process ‘would imply the incorporation of Indigenous knowledges and Indigenous knowledgeable men and women as lecturers, is likewise far from indisputable’ (Grosfoguel et al., 2016: 83). Another example of ethno-media activism is the publication by the Humanitas Unisinos Institute of a special online issue called Ore Ywy – On the Need to Build Up a New Relationship with Our Land.3 This publication presents the perspectives of 11 Indigenous peoples of different ethnicities on the issue of land (Ore Ywy means ‘our land’ in Guarani). The journal is academically oriented, which contributes to legitimizing Indigenous perspectives. Examples of Indigenous frameworks include the concepts of land, time and moral education, as the following examples of Indigenous leaders from different ethnicities show: We are not the owners of the land, we are the land. Congenital, natural, and original law predates private property law. We are not fighting for land reform. Because we are the earth, we have the right to be on earth and the right to protect what we call sacred, nature; it nourishes us and we nourish it as we protect it. (Tupinambá apud IHU Online, 2018: 527, translated from Portuguese)4 We must listen to older people’s advices, because they know what it means to lose hope and to try to keep life at its best in us. I am thankful for this sensitivity to have the patience to listen! (Esbell apud IHU Online, 2018: 28, translated from Portuguese)5 Indigenous education has its peculiarities. One of them is that in the Kambeba village, for example, we do not follow the clock to set the time to enter and to leave […] We are also careful about teaching the children about the value of caring for the river […]. (Kambeba apud IHU Online, 2018: 42) Every year the government sends books to the villages, but I don’t see any importance in that, because there is no purpose in sending beautiful books of famous authors to our children. This affects their formation because it has nothing to do with Indigenous culture. That is why I speak

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of the importance of native literature in which the Indigenous can write about their people, thoughts, ideas, and criticisms. (Jekupé apud IHU Online, 2018: 50)6

In terms of Indigenous positionality, we briefly mention the perspective of Linda Smith, a Maori researcher who has been working with educational, linguistic and Indigenous language research policies in Australian and New Zealand contexts. We point out the problematization she makes of classical research questions. For example, in addition to the traditional critical questions – Whose research is it? Whose interests does it serve? Who planned the methodology and form of intervention? How will the results be disseminated? – there are other questions embedded in Indigenous interests – Is your spirit clear? Does he or she have a good heart? What other baggage are they carrying? Can they fix up our generator? Can they actually do anything? (Smith, 1999: 10). These questions are relevant in the knowledge-making process as they reveal epistemological, methodological and ethical concerns. We argue that a decolonial and southern approach to language policy and planning must take seriously the role of experience in shaping ‘research’ questions. The idea of experience underlines Indigenous claims for a politics of visibility and audibility conducted by Indigenous peoples. A local sense of experience matters, as we see in the arguments of Indigenous researchers: In positioning myself as an Indigenous woman, I am claiming a genealogical, cultural, and political set of experiences. My whakapapa or descent lines come through both my parents. Through them I belong to two different major ‘tribal’ groups and have close links to others. (Smith, 1999: 12) By getting away from abstractions and rules, stories allow us to see others’ life experiences through our own eyes. This information may then be internalized in a way that is difficult for abstract discussions to achieve. (Wilson, 2008: 17) This writing comes from the heart, it comes from who I am and all that I am – nothing more, or less for that matter. It comes from my own need and longing to engage with my Nêhiýaw and Saulteaux ancestry, and to say to my academic world that my culture counts. (Kovach, 2009: 7) I research from the strength and position of being Aboriginal and viewing anything western as ‘other’, alongside and among western worldviews and realities. (Martin & Mirraboopa, 2003: 205) [In] 2020, in Mexico, the Declaration of Los Pinos was elaborated, which established the foundations for the construction of a Global Action Plan for the IDIL (International Decade of Indigenous Languages) and

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established as a guiding principle the effective participation of Indigenous peoples in decision-making, consultation, planning and implementation, with the motto of ‘Nothing for us without us’. (Rubim et al., 2022: 155–156, translated from Portuguese)7

Indigenous researchers in academic contexts also face new challenges due to their ambivalent positionality that demands a continuous process of translation and meaning negotiation. Translation is a political process that shapes power relations between different Indigenous peoples, and between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples as well. In this decolonial perspective of research, some premises become relativized or problematized – for example, the theoretical framework that legitimizes what is considered valid research; the use of textual academic genres to the detriment of oral genres, such as testimonies, narratives and songs; the perspective of what counts as fact and evidence; the rules and moral values ​​that guide the work, such as veracity, authenticity and honesty; representations about objectivity and subjectivity; the conception of human nature and responsibility; the process of selecting who would be the ‘informants’ and the ‘experts’; the form of local distribution of knowledge; and who would be more or less authorized to speak (Leonard, 2017; Martin & Mirraboopa, 2003; Severo & Makoni, 2021; Smith, 1999; Wilson, 2008). In terms of a southern concept of language that problematizes the politics of knowledge production, dissemination and appropriation, positionality helps to question the rules that define what counts as research and truth. Such epistemological and methodological revisions include problematizing the very concept of language in terms of, for example, the relationships between language and thought, and between language and corporality; the idea of language as a countable and abstract unit; and the perspective of language as a nameable entity, a decodable element and a set of fragments (Makoni & Pennycook, 2007; Pennycook & Makoni, 2020). Other concepts related to language that deserve to be revised include the notions of time and space, especially because for some Indigenous views ​​there is no distinction between them. One example is how Indigenous education is closely connected to both nature and land – as well as time – which is related to a sense of natural rhythm (Severo, 2019). The Western linguistic and discursive mode of spatialization/ territorialization does not echo Indigenous views, such as the complex concept of ‘land’ and the way the colonizers renamed Indigenous spaces. Indigenous concepts of land have to do with a collective mode of living and sharing: ‘The importance of land is tied with the value of collective responsibility and stewardship’ (Kovach, 2009: 63), which differs from the Western principle of private property. Western concepts of land are related to modes of control and domination of it: ‘Land, for example,

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was viewed as something to be tamed and brought under control’ (Smith, 1999: 51). It follows that collective modes of living also imply specific modes of communication and knowledge transmission. Indigenous territorialization must be seen at different levels, which includes the conceived space, the perceived space and the lived space. This means that, in our understanding of signification, we take into account: [T]erritories and territorialities that were experienced by these peoples in certain phases of the processes of colonial territorialization that, today, are fragmented not only by the usurped lands, but also by the dispersion of the memory of contemporary Indigenous peoples. (Cardoso, 2018: 12, translated from Portuguese)8

Also, in the process of land appropriation, resignification and naming, ‘land became increasingly disconnected from the songs and chants used by Indigenous peoples to trace their histories’ (Smith, 1999: 51). Other examples of the colonial use of spatial representations include maps and binary definitions such as centre–periphery and inside–outside (as well as native–foreign). With regard to the category of time, the linear and progressive Western vision and the connection of time to a given idea of​​ work and production, implicitly projects Indigenous peoples as lazy and indolent (Smith, 1999). This means that by considering Indigenous epistemologies, a complex set of elements are interrelated: ‘our cultures, our worldviews, our times, our languages, our histories, our spiritualities, and our places in the cosmos’ (Wilson, 2008: 74). The idea of nature is embedded in an Indigenous mode of living and framing the world, as well as in Indigenous concepts of language. For example, in the worldview of the Guarani Mbya – an Indigenous Brazilian group – there is a deep connection between the idea of a tree and a word, meaning that the word flows from the tree. Thus, the Guarani Mbya use the wood of sacred trees to construct drums that serve as instruments for communication with non-humans (Cadogan, 1971; Severo & Makoni, 2021). This example illustrates how the binary relation between nature and culture – which is reproduced by the idea of language as a human attribute – is subverted from an Indigenous and decolonial perspective. In this vein, a decolonial approach ‘could cancel the dichotomy of nature and culture as such, and shift to a complex relationality and process-based view of our entanglements with the planet, with other lives, with inanimate matter’ (Tlostanova & Mignolo, 2020: para. 17). The multitude of possibilities to narrate its own history integrates a robust decolonial movement, in which memory is continually updated, helping to deconstruct binarisms and stereotypes. Thus, Cusicanqui (2015) writes:

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The decolonization of the worldview would consist in freeing the visualization from the ties of language, and in updating the memory of the experience as an indissoluble whole, in which the bodily and mental senses merge. (Cusicanqui, 2015: 19, translated from Portuguese)9

These examples are representative of what we call Indigenous perspectives. The ideas of ethno-media, land, language and education are deeply linked to a sense of temporality, spatiality/territorialization and relationship. Indigenous voices and Indigenous positionalities have helped to reorient what counts as Indigenous perspective in the academic field. Such an integrated concept of life is also embedded in the idea of sacredness of Indigenous research, which ‘is bound in ceremony, spirit, land, place, nature, relationships, language, dreams, humour, purpose, and stories in an inexplicable, holistic, non-fragmented way’ (Kovach, 2009: 140). Our line of thought is that, in recent years, ‘Indigenous scholars began to assert their power. No longer would they allow others to speak in their place. They began to articulate their own indigenist perspective and demanded to be heard in doing so’ (Wilson, 2008: 51). We see this as an ongoing movement that, by taking place in different parts of the globe, helps to shape cross-cultural practices of resistance where languages play a central role in materializing Indigenous narratives. Conclusion

This chapter addressed the importance of Indigenous voices, positionalities and discourses for the construction of policies involving Indigenous languages and ​​ education. We argue that contemporary critical debates on language studies and language policies must take seriously the perspective and experience of people who have been historically affected by the colonial process. This decolonial attitude responds to a political demand for revision of epistemological and ontological categories that have historically guided the process of production and the legitimization of knowledge. A decolonial approach to language policy aims at problematizing the historical process of construction and the crystallization of theological and European concepts of languages centred on ideas of grammar, dictionaries, literacy and research. This does not mean, of course, to cancel this theoretical-methodological framework, but to provoke a dialogue with other subjects and processes of knowledge construction and dissemination. Finally, we are in line with those who propose that ‘identities in politics’(Mignolo, 2008: 289) is an urgent issue to address in order to increase social and epistemic justice. We focus on Walter Mignolo’s proposal because it creates space for a critical and dynamic response to how identities have been historically shaped by power relations. Mignolo (2008) writes:

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[W]ithout the construction of political theories and the organization of political actions based on identities that were allocated (for example, there were no Indigenous people on the American continents until the arrival of the Spanish; and there were no blacks until the beginning of the massive slave trade in the Atlantic) by imperial discourses (in the six languages ​​of European modernity – English, French, and German after the Enlightenment; and Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese during the Renaissance), it may not be possible to denaturalize the racial and imperial construction of identity in the modern world in a capitalist economy. (Mignolo, 2008: 289, translated from Portuguese)10 Notes (1) ‘A Terra deixou de ser a Magna Mater dos antigos, a Pachamama dos andinos e a Gaia dos contemporâneos, portanto algo vivo e gerador de vida, para ser transformada numa coisa inerte (res extensa de Descartes), num balcão de recursos colocados à disposição da voracidade ilimitada dos seres humanos’. (2) ‘[D]iferentes formas de pensar e de relatar as coisas, o que pode parecer poético ou até lúdico para quem não conhece as filosofias nativas. A palavra não é a única maneira de comunicação’. (3) See http://www​.ihuonline​.unisinos​.br​/media​/pdf​/IHUOnlineEdicao527​.pdf (accessed 18 November 2020). (4) ‘Nós não somos donos da terra, nós somos a terra. O direito congênito, natural e originário é anterior ao direito da propriedade privada. Não estamos lutando por reforma agrária. Pelo fato de nós sermos a terra, temos o direito de estarmos na terra e o direito de proteger o que chamamos de sagrado, a natureza; é ela que nos nutre e nós a nutrimos à medida que a protegemos’. (5) ‘Devemos ouvir o conselho dos velhos, pois eles já souberam o que é perder a esperança e tentam manter a vida em seu melhor, em nós. Agradeço essa sensibilidade em ter a paciência de ouvir!’ (6) ‘A educação indígena tem suas peculiaridades. Uma delas é que na aldeia Kambeba, por exemplo, não temos tempo de relógio para marcar a hora que entra e a hora que sai […] Também temos o cuidado de na aldeia ensinar as crianças o valor de cuidar do rio em uma aula de educação ambiental […]’. (7) ‘[…] foi elaborada em 2020, no México, a Declaração de Los Pinos, que instituiu os fundamentos para a construção de um Plano de Ação Global para a DILI e estabeleceu como princípio norteador a par-ticipação efetiva dos povos indígenas na tomada de decisão, consulta, planejamento e implementação, tendo como lema “Nada para nós sem nós”’. (8) ‘[T]erritórios e territorialidades que foram vivenciados por esses povos em determinadas fases dos processos de territorialização colonial pelos quais passaram e que, atualmente, se fragmentaram não somente pelas terras usurpadas, mas também pela dispersão da memória dos povos indígenas contemporâneos […]’. (9) ‘La descolonización de la mirada consistiría en liberar la visualización de las ataduras del lenguaje, y en reactualizar la memoria de la experiencia como un todo indisoluble, en el que se funden los sentidos corporales y mentales’. (10) ‘[S]em a construção de teorias políticas e a organização de ações políticas fundamentadas em identidades que foram alocadas (por exemplo, não havia índios nos continentes americanos até a chegada dos espanhóis; e não havia negros até o começo do comércio massivo de escravos no Atlântico) por discursos imperiais (nas seis línguas da modernidade européia—inglês, francês e alemão após o Iluminismo; e italiano, espanhol e português durante o Renascimento), pode não ser possível desnaturalizar a construção racial e imperial da identidade no mundo moderno em uma economia capitalista’.

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References Appadurai, A. (1993) Number in colonial imagination. In C.A. Breckenridge and P. van der Veer (eds) Orientalism and the Postcolonial Predicament: Perspectives on South Asia (pp. 314–319). Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania. Arendt, H. (1998) The Human Condition. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Ball, A., Makoni, S. and Smitherman, G. (2003) Black Linguistics: Language, Society and Politics in Africa and the Americas. New York: Routledge. Baniwa, D. (2017) O que os jovens indígenas querem? Combate Ambiental, 11 December. See https://racismoambiental​.net​.br​/2017​/12​/11​/o​-que​-os​-jovens​-indigenas​-querem​ -por​-denilson​-baniwa/ (accessed 18 November 2020). Bourke, B. (2014) Positionality: Reflecting on the research process. The Qualitative Report 19, 1–9. Cadogan, L. (1971) Ywyra ñe’ery: Fluye del árbol la palavra—sugestiones para el estudio de la cultura Guarani. Paraguai/Assução: Centro de Estudios Antropologicos de La Universidad Catolica. Cardoso, A.S. (2018) Descolonizando a cartografia histórica amazônica: representações, fronteiras étnicas e processos de territorialização na Capitania do Pará, Século XVIII. Tese de doutorado. Núcleo de Altos Estudos Amazônicos, Universidade Federal do Pará, Belém. See https://www​.ppgdstu​.propesp​.ufpa​.br​/ARQUIVOS​/teses​/ALANNA​ %20SOUTO​%20CARDOSO​.pdf (accessed 06 November 2023). Cusicanqui, S.R. (2015) Sociología de la imagen: miradas ch’ixi desde la historia andina. Buenos Aires: Tinta Limón. Gadamer, H.-G. (1975) Truth and Method. London: Continuum. Gargioni, A.A.d.P. (2019) A performatização de identidades por vlogueiros indígenas no youtube. Tese de doutorado. Programa de Pós-Graduação em Linguística Aplicada, UNICAMP. Grbich, C. (2004) New Approaches in Social Research. London: Sage Publications. Grosfoguel, R., Hernández, R. and Velásquez, E.R. (2016) Decolonizing the Westernized University: Interventions in Philosophy of Education from Within and Without. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Hall, S. and Gieben, B. (1992) Formations of Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press. Hardt, M. and Negri, A. (2004) Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire. New York: Penguin Press. Harris, R. (1990) On redefining linguistics. In H.G. Davis and T.J. Taylor (eds) Redefining Linguistics (pp. 18–52). London: Routledge. Hauck, G. and Heurich, J.D. (2018) Language in the Amerindian imagination: An inquiry into linguistic natures. Language and Communication 63, 1–8. Heller, M. and McElhinny, B. (2017) Language, Capitalism, Colonialism: Toward a Critical History. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. IHU Online (Revista do Instituto Humanitas Unisinos) (2018) Ore Ywy A necessidade de construir uma outra relação com a nossa terra, n. 527, ano XVIII, 27 de agosto de 2018. See http://www​.ihuonline​.unisinos​.br​/media​/pdf​/IHUOnlineEdicao527​.pdf (accessed 18 November 2020). Inkpin, A. (2016) Disclosing the World. On the Phenomenology of Language. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Irvine, J. (2011) Language fields – Robert Needham Cust’s language map of South Asia, 1878. In C. Talbot (ed.) Knowing India: Colonial and Modern Constructions of the Past (Essays in honour of T.R. Trautmann) (pp. 31–54). New Delhi: Yoda Press. Kovach, M. (2009) Indigenous Methodologies: Characteristics, Conversations, and Contexts. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Krenak, A. (2020) O amanhã não está a venda. Rio de Janeiro: Companhia das Letras. Kubota, R., Aoyama, R., Kajigaya, T. and Deschambault, R. (2022) Illuminating language users in the discourse of linguistic diversity: Toward justice-informed

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language education. Educational Linguistics. https://doi​.org​/10​.1515​/eduling​-2022​ -0011 (accessed 6 March 2023). Lander, E. (2005) Colonialidade do saber: Eurocentrismo e ciências sociais. Perspectivas latinoamericanas. Colección Sur Sur, CLACSO Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires. Leonard, W. (2017) Producing language reclamation by decolonising ‘language’. Language Documentation and Description 14, 15–36. Makoni, S. (2018) Da linguística humana ao sistema ‘d’ e às ordens espontâneas: uma abordagem à emergência das línguas indígenas africanas. Tradução de Alexandre Cohn da Silveira. Revista da Abralin 17, 376–419. Makoni, S. and Pennycook, A. (eds) (2007) Disinventing and Reconstituting Languages. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Makoni, S. and Criss, M.K. (2017) Introduction: Regional and international perspectives on language activism. Multilingua 36, 533–540. Makoni, S. and Severo, C.G. (2022) Southern perspectives of language and the construction of the common. Language & Communication 87, 1–15. Makoni, S., Kaiper-Marquez, A. and Mokwena, L. (eds) (2022) The Routledge Handbook of Language in the Global South. London: Routledge. Martin, K. and Mirraboopa, B. (2003) Ways of knowing, being and doing: A theoretical framework and methods for Indigenous and indigenist research. Journal of Australian Studies 27, 203–214. Merlan, F. (2019) Indigenous peoples and the global Indigenous movement. Oxford ­Bibliographies, 26 November. See https://www​.oxf​ordb​ibli​ographies​.com​/display​ /document​/obo​-9780199874002​/obo​-9780199874002​-0212​.xml (accessed 6 March 2023). Mignolo, W. (2007) Delinking: The rhetoric of modernity, the logic of coloniality and the grammar of decoloniality. Cultural Studies 21, 449–514. Mignolo, W. (2008) Desobediência epistêmica: a opção descolonial e o significado de identidade em política. Cadernos de Letras da UFF – Dossiê: Literatura, língua e identidade 34, 287–324. Mignolo, W. (2010) Desobediencia epistémica: Retórica de la modernidad, lógica de la colonialidad y gramática de la descolonialidad. Buenos Aires: Ediciones del Signo. Mignolo, W. (2015) La idea de América Latina: La herida colonial y la opción de colonial. Barcelona: Gedisa Editorial. Morana, M., Dussel, H. and Jáuregui, C.A. (2008) Coloniality at Large: Latin America and the Postcolonial Debate. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Nevins, M.E. (2004) Learning to listen: Confronting two meanings of language loss in the contemporary white mountain Apache speech community. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 14, 269–288. Orman, J. (2013) Linguistic diversity and language loss: A view from integrational linguistics. Language Sciences 40, 1–11. Pablé, A. and Hutton, C. (2013) Signs, Meaning and Experience. Integrational Approaches to Linguistics and Semiotics. Berlin: De Gruyter. Pennycook, A. and Makoni, S. (2020) Innovations and Challenges in Applied Linguistics from the Global South. New York: Routledge. Quijano, A. (2000) Colonialidad del poder, eurocentrismo y América Latina. In E. Lander (ed.) Colonialidad del saber, eurocentrismo y ciencias sociales (pp. 201–245). Buenos Aires: CLASCO. Rubim, A.C., Bomfim, A.B. and Meirelles, S.R. (2022) Década internacional das línguas indígenas no Brasil: O levante e o protagonismo indígena na construção de políticas linguísticas. Working Papers em Linguística 23, 154–177. Salawu, A. (2015) Oramedia as a vehicle for development in Africa: The imperative for the ethical paradigm of development. Journal of Sociology and Social Anthropology 6, 209–216.

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Santos, B. (2002) Toward a multicultural concept of human rights. In B. HernándezTruyol (ed.) Moral Imperialism: A Critical Anthology (pp. 39–60). New York: New York University Press. Severo, C.G. (2016) A invenção colonial das línguas da América. Alfa 60, 11–28. Severo, C.G. (2019) Os jesuítas e as línguas: Relação colonial Brasil-África. Florianópolis: Insular. Severo, C.G. and Makoni, S. (2021) Integrationism and the Global South: Songs as epistemic and ontological frameworks in language studies. In S. Makoni, A. Pablé and Y. Sun (eds) Integrationism through the Lens of Southern Linguistic Theory: Reading the Work of Roy Harris (pp. 70–90). New York: Routledge. Smith, L.T.I. (1999) Decolonizing Methodologies Research and Indigenous Peoples. London: Zed Books. Tlostanova, M. and Mignolo, W. (2020) On other possibilities for philosophy and humanity. East East, 2 December. See https://easteast​.world​/en​/posts​/84 (accessed 18 November 2020). Tupinambá, R.M. (2016) Etnomídia, uma ferramenta para a comunicação dos povos originários. Brasil de Fato, 11 August. See https://www​.brasildefato​.com​.br​/2016​/08​ /11​/etnomidia​-por​-uma​-comunicacao​-dos​-povos​-originarios/ (accessed 18 November 2020). Walsh, C. (2013) Pedagogías decoloniales: Prácticas insurgentes de resistir, (re)existir y (re) vivir. Quito: Ediciones Abya-Yala. Wilson, S. (2008) Research is Ceremony: Indigenous Research Methods. Winnipeg: Fernwood Publishing. Yandê (n.d.) A Rádio de todos. See https://radioyande.com/. Yunkaporta, T. (2009) Aboriginal pedagogies at the cultural interface. Unpublished PhD thesis, James Cook University. Yunkaporta, T.K. (2010) Our ways of learning in aboriginal languages. In J. Hobson, K. Lowe, S. Poetsch and M. Walsh (eds) Re-Awakening Languages: Theory and Practice in the Revitalisation of Australia’s Indigenous Languages (pp. 37–49). Sydney: Sydney University Press. Zaffaroni, E. (2017) Pachamama e o ser humano. Florianópolis: Editora da UFSC.

8 From Anthropophagy to the Anthropocene: On the Challenges of Doing Research in Language and Society in Brazil and the Global South Alan S.R. Carneiro and Daniel N. Silva

Introduction

This chapter discusses the practices of creating hybridity, cultural mixture and dialogues with alterities that are typical of certain trends in studies of language in society in Brazil. We approach the question of decolonizing sociolinguistics with the lens of anthropophagy, or warrior cannibalism – an important Amerindian cultural concept that has survived the violent process of European colonialism and has been reclaimed as a conceptual tool to understand a diverse array of the social in Brazil. We seek to demonstrate how Brazilian researchers in the field of language in society have confronted distinct institutional and epistemic barriers, approaching diverse theoretical problems and, in different moments, producing what we call ‘anthropophagic knowledge’ – that is, forms of engaging scholarship that are watchful of economic and epistemic hierarchies typical of colonialism and at the same time seek to incorporate the perspectives of different Others (Santos, 2007). Representing different generations and institutions in Brazil, Marilda do Couto Cavalcanti, Luiz Paulo da Moita Lopes, Kanavillil Rajagopalan, Inês Signorini, Adriana Carvalho Lopes and Fernanda Miranda da Cruz iconize a situated mode of producing critical knowledge in the Global South. While incorporating tropes and sensibilities that circulate in the Global North, they have avoided uncritically relating to the legacy of inequality, economic expropriation, hunger and exclusion in their empirical field of research. This critical stance is also reflected in their interest in drawing from local epistemologies, which has rendered 127

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certain strands of studies of language in society in Brazil more hybrid and complex. Through their different modes of grappling with theoretical and empirical work, these Brazilian scholars have inquired into a similar question, which we may summarize as: What does it take to produce meaning and therefore to live a life under unequal living conditions? The instantiations of their responses to this question point to an ethics of survival. Pioneering approaches to survival, such as those of Jacques Derrida and Homi Bhabha, conceive survival as a challenge to the binarism between life and death that undergirds the hegemonic frameworks of modernity and the nation. According to Cheah (1999), the temporality of the modern nations often couples the future with vitality. The nation’s protected subjects are posited as those endowed with a form of vitality destined to progress and a way of life that is not constrained by the limits of poverty, illiteracy and fanaticism. As in the flag of Brazil’s inscription Ordem e progresso, or ‘Order and progress’, the future-oriented time of the nation is also the overcoming of the past, understood as the time-space of ignorance, violence and mortality predicated in pre-modern arrangements (see Cheah, 1999). In contradistinction to this modern (and exclusivist) notion of temporality, the cultures of survival – characteristic of the peripheries of modern nations – challenge the very terms on which life and death are inscribed. As Homi Bhabha (1994: xxiii) puts it, ‘the culture of survival emerges from the other side of the colonial enterprise, the darker side’. For instance, residents of the favelas – neighbourhoods originally built by freed slaves and poor migrants in 19th-century Brazil – have historically confronted the absence of housing and labour policies for the poor by creating their own neighbourhoods, creatively producing cultural and economic solutions for their survival in the territory. For Derrida (1979: 89), survival ‘goes beyond both living and dying, supplementing each with a sudden surge and a certain reprieve’. It is precisely the ethics of survival, typical of the communicative practices discussed by the six authors we study, that leads us to the Anthropocene – a moment in human history where the destiny of humans, non-humans and ecological systems are inextricably intertwined. As we discuss below, modes of interaction and cooperation between different beings – especially between beings of different species – are fundamental to counteract the catastrophic effects of human activity on the planet. Amerindians have known all along the importance of regarding nature as a sentient being – as a being who produces culture (see Viveiros de Castro, 2004). If the Eurocentric world has invariably believed in the existence of a single nature and different cultures (i.e. a multiculturalism), Amerindians have always understood that all beings live under the same culture while inhabiting different natures (i.e. a multinaturalism). Thus, this chapter is dedicated to examining the survival of anthropophagy, not only as a mode of being but also as a semiotic mode of interpreting the

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world and producing knowledge, in Brazilian sociolinguistics, and how it draws attention to thinking about the challenges posed by our current times living in the Anthropocene. In what follows, we first present the general perspective of the chapter in relation to how we envisage the intertwining of the concepts of anthropophagy and the Anthropocene. Next, inspired by the discussions of Sylvia Winter (2003) and Nelson Maldonado-Torres (2007) about the coloniality of being, we discuss the production of critical knowledge about language in society in Brazil by the six referred authors in two interconnected sections: a more retrospective one, ‘Facing the Coloniality of Being in Research’, and one that tackles junior scholars, ‘Beyond the Coloniality of Being in Research’. Finally, in ‘Doing Science in Cohabitation’, we discuss survival and hope in times of crisis and, inspired by Donna Haraway’s (2016) stance on kinship, we advocate for the recognition of our collective responsibility for changing the common destiny of the world we live in. From Cannibalism to the Human-Led Ecological Collapse

Anthropophagy, or cannibalism, had been practiced by Amerindian groups long before the European colonial conquest of the Americas in the 16th century (Fausto, 2002; Levi-Strauss, 1964; Villaça, 2000; Viveiros de Castro, 2011). The Indigenous interpretation of this practice – i.e. that eating an enemy meant incorporating the identity of the Other – became a trope in the cultural heritage of Latin American countries. It was the artistic movement known as Brazilian modernism, initiated in the 1920s, that popularized anthropophagy as an artistic concept in Brazilian artistic production and beyond. One of the movement’s main exponents, the poet Oswald de Andrade, wrote extensively about anthropophagy. In the first issue of Revista de Antropofagia (Journal of Anthropophagy) published in 1928, one finds the Manifesto Antropófago (‘Anthropophagic Manifesto’), a poem written in prose form by Andrade. In it, the Brazilian poet lays out, in a playful style, the general lines of the anthropophagic stance in poetry and the arts in general. The opening lines read: Só a antropofagia nos une. Socialmente. Economicamente. Filosoficamente.

Only anthropophagy unites us. Socially. Economically. Philosophically.

Única lei do mundo. Expressão mascarada de todos os individualismos, de todos os coletivismos. De todas as religiões. De todos os tratados de paz.

The only law in the world. Masked expression of all individualisms, of all collectivisms. Of all religions. Of all peace treaties.

Tupi or not tupi that is the question.

Tupi or not Tupi that is the question.

Contra todas as catequeses. E contra a mãe dos Gracos.

Against any catechesis. And against the mother of the Gracchos.

Só me interessa o que não é meu. Lei do homem. Lei do antropófago.

I am only interested in that which is not mine. The law of man. The law of the anthropophagus.

Source: Andrade ([1928] 2017: 46).1

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In his leading role in the modernist movement in Brazil, Andrade drew from critical works of his time – like Karl Marx’s interpretations of economic structures; Sigmund Freud’s delineation of the psyche and elaborations on totemism and taboo; and Claude Levi-Strauss’ studies on Amerindian cultures (see Islam, 2011) – and accorded a privileged position in his thinking to the ‘cosmologies’ of the Indigenous peoples in Brazil.2 Of fundamental importance to understanding how contemporary language scholars in Brazil have related to minoritized groups is the mode of relating to alterity predicated on anthropophagy, or cannibalism. As we mentioned above, the ethnological record demonstrates that cannibalism had been present among Amerindians long before the European conquest. Thus, the Other that would be killed and eaten was not necessarily a European invader, but any outgroup member deemed an enemy. In her ethnography of the Wari’ people in the Brazilian Amazon, Aparecida Villaça (2018) argues that the cannibalism historically practiced by this group was, like other forms of cannibalism, vastly nuanced and reticulated (see also Villaça, 2000). The Wari’ differentiated between practices that Villaça termed ‘exocannibalist’ and ‘endocannibalist’. Exocannibalism is the most well-known form of anthropophagy; in other words, warrior cannibalism. Endocannibalism is funerary cannibalism, i.e. the practice of eating the flesh of deceased ingroup, nonblood-related members. As Villaça (2018: 14) explains, ‘eating for the Wari’ is the clearest and most effective way of drawing distinctions’, which in part explains the fine-grained divisions in these two interrelated practices: in endocannibalistic funerals, ‘the living beings are divided between those who will and will not eat the dead person’. She adds that ‘the blood-related kin are responsible for safeguarding the humanity of the dead, while those who will eat them attempt to transform the vision of the family through eating, thus enacting the necessary rupture between the living and the dead’ (Villaça, 2018: 14–15). Villaça (2018: 15) also explains that a similar division takes place in warrior cannibalism: the predators, i.e. those who killed the enemy, are not the same ones who will eat them – ‘predators secure the non-humanity of the victim, while eaters produce their humanity and therefore identify themselves with the victim’. These complex practices of eating the Other have for millennia generated complex schemes of social relations and classifications (Albert, 1985; Clastres, 1974; Viveiros de Castro, 1986). Such generative forms of identification and transformation involved in eating the Other inspired Oswald de Andrade and the modernist movement, which he helped create. In the manifesto above, Andrade says that he is ‘only interested in that which is not [his]. The law of the anthropophagus’. The Tupinambás, one of the major Indigenous groups in Brazil, appear in the place of ‘being’ in Andrade’s citation of Shakespeare: ‘Tupi or not tupi that is the question’. Thus, centuries of practices of differentiation, cultural mixing and

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interpretation undertaken by Amerindians undergird Andrade’s ‘Anthropophagic Manifesto’. Eduardo Viveiros de Castro (2018: 24) explains that Amerindian cannibalism had little to do with physical necessity. Predation was first and foremost a form of ‘predication, an instrument of identification and connection, a mechanism of attribution and transformation’. Warrior cannibalism for the Amerindians ‘projected a form in which the socius was constructed through the relationship with the Other’ (Viveiros de Castro, 2011: 41). He adds that the incorporation of the Other, defeated in battle, ‘required an exit from oneself’ (Viveiros de Castro, 2011: 41). If the Jesuit missionaries had a conception of alterity in which the Other (i.e. the heathen Amerindian) had to convert themselves to an image of the ‘same’ (i.e. the Christian pious subject), Amerindians by contrast wanted that the same, through physical or symbolic cannibalism, became the Other. Inspired by this ancestral philosophy, Andrade ([1950] 1978: 141) notes in an essay about the cultural practice of cordiality in Brazil (as proposed by Buarque de Hollanda, [1936] 2012) that: [W]e may call alterity the feeling of the Other, that is, of seeing the Other in oneself, of perceiving in oneself the disaster, the mortification or the joy of the Other. This term then turns out to mean the opposite of what it does in Charles Baudelaire’s existential vocabulary – that is, the feeling of being Other, different, isolated and oppositional. (Andrade, [1950] 1978: 141)

Not fully ‘different, isolated’ individuals, Amerindians thus devised a subjective topology in which ‘the interior was nothing but movement towards the outside’ (Viveiros de Castro, 2011: 46). For Andrade, this projection of the subject towards the Other amounted to a form of sociality in which the self is part of a world with Others, in solidarity with Others: ‘devouring [the enemy] brings in itself the imminence of danger. And it produces the social solidarity that is defined as alterity’ (Andrade, [1950] 1978: 143). Interiorizing the Other – or ‘seeing the Other in oneself, [and] perceiving in oneself the disaster, mortification, or the joy of [being] the Other’ (Andrade, [1950] 1978: 141) – is thus an abiding condition in Amerindian philosophy. And this condition permeates innumerable symbolic practices in Brazilian society. Hence, from the very outset, it is our first argument that Brazilian artistic modernism and anthropology have not only moved away from individualistic conceptions of the subject, but have also moved towards an anthropophagic relation to the Other. Critical studies in sociolinguistics and applied linguistics have also engaged in this condition, albeit from a different stance. As we discuss below, scholars working in these fields, especially those working in applied linguistics, have, since the 1980s, grappled with questions related

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to rapid and turbulent social changes, economic inequality, social vulnerability and colonialism.3 While from a psychic point of view these forms of oppression affect both privileged and subaltern groups, the latter are the ones who suffer its most deleterious effects (see Fanon, 1952; Pandolfo, 2010). Finding ways to live in these uncertain conditions – a question that has also concerned these strands of critical sociolinguistics and applied linguistics in Brazil – lead us to the second keyword in our chapter, namely the Anthropocene. As Anna Tsing (2015) summarizes, the Anthropocene is a new concept; it was first proposed in geology to highlight the role of human interference in the planet’s environment and climate – thus, the current geological age is named the Anthropocene as a reminder of both the human influence on the climate, and of the disastrous and worrying effects of such influence. The term is at once disturbing and conflicting: ‘although some interpreters see the name as implying the triumph of humans, the opposite seems more accurate: without planning or intention, humans have made a mess of our planet’ (Tsing, 2015: 19). In the face of the contemporary global environmental crisis, social scientists have thus inquired into alternative ontologies, such as the types of interactions between different species in their quest for survival amid degradation (Tsing, 2015) or Amerindian philosophy, which in its attribution of perspectival knowledge to humans and non-humans provides different, non-utilitarian conceptions of the environment, seen as a sentient and cognitive being like humans (Viveiros de Castro, 1998). As we pointed out in the Introduction, we see the question of survival as a point of connection between anthropophagy and the Anthropocene. The effects of the global environmental crisis are felt by all humans. Yet, the dispossessed people of globalization suffer the worst effects of this crisis. Besides, in the contemporary realignment of the world towards reactionary populism, the underdog may end up being blamed for ecological disasters. One piece of evidence in this direction comes from a speech by Paulo Guedes, the Brazilian minister of the economy in the far-right government of Jair Bolsonaro, who represented the Brazilian president at the 2020 World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland. Trained in the Department of Economics at the University of Chicago in the 1970s, when the neoliberal intellectual framework was being seminally produced by such professors as Milton Freeman and Friedrich Hayek, Paulo Guedes is a self-declared enemy of the welfare state (see Cooper, 2014, and Harvey, 2005, for fine-grained accounts of neoliberalism). As a member of a right-wing populist government aligned with the contemporary post-truth politics of Donald Trump’s populism, Guedes responded to critiques of the rising statistics of deforestation, landgrabbing and illegal fires in the Brazilian Amazon by blaming the poor. Before an audience of world leaders, he said that the poor are destroying the environment, and the reason is that they are in need of food. In his

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words: ‘Nature’s worst enemy is poverty. People destroy the environment because they need to eat’ (cited in Salomão & Coelho, 2020). Against criminal and scientific evidence that singles out land-grabbers and farmers as intentionally setting the forest on fire in the globally known disaster of 2019 (Silva, 2019), Guedes framed the starving poor as the perpetrators of the environmental collapse in the Amazon. It is important to note that Bolsonaro himself, without presenting any evidence, had blamed Indigenous communities and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) for cutting down trees and setting fire to the forest, allegedly to ruin his image (Boadle & Stargardter, 2019). For scientists and progressive people alike, Guedes and Bolsonaro were misrepresenting a reality that is not new. Bruno Latour (2018) points out that the worst effects of the Anthropocene have already been felt by the residents of former European colonies for a much longer period of time. In his words, those who had chosen to ‘modernize’ the world have only recently experienced the imminent risks of the destruction of entire ecosystems, as we are witnessing now with rising sea levels, fires in tropical forests, storms and other effects of climate change. Yet, this question of environmental disaster has always been looming large, according to Latour (2018): [O]nly for those who for four centuries had been subjected to the impact of the ‘great discoveries’, of empires, modernization, development, and finally globalization. They knew perfectly well what it meant to find oneself deprived of land. And they even knew quite well what it meant to be chased out of one’s land. They had no choice but to become experts on the question of how to survive conquest, extermination, land grabs. (Latour, 2018: 21–22)

Survival of the imminent or potential destruction of ecosystems, which the dispossessed of globalization already know so well, is thus a key question in the research on the Anthropocene. In this sense, the Brazilian scholarship that we summarize below has, since the 1980s, been asking the following significant contemporary question: How do people who are submitted to economic inequality, violence and political or environmental destruction manage to strive and flourish as individuals or communities? Even if these language scholars have not been preoccupied, strictly speaking, with the ontological turn (Kohn, 2015) and the climate catastrophe that currently accompany the anthropological attention to the Anthropocene, they have devoted themselves to communicative practices and forms of life of those who have suffered the worst impacts of colonialism, land exploitation and ‘modernization’, as Latour spelled out above. The scholarly work by Marilda do Couto Cavalcanti (1999, 2006), Inês Signorini (2002, 2008), Luiz Paulo da Moita Lopes (2006), Kanavillil

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Rajagopalan (2003), Adriana Carvalho Lopes (2011) and Fernanda Miranda da Cruz (2018) differently grapples with minoritized groups and hence with some lessons these groups have taught Others about what it is to live a life in which one has to endure economic inequality, social vulnerability, marginalization, violation, effacement or violence. Note that these six authors are far from being the only ones interested in engaging in an anthropophagic dialogue with different Others, and in learning with them about how to survive a postcolonial world. These scholars are themselves members of networks within and outside Brazil, so there is a large family resemblance between the scholarship that we spell out below and other epistemic projects in the country and beyond. Nevertheless, we believe that the work of these authors is prototypical of the questions we are raising – about alterity and survival, or about anthropophagy and the Anthropocene. Besides, some of the main features in their epistemologies – for instance, their critical positionality as scholars in the Global South and their collective epistemic projects of responding to colonialism, as well as the lived realities of the subjects they have engaged with – are very much informed by a recent quest in language studies and the social sciences in general, viz. the problem of hope. Authors interested in the affect of hope (e.g. Bloch, 1986; Borba, 2019; Crapanzano, 2003; Lear, 2006; Mahmood, 2016), a propelling drive that springs from otherwise paralyzing or destructive scenarios, are interested in how subjects find survival within some previously configured forms of destruction, precariousness, uncertainty or violation. We will tentatively define hope as the semio-linguistic ideological work by which people oppose violence, political destruction or affective paralysis with a collective construction of survival – an affect that is collective, teachable and future oriented (Bloch, 1986). In this sense, we intend to narrate these epistemic projects in Brazilian sociolinguistics that were ultimately made possible because their actors have struggled to produce alternative ontologies in the institutional scenarios in which they worked and, especially, in the empirical scenarios where they lodged their analytic concerns. Facing the Coloniality of Being in Research

In this section, we narrate four pioneering positionalities in the field of Brazilian studies in language, culture and society that critically responded to modernist and colonial ideologies in linguistics. These pioneering proposals index ways in which sociolinguistics and critical language studies in the Global South have responded to epistemic and economic colonialism by producing anthropophagic and critical scholarship. We will thus spell out Cavalcanti’s transcultural stance on Brazilian multilingualism; Signorini’s notion of linguistic deregulation; Rajagopalan’s call for dialogue with lay opinions about language; and Moita Lopes’ indisciplinary stance in applied linguistics. In resisting efforts to dismantle institutional

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scenarios for critical research on language, these theories are ultimately alternative ontologies that have contributed to the survival of decolonial thinking in the Brazilian field of sociolinguistics. In the 1970s, during the military dictatorship (1964–1985), linguistics was already an established discipline in Brazil and had a department of its own at the University of Campinas (Unicamp), a renowned research university. Yet, the creation of a new Department of Applied Linguistics (DLA) in the 1980s, was an object of much debate as modernist epistemologies about language had already been dominant at the university. Some positions against the creation of a new department were that reflections about language teaching – supposedly the only object of applied linguistics – were not as scientific as those being carried out about linguistic form and discourse, and also that applied linguistics should be an ‘application’ of the scientific knowledge produced by linguists. In spite of these critiques, the DLA – by relying on bureaucratic technicalities and by hiring critical talents – found a way to survive. The scholarship produced by Marilda do Couto Cavalcanti, a scholar who arrived in the DLA in the 1980s, is iconic of the types of anthropophagic ontologies that have emerged in Brazilian applied linguistics. In line with Oswald de Andrade’s anthropophagy in culture and the arts, Cavalcanti engaged with forms of scholarship-making that grapple with modes of translation of knowledge that were typical of Amerindians. Cavalcanti thus nurtured practices of knowledge production that are anthropophagic, especially in the sense that they may be described as collaborating with Others, translating tropes produced in the ethnographic encounter and incorporating the difference of the Other (e.g. Cavalcanti, 2006). She has collaborated intensively with researchers she trained, especially Terezinha Machado Maher, América César, Ivani Silva and Ana Cecilia Bizon (e.g. Cavalcanti & César, 2007; Cavalcanti & Silva, 2007; Cavalcanti & Bizon, 2020; Maher & Cavalcanti, 2019, respectively). Maher and Cavalcanti are pioneers in ethnolinguistic studies in Brazilian applied linguistics. Based on their ethnographic studies with Indigenous peoples from the State of Acre in Brazil, they challenge, for example, the notion that contemporary índios are losing the authenticity of their traditional culture because of globalization. In a recent article, Maher and Cavalcanti (2019) study transformations in Indigenous self-identification. Indigenous groups have re-signified derogatory terms such as índios. Instead of signalling ‘subordination or dependency’, the recontextualization of índio indexes the construction of ‘a collective identity that brings together distinct ethnic identities to strive for self-determination and fight for common social, economic, cultural and political struggles’ (Maher & Cavalcanti, 2019: 52–53). Yet, the most prominent form of selfidentification of these cultures is perhaps couched in the current notion that Indigenous groups have increased in size in Brazil; in the face of five centuries of genocide, rising numbers of births may be seen as victory.

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Ethnologists have emphasized that the practice of anthropophagy in Amerindian societies was embedded in a philosophical vision that the Other was a radical alterity that one should incorporate, literally by eating the Other’s flesh. At the same time that Cavalcanti kept conversing with theories and scholars from around the world, she produced novel forms of understanding the place of sociolinguistics in a country that, to a large extent, has envisioned itself as monolingual, White and non-racist. In 1986, she published a paper titled ‘About Applied Linguistics’, which defined the area not by restricting its scope like Ferdinand de Saussure did for linguistics, but by expanding it towards transdisciplinary understandings of language in Brazilian society (Cavalcanti, 1986). Throughout the years, in collaboration with her students, Cavalcanti devised a broader approach to studying language and cultural diversity, and proposed a view of language practices as kaleidoscopes, i.e. language games that are multifaceted and always in reconfiguration (see Cavalcanti & Cesar, 2007). Her approach foregrounded the contradictions and flaws in monolingual imaginations that have informed Brazilian language politics: from the invisibilization of the role of African languages in Brazilian Portuguese, passing through the genocide and linguisticide of Indigenous populations, to the prohibition of bilingual schools in the history of Brazilian education and contemporary monoglot policies and ideologies (see Cavalcanti & Maher, 2018). Against this view, she drew a picture of a complex and multilingual country, in which Portuguese – in spite of its figuration as the only official language in the country – cannot be taken as a monolith. Next, we move to Inês Signorini’s (2002) theorization about ‘linguistic deregulation’ – another nodal point in the challenge to modernist language ideologies in Brazil. From the very outset, Signorini (2002: 93) states that her theory of deregulation is an understanding of language diversity and variation ‘uncompromised with the political and ideological project of construction/consolidation or “defense” of a national language’. She thus avoids embedding deregulation in such constructs as ‘national or native language’, for these are Eurocentric objectifications that presuppose the coincidence between ‘a language – a people – a nation’; by contrast, deregulation refers to the diversity and indeterminacy of linguistic practices. If stasis and conscious rationality are major assumptions of modern ideologies of language (Bauman & Briggs, 2003; Derrida, 1977), linguistic deregulation highlights movement and de-centred rationality in the multiple axis and non-linearities (Signorini, 2002: 95) that constitute language practices. Signorini borrows from Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s (1975) metaphors that languages are ‘schizophrenic mixtures’ and that their speakers are all ‘foreigners’, polylanguaging in their ‘own language’ to explain that linguistic orders are not ‘rationally structured’ and that both monolingualism as the norm and multilingualism as parallel

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monolingualisms are problematic views. Anticipating the contemporary translanguaging research, Signorini (2002: 97–98) defined polylanguaging as ‘the diverse types of alternance, mixture, and fusions of languages and varieties’ that continuously take place across the borders and zones of contact. The third form of theorization that resisted colonialism in Brazil was Kanavillil Rajagopalan’s call for dialogue with laypeople’s rationalizations about language. In 2002, he wrote about a debate that sparked in Brazil over a controversial bill of law, presented by Federal Deputy Aldo Rebelo, ‘aimed at curbing the use of foreignisms by the use of law’ (Rajagopalan, 2002: 115; see also Rajagopalan, 2003; Silva & Rajagopalan, 2004). Rebelo’s patriotic bill considered that ‘any and every use of foreign words, with the special cases mentioned in this law’ were ‘detrimental to Brazil’s cultural heritage’. In his discussion of the circulation of the bill, Rajagopalan drew close attention to both what laypeople had to say about it and how professional linguistics responded to them. His diagnosis was that linguists, by and large, were not called on to participate in the discussion. As Carlos Alberto Faraco, a leading linguist, noted: ‘forty years after its introduction as a discipline in Brazilian universities, linguistics continues to remain invisible and inaudible to the society as a whole’ (Faraco, 2001, cited in Rajagopalan, 2002: 128). In general, linguists pointed to laypeople’s ignorance of what scientists know about languages and argued that the lay debate was based on myths rather than facts about language. In other words, for Rajagopalan (2002), arrogance and the inability to frame the debate as political rather than technical characterized the stance of linguists about language standardization. While many linguists wrote and spoke about the issue, Rajagopalan (2002: 133) pointed out that ‘even when [linguists] have had the opportunity to voice their concerns, their arguments have typically tended to take the line that it is they who know what language is all about and therefore it is high time that they were listened to more often’. Rajagopalan (2002: 115) pleaded it was about time that ‘we as linguists did some soul-searching and asked ourselves whether, in our ­single-minded effort to theorize about language in total disregard for what the laypeople think and believe about it, we have not isolated ourselves from them and rendered ourselves largely inconsequential’. In a move that was very similar to the language ideology turn, Rajagopalan pointed to a crucial layer of semiosis that linguists tend to ignore in their concern with describing the purified fragment of their science – la langue – while leaving aside the everyday terrain of speech and the meta-commentaries about it – or la parole. In other words, Rajagopalan demonstrated that linguists ignored the metapragmatic layer of language – where language ideologies, or rationalizations about language imbued with political interests, abound (Silverstein, 1993).

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The fourth pioneering position that we would like to discuss here is well summarized in Luiz Paulo da Moita Lopes’ (2006) edited volume titled Por uma linguística aplicada indisciplinar (‘Towards an Indisciplinary Applied Linguistics’). His notion of indiscipline is embedded in the mestizage of perspectival views of language in human affairs that are produced not only in linguistics or applied linguistics departments, but also in any consequential epistemic enterprise. In addition to being mestiza, an indisciplinary applied linguistics is also ideological or politically informed. Moita Lopes (2006: 86) thus critiques the supposed neutrality of scientific views by approximating scientific indiscipline to a concern that the knowledge produced in linguistic investigations should be consequential for ‘those who live in the margin: the poor, residents of favelas, Blacks, Indigenous peoples, homoerotic men and women, women and men who undergo hardships etc’. Thus, in our view, Moita Lopes’ (2006) indisciplinary stance iconizes the ways in which critical sociolinguists and applied linguists in Brazil have challenged themselves in the wake of the Anthropocene – a moment in which scientists, as Anna Tsing (2015: iii) wisely sums up, are trying to make sense of ‘the possibility of life in capitalist ruins’. These ruins are certainly very apparent in a country like Brazil, where colonial arrangements have exploited nature and human life to an extent that life becomes extremely harsh for the most vulnerable: Indigenous peoples who have been historically decimated and expropriated; residents of favelas, who have been stigmatized; Afro-Brazilians who have been criminalized by racist institutions; and disabled people who have been socially and institutionally excluded. Beyond the Coloniality of Being in Research

Now we focus on two ontologies in Brazilian applied linguistics that have investigated alternative arrangements of life, opening fissures in the field of language research. These transdisciplinary modes of doing research on language remind us that ‘our world is rather contingent than necessary’, as Sewell (1997: 37) summarized the main revelation of anthropology. Adriana Carvalho Lopes (2011) and Fernanda Miranda da Cruz (2018) have produced research that not only portrays less widely known ways of being in the world, but also engages with marginalized groups. In crossing different borders, Lopes got involved with the cultural manifestation of funk music in Rio de Janeiro, learned its meanings, fought for its social legitimacy and is still part of a network of social relations that involves solidarity and affect between academic researchers, progressive politicians and activists from the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. Lopes’ research was first reported in her book Funk-se quem quiser: No batidão negro da cidade carioca (or in an approximate translation:

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Everybody can Funk Themselves: In the Black Beat of Rio de Janeiro; Lopes, 2011). As she narrates it, funk carioca, or Rio de Janeiro funk, is a music genre, a communicative practice and a cultural manifestation born in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. The Rio de Janeiro funk culture emerged out of the African diaspora as it spread globally through the forms of US funk, soul and hip-hop, Angola’s kuduro, Colombia’s reggaeton, etc. Yet, it became a distinct musical genre from the mix of the beat of Miami Bass, a subgenre of hip-hop, with other beats originated/created in different favelas. From the 1990s onwards, it became one of the main vehicles of cultural expression of the youth in the favelas as lyrics would point out different aspects of their everyday life, such as residing in places where the state and the ‘world of crime’ dispute authority, and also the dynamics of Black identity, and of love and sexuality in the communities. Because funk presented these cultural themes, it became a main target of social prejudice. In reaction, a diverse group of intellectuals started to describe funk – and mainly the bailes funk, or parties organized in the favelas, which became a main space of cultural socialization for youths – in ways that differed from the criminalizing middle-class, mediatic and police accounts. More than just analyzing the characteristics of this cultural movement, Lopes had a deep involvement with the funkeiros and funkeiras – the people from funk culture – that would have far deeper social consequences. In the preface to her book, MC Leonardo (2011), a funk activist, comments on the problematic relationship that researchers usually have with the people from the social group that they research due to a lack of political commitment with them. However, MC Leonardo recognized Lopes’ research as challenging these assumptions. He acknowledges her role in creating the Associação dos Profissionais e Amigos do Funk (‘Association of Friends and Professionals of Funk’) that was later responsible for passing a bill in the State of Rio de Janeiro; the law that would then recognize funk as a cultural manifestation that should be respected, and that any discussion related to it should be done in the scope of cultural, rather than security, policies aiming to fight crime. Thus, MC Leonardo also acknowledges that his encounter with Adriana Lopes resulted in actions that aspired to social change. Registering this encounter in a book, an important material artefact, amounts to producing memory and a tool for future social struggles (MC Leonardo, 2011). In this sense, his discourse not only testifies to the crossing of their trajectories, but also designs an ongoing shared project of social change, which is an actual exercise, through inter-relationality, of fighting political destruction and building hope. In conditions of social vulnerability such as those in the favelas of Rio, knowing how to build alliances or actual affective bonds may be part of demanding rights and producing visibility. Besides, this knowledge production may be a form of surviving and building paths that may become resources for members of a community in their everyday

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production of hope. MC Leonardo’s discourse is part of the complex threads that constitute the tapestry of specific peripheral ways of thinking and being – ontologies produced out of anthropophagic contact with different Others. In these contexts, people not only enact survival, but also form other arrangements of life. In her research with children diagnosed with autism, Cruz (2018) questions the place of language and communicability in our frames of interpretation of social realities by trying to understand the role of bodies in space in the process of doing research. Her research indexes the possibilities for us to be in another mode of existence, where our modern conceptions of doing research with/about/in-between languages can be put into discussion. Constructed as a clinical category and as a sociocultural phenomenon, autism challenges our understandings about the ways in which subjects constitute intersubjective relationships, empathetic connections, will and intention, moral values and agency, as well as epistemological constructions (Solomon, 2010). The main reason for this is related to the fact that discourses about autism were built from the point of view and the experiences of people who were socialized in the narratives and worldviews mediated by the modern ideologies about what it is to interact, what it is to communicate, what it is to live a life and what it is to be human that cannot be simply retraced in the autistic experiences. Either in medical or other social discourses, definitions of autism have always been mediated by categories of thought that are both pre-existent and usually external to the worlds of autistic people. In her autoethnographic report, Fernanda Miranda da Cruz (2018) challenges these mediations, telling of her process of insertion and conducting research in Pandorga – an uncommon word for ‘kite’ – which is an institution that aims to promote the conviviality of autistic children in São Leopoldo, a city in the south of Brazil. During the investigation, she started to understand that our excess of verbal language, categories and descriptions are the main obstacles for comprehending the experience of what it is to be an autistic person. She could perceive, then, that it was necessary to consider their modes of existence without filling with communication what would be seen as their silences, and that it was necessary to leave behind any characterization of them ‘in negative’ (as we will explain below) that would erase (again) their specific ways of being in the world. Throughout the months that she spent in Pandorga, Cruz perceived that beyond the movements registered by the camera – the precise transcriptions of synchronic movements, corporal alignments and coordinations that would frame and explain the connections of bodies, spaces and materials – there was ‘her body’. She also understood that what this specific body would understand and capture as a ‘presence’ was different from what her research had been able to observe, describe, theorize and explain. As an example, she portrays her contact with Augusto, a child who used to be described, in her terms, only ‘in negative’: he would not talk,

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he would not look, he would not ask, he would not be ‘transcribable’. Yet, Augusto had patterns of movement; his infant body would connect with space in ways that adults would not connect; he would have a mode of being in the world that was singular. Cruz (2018) tells us that on her last day in the field, she and a friend, when leaving, waved to the people of Pandorga. Then, the unexpected happened: for the first time in months, Augusto made a gesture that connected him with that collective. He waved back to the researcher. This small gesture probably impacted the world that he and the people surrounding him inhabit. Cruz (2018) stated that his goodbye was a sensitive experience that she still carries with her in her academic writings and her research in the universe of autism, as well as in her personal engagements with dance and as a reminder of the place of the body in research. The ‘goodbye’ of Augusto, in this sense, produced an interrelation between worlds. It also produced an affect that, in its own way, gestured to an undefinable hope; a kind of hope that is not based on what can be said, but on what can be done, when in a ‘state of presence’. In this sense, this affect indexes different ontological possibilities of being, and simultaneously opens up a possibility of being otherwise. Doing Science in Cohabitation

We started this reflection by revisiting anthropophagy, especially as it indexes the memories of Indigenous practices of incorporating the Other and thus establishing a solidary, non-utilitarian relation with alterity. We then connected this dialogue with Indigenous, subaltern epistemologies that are entangled with a significant question in the debates about the Anthropocene: How do people who are submitted to environmental collapse, economic inequality, social vulnerability, violence and/or political destruction manage to strive and flourish as individuals or communities? This connection, we argued, is made visible mainly through the trope of survival: Indigenous philosophical concepts such as anthropophagy and perspectival knowledge are all the more relevant today for the quest of alternative ways of relating to the environment in the Anthropocene. Although our approach is not teleological, we understand that survival may be seen as a step towards hope. In the Aristotelian tradition, the affect of hope can be regarded as a particular way of educating one’s bodily habitus with the aim of avoiding despair (Lear, 2006). Hope is thus a regulated mode of ‘waiting’ (Crapanzano, 2003) – a form of practical reason through which particular virtues are cultivated and certain affects (anger, for instance) are channelled into a practical end. In the Brazilian favelas, the murder of the Black, lesbian and favela-born councilwoman Marielle Franco in 2018 has proved to be an exemplary case of the cultivation of hope (see Silva & Lee, 2020). As we revise this text in January 2021, this crime against democracy has still not yet been solved.

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However, a movement of mourning and struggle for justice has been fractalized from Rio de Janeiro to the world. In the face of the waiting time for justice, the mourners’ organized action has transformed Marielle’s time itself (she is still seen as a ‘present’ figure) and the effects of her abiding action (Marielle is positioned as a ‘seed’ that has germinated in politics ever since). During her biological life, the young councilwoman iconized this movement from survival to hope: she knew what it was like to navigate through contexts where death caused by the state, by hunger and by drug traffic is constantly on the prowl. Marielle grew up in a context of survival, but believed that through institutional politics she could channel her anger and her survival abilities into a more perennial hope. In other words, Marielle wanted to take practical and hopeful action against domination and inequality within the institutional space of the state. In this chapter, we reflected upon the tropes of survival and hope in two different moments of Brazilian scholarship on language and society. First, we looked at four pioneering epistemic projects in the history of producing other forms of science in the field of language in society in Brazil. The scholarship produced by Cavalcanti, Signorini, Rajagopalan and Moita Lopes broadened the scope of language studies in the country and opened up spaces for critical thinking in this field. Second, we highlighted how two young female scholars are projecting the field forward by occupying this space and constructing new modes of producing knowledge in sociolinguistics. The scholarship produced by Adriana Lopes and Fernanda da Cruz at once politically engages with the realities of the Other and ‘cannibalizes’ the communicative practices of their interlocutors, thereby promoting inter-relationalities among people with distinct social trajectories and cognitive conditions. In line with other efforts in Brazilian academia and beyond, these epistemic projects not only play an important role in reframing systems of knowledge in the field of language, but also participate in particular political struggles for social change (e.g. Adriana Lopes’ participation in the production of a bill of law, and the reception of her work among the funkeiros and funkeiras), and complexify the political debate over processes of inequality, marginalization and colonialism in Brazil (e.g. Rajagopalan’s and Signorini’s debates about linguistic ideologies in Brazil; and Cavalcanti’s and Moita Lopes’ discussions of diversity in the country). These scholars thus point to ways of making studies of language and society move forward in Brazil by prefiguring possible critical forms of producing knowledge. As scholars living in a very diverse and unequal country, their efforts in knowledge-making translate into tactics of collectively imagining survival and hope. In this sense, doing research in the Anthropocene becomes an exercise in solidarity across social differences, borders and histories – a form of solidarity that is made up of affective lines, as all these six pieces of scholarship at stake demonstrate.

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In this process of common weaving, hope is a practical project, where one aspires with others to slowly change meanings in life. For Maldonado-Torres (2017: 22), decoloniality is a philosophy that, in opposing itself to coloniality, promotes human inter-relationality and aims at challenging hierarchies of difference that dehumanize individuals and communities. If coloniality is the basis of the world, where we actually live with its actual ‘racial, sexist, homo and trans-phobic conservative liberal and neoliberal politics’ (Maldonado-Torres, 2017: 1), one form of facing it is by engaging with the potentialities of the unknown (as Cruz’s engagement with the alterity of Augusto indexes) and by building spaces where love and understanding can emerge. More than just building strong theoretical reflections and getting engaged politically with communities, the challenge of survival and building hope in the Anthropocene is a challenge of cohabitation and of recognizing that we all share the ‘same shape-changing destiny’ (Latour, 2014), which demands building collective strategies. The Brazilian scholarship we have presented in this chapter is a token of this collective strategic action. To invoke Haraway’s (2016) book title, surviving and building hope in the Anthropocene will also demand ‘staying with the trouble’ and facing it. Notes (1) We have translated the cited excerpts of works published in Portuguese where a translation into English is not available. (2) As we will make clear, our placing of quotation marks on the word ‘cosmologies’ has to do with the fact that, in critical reinterpretations of Western metaphysics like that of Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, Amerindian people have, over the centuries and before European contact, produced a philosophy – one that provides systematic categorizations and explanations of the world and its beings. (3) Our use of the term ‘social vulnerability’ is informed by a long trajectory of debates in the field economy in Brazil about how to define the multidimensional aspects related to what historically was seen as ‘poverty’, as well as the unfolding of these debates in the discussion about public policies (see Costa et al., 2018).

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Kohn, E. (2015) Anthropology of ontologies. Annual Review of Anthropology 44, 311–327. Latour, B. (2014) Agency at the time of the Anthropocene. New Literary History 45, 1–18. Latour, B. (2018) Down to Earth: Politics in the New Climatic Regime. Cambridge: Polity Press. Lear, J. (2006) Radical Hope: Ethics in The Face of Cultural Devastation. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Levi-Strauss, C. (1964) Tristes Tropiques: An Anthropological Study of Primitive Societies in Brazil. New York: Antheneum. Lopes, A.C. (2011) Funk-se quem quiser: No batidão negro da cidade carioca. Rio de Janeiro: Bom Texto, FAPERJ. Maher, T.M. and Cavalcanti, M.C. (2019) Unseen and unheard: Cultural identities and the communicative repertoires of Índios in Brazilian cities. Current Issues in Language Planning 20, 50–66. Mahmood, S. (2016) Religious Difference in a Secular Age: A Minority Report. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Maldonado-Torres, N. (2007) On the coloniality of being: Contributions to the development of a concept. Cultural Studies 21, 240–270. Maldonado-Torres, N. (2017) Outline of ten theses on coloniality and decoloniality. See https://fondation​-frantzfanon​.com​/wp​-content​/uploads​/2018​/10​/maldonado​-torres​ _outline​_of​_ten​_theses​-10​.23​.16​.pdf (accessed 8 March 2023). MC Leonardo (2011) Prefácio. In A. Lopes (ed.) Funk-se quem quiser: No batidão negro da cidade carioca (pp. 13–15). Rio de Janeiro: Bom Texto, FAPERJ. Moita Lopes, L.P. (2006) Por uma linguística aplicada indisciplinar. São Paulo: Parábola. Pandolfo, S. (2010) Clad in mourning: Violence, subjugation and the struggle of the soul. Review of Women’s Studies 6, 25–39. Rajagopalan, K. (2002) National languages as flags of allegiance, or the linguistics that failed us: A close look at emergent linguistic chauvinism in Brazil. Journal of Language and Politics 1, 115–147. Rajagopalan, K. (2003) Por uma linguística crítica. São Paulo: Parábola. Salomão, A. and Coelho, L. (2020) People destroy the environment because they need to eat, Says Guedes at Davos. Folha de S. Paulo, 22 January. See https://www1​.folha​.uol​ .com​.br​/internacional​/en​/business​/2020​/01​/people​-destroy​-the​-environment​-because​ -they​-need​-to​-eat​-says​-guedes​-at​-davos​.shtml (accessed 26 January 2020). Santos, B. de Sousa (ed.) (2007) Another Knowledge is Possible. London: Verso. Sewell Jr., W.H. (1997) Geertz, cultural systems, and history: From synchrony to transformation. Representations 59, 35–55. Signorini, I. (2002) Por uma teoria da desregulamentação linguística. In M. Bagno (ed.) Linguística da norma (pp. 93–126). São Paulo: Loyola. Signorini, I. (2008) Situar a língua(gem). São Paulo: Parábola. Silva, D. (2019) The Amazon fires as talking to Bolsonaro. Diggit Magazine, 10 October. See https://www​.diggitmagazine​.com​/articles​/amazon​-fires​-talking​-bolsonaro (accessed 22 January 2020). Silva, D. and Lee, J. (2020) ‘Marielle, presente’: Metaleptic temporality and the enregisterment of hope in Rio de Janeiro. Journal of Sociolinguistics. https://doi. org/10.1111/ josl.12450. Silva, F. and Rajagopalan, K. (eds.) (2004) A linguística que nos faz falhar: Investigação crítica. São Paulo: Parábola. Silverstein, M. (1993) Metapragmatic discourse and metapragmatic function. In J. Lucy (ed.) Reflexive Language: Reported Speech and Metapragmatics (pp. 33–58). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Solomon, O. (2010) Sense and the senses: Anthropology and the study of autism. Annual Review of Anthropology 39, 241–259. Tsing, A. (2015) The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

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9 Localizing National Multilingualism in Some Countries in East Africa Jane Akinyi Ngala Oduor

Introduction

In principle, theories, theoretical models, proposals or manifestos emanate from concerns arising from people’s experiences. Since the decades of independence from the imperialist north (1940s–1970s in most colonized nations), the linguistic debates in the Global South have been inspired by the multilingual nature of southern nations. The concern has revolved around the sociolinguistic (and political) question of what the ideal relationship between language and nation should be; a concern that led to numerous revisions in the language policies of African nations. In this chapter, I argue that southern theorizing in the area of language revolves around the challenges of societal multilingualism. The language practices in the Global North created the impression that nations thrived best on societal monolingualism. Yet, multilingualism is the normal phenomenon in most African nations. The one-language-one-nation model proposed for most countries in the Global North cannot work adequately for Africa with its pluralism. However, it should be noted that multilingualism also exists in countries in the Global North. This chapter attempts to show that there is hope for localizing multilingualism in the Global South. Localizing in this sense means adapting multilingualism in a way that is suitable for the language needs of a particular area. A nation with differing patterns of language use from one region to another may therefore have different multilingualisms to serve the language needs of each region. The chapter first discusses three factors that are critical in making language policy decisions. The language policies of two of the countries in the East African Community (EAC) are then discussed from a historical perspective to highlight revisions in each of them. It then proposes a manifesto for a language policy model that would help to localize multilingualism in the Global South. In the conclusion, there is an attempt to check what the two countries already possess in their language policies from the ideas recommended in the manifesto and what needs to be included in order to localize them. 147

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Proposing Three Critical Factors in Language Policy Decisions and Models for the Global South

In this section, the term ‘proposing’ is used in the sense of suggesting and developing ideas for appropriate language policy decisions and models for the Global South. The three critical factors in my view are multilingualism (fixed and flexible multilingualisms); language and national development; and implementation strategies. Each is discussed briefly below. Fixed and flexible multilingualisms

The first important factor is the existence of multilingualism in many counties in the Global South. Multilingualism is slightly more complicated than one might imagine. It should be noted that fixed and flexible multilingualisms exist, as described by Kathleen Heugh (2017). Both of these need to be taken into consideration during language planning. In my understanding, fixed multilingualism refers to a situation where those who are able to speak many languages do not mix them but use each one independently according to the demands of the situation. Flexible multilingualism means mixing the languages known to a speaker, possibly in all communication situations. Most speakers in multilingual settings find themselves in flexible, rather than fixed, multilingualism. In addition, the language mix in one region within a country may be totally different from another. The nature of multilingualisms existing in different regions should be part of the research conducted by applied linguists before language planning for a region and nation is concluded. Kathleen Heugh and Christopher Stroud (2019: 3) state that these multilingualisms are ‘consequences of millennia of human mobility, conquests and hegemonies’; and Alastair Pennycook and Sinfree Makoni (2020) are of the opinion that: Those people who we now see as deeply multilingual in the global south rarely see themselves in the same way… If we can do away with the language enumerations…, a great deal of productive research could start to open up the real complexities of grassroots multilingualism. (Pennycook & Makoni, 2020: 62)

Further research needs to be conducted to understand multilingualisms that exist among speakers of different languages within a nation before making language policy decisions. Each country must therefore study the kinds of multilingualisms present in different regions in making language policy decisions. Language and national development

The second factor is language and development in the Global South. Okoth Okombo (2001) quotes the World Bank (1989) in stating that:

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Language policy is worth the effort it requires and costs it entails only when it is placed in the broad context of national development. In its turn, national development only makes sense when it is designed to improve the welfare of the citizens. (Okombo, 2001: 27)

A language policy, he suggests, should be part of the agenda placed under national development with the goal of citizens being the direct beneficiaries. The result of such a language policy should be seen in the improved quality of life of citizens. In proposing or formulating the appropriate model for a language policy in the Global South, there is a need to reemphasize the fact that a language policy is meant to serve the citizens of a country. Okombo (2001: 27) summarizes this role by stating that a language policy ‘is not for the welfare of languages; it is for the welfare of people’. His argument is similar to that of Makoni and Pedzisai Mashiri (2007) who state that [From] a ‘human linguistics’ perspective it is people and the activities that they are engaged in which should be central to a study of language so from such a perspective the primary goal of language planning in Africa would be to promote and change the political and economic status of people by enhancing the nature of communication between them. (Makoni & Mashiri, 2007: 62)

So, if a resource is meant to serve people, they automatically become the key stakeholders and must be included in the process of making decisions about the use of that resource. In the two countries discussed below, there is no evidence that the masses were considered as active stakeholders in language policy decisions. Decisions have been made at the national level and beyond; for example, the decision to include Kiswahili was a decision made by the EAC and was accepted by the leaders of the countries involved. The need to use Kiswahili did not come from the masses or the common people. The language policy of a nation must take into account the relationship between language and development. Okombo (2001: 6) cites UNESCO (1996: 78) in stating the role of education in human development in the following way: One of education’s principal functions is therefore that of fitting humanity to take control of its own development. It must enable all people without exception to take their destiny into their own hands so that they can contribute to the progress of the society. (Okombo, 2001: 6)

The emphasis is that all people must be enabled through education to take charge of their destiny or future. Okombo (2001: 6–7) notes that this discourse ‘remains quiet on the means of educating people’ and reminds us that the ‘beautiful recommendations made about development… mean

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nothing if they are not related to corresponding policy recommendations on language and communication’. Development will slow down, stagnate or decline if it is not supported by a language policy that is sensitive to the language use of a nation. A language policy is also useless if it does not accommodate the unique language settings of different regions in a country and if it is not followed by closely monitored implementation. In providing education for all, language is a key resource. If the language policy of a nation does not consider the needs of all its people, it will lead to ‘inadequate investment in people, and its consequences… [will be felt] in the areas of participation, freedom of expression, taking control, inclusion, equality, making choices, acquiring knowledge and having access to resources needed for a decent standard of living’ (Okombo, 2001: 7). The argument in the foregoing paragraph does not imply that the language policy created should completely do away with foreign languages. If they are removed, there is a possibility that the section of the population that is already able to function effectively in these languages only will be crippled. Okombo (2001: 8) suggests that a nation should ‘benefit from both internal and external resources in a healthy, synergistic pooling of all the relevant resources’. He concludes that: ‘Wisdom, it looks, lies in finding the golden mean: a non-antagonistic combination of Indigenous and non-Indigenous resources’ (Okombo, 2001: 8). Resources in this sense include language. The golden mean in terms of language policy for the Global South can be found by using both local and foreign languages that exist in a country. With reference to Kenya, Okombo (2001) observes that the challenge we have to deal with is: [how to] find such a happy balance of the resources in the area of language policy, especially for African countries that have Kenya’s sociolinguistic character: an environment in which a number of Indigenous languages are spoken by the broad masses, controlled by a small national elite that overtly operates in a non-Indigenous ex-colonial language and claims links to the broad masses through a national language in which they (the national elite) and a sizeable proportion of the masses are hardly competent. (Okombo, 2001: 8)

It is this happy balance that a Global South language policy model has to address. In the Global South, each country must check its unique language situation and then make language policy decisions that will take care of every citizen. Implementation strategies

The third important factor is implementation strategies. Makoni (2020) explains what implementation should entail, by stating that:

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Because implementation is concerned with strategies of translating ideas into action, it is an exercise in continuous experimentation and not a delivery date. It is unnecessarily simplistic to regard implementation as consisting of putting predefined ideas into action. In some cases a more robust and flexible policy may be a by-product and not a precursor of exercises in implementation. (Makoni, 2020: 110)

Implementation, therefore, requires flexibility in the language policy itself so that what is not working well may be replaced with what seems to be working better or producing the desired results. The foregoing discussions in this chapter are all worthless if proper implementation does not take place. Makoni (2020: 120) rightly says that ‘unless adequate attention is paid to issues of implementation, the preoccupation with policy issues in Applied Linguistics is unwarranted’. He is of the view that language problems cannot be eliminated by planning alone but by a detailed outline of the requirements for policy implementation and evaluation. One main reason why language policies keep changing is that proper implementation does not take place. This leads to a situation where before the value of a policy is tested through implementation, it is replaced by another. There should be a clear – yet flexible – plan of implementation and this should include monitoring and evaluation. The government needs to allocate funds specifically for these important processes. The next section provides a review of the language policies in two countries showing the language policy decisions that have been made over the years. Language Policies in Two EAC Nations

The countries of East Africa are Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda. They are all members of the EAC. The original members of the EAC were Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. These three countries were later joined by Rwanda, Burundi and South Sudan. On 8 April 2022, the Democratic Republic of the Congo joined the EAC. Currently, seven nations are members of the EAC. It is the language policies of Rwanda and Burundi that are discussed in this chapter. The official languages of the EAC are Kiswahili and English. The two countries under discussion have multilingual language policies. According to the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (2019), the term ‘nation’ means ‘a country considered as a group of people with the same language, culture and history, who live in a particular area under one government’. This description suits Burundi and Rwanda because both countries consist of a people who share a language, culture and history. The people in each of the two countries are fairly homogeneous. Those in Burundi speak Kirundi, while those in Rwanda speak Kinyarwanda.

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This section captures elements of the language policies in Burundi and Rwanda, with the aim of showing some of the changes that have been proposed in the policies. It should be noted that neither of the countries has had a stable national language policy from independence to the present day. The policies in both countries have been subjected to adjustments at one time or another. In some cases, a whole new language was introduced. The discussions not only show the struggles involved in the search for an appropriate language policy. Proposals that would help to localize a multilingual language policy in each of the two countries are made. Burundi

Currently, the three official languages in Burundi are Kirundi, French and English (Jasmine Irakoze, 2015). According to Burundi’s constitution of 2018, Kirundi is the only national language (Burundi, 2018). Burundi was colonized by the Germans before the First World War but after it, the Belgians took over. According to Ericka Albaugh (2005), at the time of independence in 1962, the languages in use were Kirundi, French and Flemish. English, as a subject, was introduced after independence and it was intended for diplomacy and international affairs (Rwantabagu, 2011). This suggests that English was taught as a foreign language. In 1973, the government decided that the language of instruction in primary schools would be Kirundi and, according to Lazare Ntawurishira (1985: 596), French was taught as a subject from Grade 3. In 1989, French became a subject from Grade  1. According to Nazam Halaoui (2003: 18–19, cited in Albaugh, 2005), Kirundi is used as the language of instruction during the first four years of primary school and then French is used thereafter. Marie-Immaculée Ndayimirije (2015: xviii) informs us that English and Kiswahili were introduced into state primary schools after Burundi joined the EAC in 2005. The teaching of English and Kiswahili was implemented in the 2005–2006 school year (Ndayimirije, 2015: 1). Therefore, two languages that were not originally part of the linguistic landscape of Burundi were introduced. Ndayimirije (2015) states that: As Burundi is a traditionally French-speaking country, its integration into EAC necessitated that the government… review[s]… the country’s language policies in order to accommodate the requirements of establishing English and Kiswahili as the official languages of the Community. (Ndayimirije, 2015: 2–3)

There has been pressure to increase proficiency in English in Burundi because of ‘the growing demands for proficiency in English in the labour

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market and in higher education, and the status of English as an international language’ (Ndayimirije, 2015: 3). As stated in the quotation above, the language needs of the EAC contributed to the revision of the language policy. Ndayimirije (2015: 3) notes that the decision to include ‘English and Kiswahili in primary school education was generally met with positive attitudes’ since some families that returned to Burundi from exile in East African countries had children who were familiar with the two languages. According to Irakoze (2015: 31), ‘the English language has been unanimously adopted by the parliament in 2014 (August) as an official language along with Kirundi and French’. Therefore, English became an official language of Burundi. In conclusion, the language in education policy in Burundi has not been stable, just as in many other African multilingual states. There have been policy shifts to accommodate foreign languages and attempts to teach foreign languages more than the local one. English and French are given prominence throughout the education system. Burundi also faces the dilemma of choosing national and official languages, despite its seemingly homogeneous nature. The language policy decisions in the Global South, as reflected in this country, are not always based on empirical research but on the desire to fit within the wider international community and perhaps also on the legacies of colonialism, which motivated the use of French. The decision to include Kiswahili might have been motivated by the need to fit within the regional language requirements of the EAC. Therefore, Burundi needs a multilingual policy because of its colonial history as well as 21st-century international and regional relations. Rwanda

The officially recognized languages in Rwanda are Kinyarwanda, French, English and Kiswahili. Kinyarwanda (also known as Ikinyarwanda) is the national language. Kinyarwanda as a national language is used as the language of wider communication in the country as it is the ‘language most widely spoken in Rwanda’ and as ‘an official language, …is used in administration, schools, and media along with French and English [while] Swahili Language is… used mostly in Rwandan urban areas and in commerce’ (https://nalrc​.indiana​.edu). Just like Burundi, Rwanda was colonized by both the Germans and the Belgians. German rule started at the end of the 19th century and continued through the First World War. During that period, ‘a collection of German, Swahili, and Kinyarwanda was used for instruction in schools by French missionaries’ (Mathisen, 2012: 22). Tove Rosendal (2010, cited in Mathisen, 2012: 74) states that ‘Swahili was the most dominant of those during that period’. During Belgian rule, the language used in schools and government was French only (Mathisen, 2012). After 1962, when Rwanda became independent, French and Kinyarwanda were used

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as the media of instruction. The Catholic missionaries used Kinyarwanda for evangelization. They taught the people of Rwanda to read in Kinyarwanda and hence it was the language of instruction used by the church (Rwandese Republic, 1998: 52). Just as in Burundi, missionaries in Rwanda preferred to use their mother language when giving instruction. School reforms were introduced in 1978–1979, one key component of which was intended to ‘reinforce the national culture and use of Kinyarwanda as a language of instruction at the primary [school] level’ (Rwandese Republic, 1998: 58). These reforms became legislative texts, for example, Law No. 14/1985, which states that: ‘the first cycle of primary [school] is dedicated to learning math, reading and writing, all in Kinyarwanda’ (Article 42, cited in Albaugh, 2005: 53). After the Rwandan genocide of 1994, there was an influx of refugees returning from anglophone countries. They returned home speaking English. Therefore, from 1994, three languages of instruction were in existence in Rwanda at primary school level. Kinyarwanda was still used during the first three years of primary school. French or English then took over in the second cycle (Rwandese Republic, 1998: vi). It must have been difficult for some schools and teachers to shift abruptly from one language to another, i.e. from French to English. One of the measures taken by Rwanda was a ‘reinforcement of the teaching of… the official languages’ (Rwandese Republic, 1998: 18). One of the targets that the education authorities defined for Rwanda to be achieved within a 10-year period was to ‘develop the teaching of the three official languages, namely Kinyarwanda, French and English’ (Rwandese Republic, 1998: 24). In October 1996, a seminar/workshop was held in Rwanda to revise and standardize primary school education curricula, taking into consideration the post-conflict situation in the country. It resolved to do the following (Rwandese Republic, 1998): In the first cycle of primary education, the curriculum, except for French and English, should be drawn up and taught in Kinyarwanda. In the second cycle, the curriculum should be taught in French and in English, except for the study of Kinyarwanda. All subjects except Kinyarwanda should be taught either in French or English as appropriate. Emphasis will be on the teaching of Kinyarwanda as a subject. (Rwandese Republic, 1998: 59)

Kinyarwanda is taught as a subject only after Grade 3 and yet it is the only Indigenous language in Rwanda. In my view, more subjects should be taught in Kinyarwanda; however, it is commendable that it is, at least, taught beyond lower primary school (like Kirundi). It should also be noted that one would expect the situation in Rwanda to be less complicated because it does not host a large number of languages. The Ethnologue reports that there are some speakers of Nyankore in Rwanda.

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The multilingualisms existing in this region need to be studied in order to make language policy decisions that are inclusive of Nyankore speakers. Nyankore speakers are found in south-west Uganda, which borders north-east Rwanda (Eberhard et al., 2022). In June 1997, the Ministry of Education and representatives of private education carried out a survey. The sample consisted of six schools located in Kigali City. The results indicated that French was still used as the language of instruction, while English was taught as a subject (Rwandese Republic, 1998). A policy of bilingualism existed at the time, especially at university level where French and English were the media of instruction. Following this policy, it was decided that at the National University of Rwanda (UNR) ‘all first-year students should devote the entire 1996/97 academic year to learning French and English, which are the languages of instruction’ (Rwandese Republic, 1998: 89). The government, having received repatriated Rwandans, considered bilingualism and trilingualism to be ‘unifying factors within a population where the use of different languages can isolate or even divide factions’ (Rwandese Republic, 1998: 95). This was a country that had previously suffered from divisions that were not language related. It is clear that Kinyarwanda was not used at university level. A three-language model for Rwanda at this stage would have been appropriate for implementation or promotion. Joseph K. Assan and Lawrence Walker (2012) state that: The… Rwandan Constitution adopted on 26 May 2003 states that ‘the national language is Kinyarwanda with the official languages being Kinyarwanda, French and English.’ Apart from the Constitution establishing trilingualism and law governing education institutions, there was no definitive language policy. (Assan & Walker, 2012: 177)

The language aspects stipulated in the Republic of Rwanda’s (2003) constitution remained the same in the revised version (Republic of Rwanda, 2003, rev. 2015). On 18 October 2008, a declaration was made in Rwanda, whereby English became the principal medium of instruction in schools. English also became the medium of communication in government administration (Assan & Walker, 2018: 39). This meant that those who could not communicate effectively in English were disempowered from any form of participation. According to the population census in Republic of Rwanda (2005), Kinyarwanda was spoken by 99.4% of the population (Assan & Walker, 2018). It is surprising that in a situation where almost the whole population speaks a language, it is abandoned in favour of another one that is only spoken well by a very small percentage. Thus, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and the International Development Center of Japan (IDCJ) noted that as ‘most of the teachers in

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Rwanda were educated in French, the current levels of English language proficiency amongst teachers are still low’ (JICA & IDCJ, 2012: 34). This quotation suggests that the switch to English is not without problems. Those who only knew French and Kinyarwanda found themselves faced with a new language. In fact, it should be noted that there is limited use of English in everyday communication and that the acquisition of English as a second language faces many challenges (Sibomana, 2014). The main reason for this is that ‘Rwanda [is] a practically monolingual community… all members share the same mother tongue: the Indigenous Kinyarwanda’ (Sibomana, 2014: 27). The emphasis here is that most Rwandans speak Kinyarwanda. JICA and IDCJ (2012) further state that: The country envisaged English as an important vehicle for international relations, trade and socioeconomic development and as a gateway to the global knowledge economy… This has provided new roles of these three languages Kinyarwanda as the bedrock of initial literacy and learning; English as the new medium of instruction; and French as an additional language. (JICA & IDCJ, 2012: 33–34)

Rwanda therefore chose to be an anglophone, rather than a francophone country. This move must have disoriented many Rwandans who had already invested time and money in learning French. Currently, the education system in Rwanda has four levels, namely pre-school and kindergarten, primary school, secondary school and higher education. Kinyarwanda, French and English are taught as subjects in all schools from Grade 1. From Grade 4 onwards, English takes over as the language of instruction for the remaining part of secondary education in state schools. French is not a compulsory subject in either primary or secondary schools. Private schools have the option of teaching in French. According to Assan and Walker (2018: 40), the ‘three languages are found throughout the education system from primary to tertiary levels’. It should also be noted that Kiswahili is spoken in Rwanda (Assan & Walker, 2018). Kenneth Simala (2019) states that: Rwanda has made Kiswahili one of its official languages and this has a bearing and impact on the development of language education in the country. The education sector is looked upon to play an important role in promoting the development and use of the language in the country. (Simala, 2019: 56)

Kiswahili became an official language of Rwanda in 2017 and is currently taught at all educational levels, including at universities in the country. This language is given prominence because it is an official language of the EAC. According to Beth Samuelson and Sarah Freedman (2010: 211): ‘Rwanda’s language policy can serve as an ongoing case study into the

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circuitous and sometimes contradictory role that the spread of English can play in postcolonial developing countries’. They go on to say that: English is… the language of the elite in Rwanda… Proficiency in English is seen as a key to economic development, business opportunities, and knowledge transfer… these new policies create communicative inequality for Francophone Rwandans. (Samuelson & Freedman, 2010: 211)

Rwanda – like Kenya, Burundi and many other African countries – has put more emphasis on the learning of global languages than its own. The part of the population that cannot function effectively in English is disempowered. In many ways, the timeline of changes connected to language reforms in Rwandan schools mirrors that of other African nations moving from colonial rule to independence to the 21st century, with an increased focus on globalization (Mathisen, 2012). The focus on globalization was already seen in the case of Burundi. Generalizations about Language Policies in Burundi and Rwanda

Ex-colonial languages, which are part of the African linguistic landscape, have dominated the education system. Assan and Walker (2018) make a very important observation: Whilst the use of English in contemporary Rwandan society presents a new dimension to the expansion of socio-economic capital, there is the need to ensure that those without command of the language do not automatically become isolated or feel disempowered. (Assan & Walker, 2018: 46)

Assan and Walker (2018) point out what happens to people in most of the nations in the Global South. The former colonial languages are international languages, which only a few people have managed to gain competence in. The former colonial languages isolate many people and hence remove their power to participate in development. English and French are also used for international communication. English is used as the medium of instruction in post-primary education in Rwanda but not in Burundi. One should also note that with the widespread use of English in East Africa, different varieties of English have emerged. Alfred Buregeya (2019) discusses one of these varieties known as Kenyan English. In the two countries, there have been attempts to revise the existing multilingual language policies. Revisions in the language policies in education are also seen in other countries in Africa, for example, in Ghana. An English-only education policy was introduced by the Ghanaian

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government in 2002 but it was revoked in 2009 with the reintroduction of 11  African languages into the school system (Deumert et  al., 2019). There is a struggle to come up with the ‘right’ language policy in each country. This is quite understandable because policy decisions are not always informed by research. There is also a lack of proper implementation. The reality in the Global South is that when only a small number of languages are used in the education system, a large proportion of the population is denied the ability to participate in their own development and that of their country. The next section proposes a manifesto for a suitable language policy model in multilingual contexts for the Global South. A Manifesto for a Language Policy Model to Localize Multilingualisms in the Global South

The manifesto proposed below consists of a number of ideas or issues that are, in my view, useful when planning a language policy for a country. They include doing research and using public awareness initiatives, spelling out the economic value of languages and ensuring that translation services are available, ensuring that the place of all languages in a nation is described in the constitution, setting up a language body or institution responsible for language-related issues in the country, using mother languages in the lower grades and beyond, encouraging all citizens to acquire literacy in all the languages they speak and appreciation for each other’s language. All languages without which people cannot function well economically, socially and politically should be included in education. It is my hope that some of the discussions in this manifesto will be picked up by policymakers immediately so that the ideas raised cease to be futuristic. Makoni (2020: 110) states that ‘Language planning is futuristic because it involves having to make decisions between competing alternatives and provides the intellectual with unique opportunities to be both prophet and academician’. He also states that language planning may be aimed at creating strategies to address existing inequalities (Makoni, 2020). The intention of this chapter is to be practical and to give suggestions that will benefit all citizens. Makoni (2020) suggests a balance needs to be created that will ensure that citizens at the grassroots are involved as well as the government at the national level. He proposed ideas likely to bring about the suggested balance. Makoni states: In reality what is required is a mixture of top-down and bottom-[up] strategies with local initiatives exerting upward-pressures on national policies and national policies imposing downward pressure so that local initiatives can reflect national policies. (Makoni, 2020: 119)

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This kind of balance may ensure that the implementation of a language policy is successful. Research and public awareness initiatives

Citizens of a nation need to be given the opportunity to participate in the making of language choices after the government has taken the responsibility for creating awareness of the importance of using the mother languages spoken in an area, and how language works in their locality and nation. The participation of citizens would equate to the bottom-up process described by Makoni (2020). The information used for awareness creation should be obtained through research conducted by applied linguists. It should be made known to citizens through policy briefs and public awareness initiatives in the media. Language choices should therefore be based on research. This research should be twofold: first, it should show that using the home language of a child in early childhood education contributes to overall learning (Heugh, 2009; Kembo-Sure & Ogechi, 2006; Lightbown & Spada, 2006; Wa Mberia, 2016) and, second, in my view, it should show the patterns of language use in different parts of a country. Nursanti et al. (2020) show the patterns of language use among university students studying English. They reveal that contexts, rather than the government law on language ‘play a more important role in forming people’s language choices’ (Nursanti et al., 2020: 231). The second category is research that shows how the members of a speech community use their language. This category of research should be performed within the speech communities of a country in order to prepare them to participate in language policy choices. If citizens are well informed about language policy issues, they will be able to react to the discrepancies that they see between policy and actual implementation. Sensitization around objective language policy issues that are based on research findings will also help members of a speech community who may have negative attitudes towards their own languages to change their stance. Makoni (2020) cites Whiteley (1974) and Treffgarne (1986) in stating that language policy decisions are essentially political. Policies that are informed by research may go beyond politics because they need to serve all citizens. Webb (2006: 64) states that for South Africa, a Pan South African Language Board (PanSALB, 2000) survey showed that ‘there is considerable data that indicates that it is the elite who “want” English, and that the majority of black South Africans prefer a situation in which their languages are given some public role’. The elite, in government offices such as the Ministry of Education, who are charged with the responsibility of language policy decisions, would be more objective if they used research to inform such decisions. If this bottom-up process or approach is followed, everyone would be involved in language policy decisions.

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Language, economic value and translation services

A Global South language policy model should clearly spell out the economic value of being multilingual and the value attached to learning specific languages. The economic value could be universal or language specific. The specific economic values attached to knowing specific languages can be discovered through research. Since it may not be possible for everyone to master all the languages in a country, translation/interpretation is a valuable profession in the Global South. A Global South language policy model has to take into consideration the need to train many professional translators and interpreters for smooth communication between different speech communities when there is the need. In a multilingual language policy, translation and interpretation are necessary components because any information that is relayed in one language needs to be translated into the other languages for maximum utility. Benson (1963: 243, cited by Deumert & Mabandla, 2018: 216) states that a ‘lack of translation into African languages often meant lack of dissemination’. Deumert and Mabandla (2018) also state that the statutes of the Transkei Bantustan, for example, were published bilingually in isiXhosa and English, thus contributing to the consolidation of a legal register (albeit under colonial conditions). Bantustans, which were meant for exclusion from the South African political system during the apartheid or racial segregation period, were the pseudo national homelands of the Black African peoples and were organized according to ethnic or linguistic groupings (https://www​.britannica​.com​ /topic​/Bantustan), for example, Transkei, Kwa Zulu and Swazi, to mention a few. When certain disciplines are reinforced in mother languages through writing, those languages acquire the necessary vocabulary related to that field. The effect is that speakers of the language are able to perform tasks in that field more competently. Language and the constitution

Multilingualism should be localized by being ingrained in the constitution. A Global South language policy should be in the constitution of a country. If it does not exist in the constitution, it should at least be in government documents or reports on language use and education. This should then be integrated into the constitution when it is written or revised next. There is also the need for a constitution that addresses regional language policy issues in order to take care of the different multilingualisms seen in each region. This type of documentation gives the language policy of a country some security. Okombo (2001: 11) rightly observes that in Tanzania ‘language planning interventions are normally geared towards reducing multilingualism at the national level’. He states that ‘national multilingualism, viewed

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and cultivated as a resource, can be of great use to both the nation and the individual’ (Okombo, 2001: 12). In fact, according to UNESCO (1995: 73): ‘Attempts at “nation building” through making all groups homogeneous are neither desirable nor feasible’. Therefore, trying to eliminate multilingualism at the national level should not be encouraged anywhere and especially in the Global South. Okombo (2001: 12) states that the ‘multilingual nature of African countries gives the majority of them no option but to pursue policies which accommodate multilingualism (or at least, bilingualism)’. However, since there have been attempts to change the language policy in both of the EAC countries discussed, there must be something that needs improvement. Institutions

Each country in the Global South needs a language body or institution responsible for language issues such as the development of orthographies. This could be done in partnership with interested non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Oduor and Rotich (2016) observe that in China the government decided to promote all the mother languages, apart from Mandarin, by developing orthographies for each of them. The language body could also have other language promotion responsibilities, including ensuring, with other relevant bodies such as the Ministry of Education and NGOs, that books are prepared, teachers are well trained, speech communities are involved in language matters and learners are taught well. A language policy for the Global South should have the support of a language body such as the PanSALB in South Africa and the East African Kiswahili Commission (EAKC, which is under the EAC). The latter is a language body that is meant to promote the use of Kiswahili within the EAC countries. It has conducted extensive research in each of the countries in the EAC, given recommendations and disseminated its findings through a publication (see Simala, 2019). Every country in the Global South should therefore have a language body to deal with language planning, policy implementation and other language issues in multilingual contexts. This body should help to localize multilingualisms in a nation for the benefit of all language users. The language body should also use research findings to inform language planning and policy decisions. This language body should work closely with the relevant government institutions (National Assembly, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Culture, etc.) to share its findings and suggest the best way forward in implementing language policy issues. In Ghana, for example, the Bureau of Ghana Languages is one of the state institutions that was charged with the responsibility of supporting local languages (Deumert et al., 2019: 55).

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Use of mother languages beyond Grade 3

All languages without which people cannot function well economically, socially and politically should be included in education. Language policy choices must take into consideration the home language of citizens in a country. In the countries discussed in this chapter, the home language functions as a medium of instruction at lower primary school for Grades 1–3. Using the home language in education is very important and necessary for countries in the Global South because the masses conduct their daily affairs in these languages. In reality, offering mother language education at lower primary school only may not be enough for nations where much of the wealth is generated using the languages of the locality. Each country should check their patterns of language use in relation to income generation and social and political activities in each region, and then promote the use of those languages beyond the first three years of learning. Multilingualism in education has always been looked at as a very expensive affair, i.e. it is costly and unaffordable. However, Webb (2006: 61) dismisses this view as being unfounded. It should also be noted that in the world today, there is a need for languages of wider communication both at the intranational and international levels. The three-language model proposed by Okombo (2001) would be ideal for some countries in the Global South but it would require modifications depending on the nature of the multilingualisms in each region. Kenya is one of the countries with a three-language model, but it has not yielded the desired results such as a better or higher standard of living for all its citizens. The weakness could be in the role given to each of the three languages. The mother language, which is spoken by the masses, has not had a well-defined role in education beyond Grade  3. At the same time, in the classrooms, some teachers use flexible multilingualism exhibited within their community. Mbaka (2010) states that in some classrooms, teachers use a mix of mother language and English/­Kiswahili when teaching. English is already in use in higher education and it is the international language of wider communication. Kiswahili, which is an Indigenous language, could be the intra-national language of wider communication, while other mother languages in the regions where they are spoken could then take the position of a sub-national community language (Okombo, 2001: 30). Each mother language should be taught as a compulsory subject throughout the education system in regions where language research has shown that there is a need. In addition, they should be used as media of instruction for some subjects to ensure that they grow and develop for use by their speakers in areas where flexible multilingualism is absent. Oduor (2015) is in agreement with Kembo-Sure and Ogechi (2006) in supporting the view that certain subjects are best conveyed in the learner’s mother language. When the mother tongue is taught as a subject and

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also used as a medium of instruction, it automatically develops. Okombo (2001) states that it is important to develop a language so that it can, in turn, help us to develop. Through the Ministry of Education, the government needs to increase the allocation of funds each year to develop languages for use in early childhood education and beyond. Multilingualism should also be localized by ensuring that all the languages of a region within a country are taught in schools in that region, so that all students acquire literacy in the languages they speak. Literacy

A Global South language policy should encourage literacy in all the languages spoken by an individual. In the case of South Africa, isiXhosa has a strong position in the Eastern Cape, as well as in the Western Cape, although it is stronger in the former. Maseko (2016, cited by Deumert & Mabandla, 2018: 217) states that there are ‘concerns about the quality of the teaching of isiXhosa as a home language, and many students who attend former Model C schools (which were White public schools under apartheid) do not have a chance to study an African language, either as home language or as additional language’. The effect of this is that learners have ‘limited exposure to the written norm of isiXhosa (or any other African language), and are often bilingual, but mono-literate’ (Deumert & Mabandla, 2018: 217). Deumert (2010: 250) reports the case of a young Xhosa-speaking woman (aged  17) who, when asked if she liked reading isiXhosa books, stated that the language was ‘nice’, but she did not know how to read it. In many areas within the Global South, there are numerous people who are still illiterate or semiliterate. A Global South language policy model should have specific ways of closing the gap between illiterate and literate people by planning and developing literacy programmes for such citizens under the guidance of a language body, and the Department of Adult Education within the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Culture. In post-apartheid South Africa, Deumert and Mabandla (2018: 216) note that ‘while English is certainly desired as a symbol of, and tool for, socioeconomic advancement, and also functions as a lingua franca, African languages have their firm place in everyday life and cultural production’ (e.g. music, TV dramas and radio). African languages surely have a key place, and therefore governments in the Global South must ensure that African languages are taught well in their regions and that all people are literate. This is one of the best ways of localizing multilingualism. Appreciation for each other’s language(s)

Appreciation for each other’s language should be part of the language policy model for the Global South. This would be achieved if there are

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equal opportunities to study any language and its dynamics in a region. All citizens would know that no language is superior to another. Developing each language without discrimination will increase their prestige. People who may not have a positive attitude towards their language or that of their neighbour may experience an attitude change if their language is written, taught and learnt not only by members of their speech community but also by members of other speech communities. Conclusion

The chapter first discussed three factors that are critical in making language policy decisions work in the Global South where multilingualism is the order of the day: multilingualism; language and national development; and implementation strategies. The main argument behind the choice of these three factors is that a language policy is needed for the welfare of the people. The emphasis is that, through education, all people must be enabled to take charge of their destiny. In this endeavour, language is a key resource. The ideal situation would be to use all languages spoken in the country, while taking into consideration the existence of fixed and flexible multilingualism. Next, the language policies of two of the countries in the EAC, namely Burundi and Rwanda, were also discussed. The two countries have multilingual language policies. The three official languages in Burundi are Kirundi, French and English. Kirundi is, additionally, the only national language. The official languages in Rwanda are Kinyarwanda, French, English and Kiswahili. Kinyarwanda is also a national language. The policies have been dealt with in a historical perspective to show revisions that have taken place. Finally, the chapter proposed a manifesto for a language policy model that would help to localize multilingualism in these two countries in the Global South. The first point in the manifesto is the need for a language policy that is arrived at through research and public awareness initiatives. There is no adequate evidence to clearly state that the citizens of the two countries participated in the making of language choices. So, it is possible that there was no bottom-up process in deciding on the language policy for each country. The second point raised in the chapter is language, economic value and translation services. A Global South language policy model should clearly spell out the economic value of being multilingual and the value attached to learning not only to speak but also to read and write specific languages as well as be able to translate information from one language to another. There is evidence that the mother language in each of the two countries is taught in early grade learning. The third point deals with language and the constitution of a country. Multilingualism should be localized by being ingrained in the constitution. There is evidence that the language policy of Rwanda exists in the constitution of each

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of the two countries. The fourth point is the establishment of a language institution. Each country in the Global South needs a language body or institution responsible for language and other related issues. It is not clear if there is a language body in each of the two countries. The fifth point is using mother languages beyond Grade 3. In the countries discussed in this chapter, the home language functions as a medium of instruction at lower primary school. The sixth point is encouraging literacy. A Global South language policy should encourage literacy in all the languages spoken by an individual. There is an attempt to ensure that there is literacy in all the languages spoken in the two countries because they are taught in school. Lastly, the discussion has shown that the policy should have a component that encourages appreciation for each other’s language. The proposed manifesto is an attempt to find a solution to the African language challenges within the African reality itself. Since the two countries still use the ex-colonial language (French) and have, additionally, introduced the two other languages of the EAC (Kiswahili and English), a multilingual language policy is the best option for each of the two countries. It is hoped that the multilingual language policies in these countries can be improved with time to upscale research, improve literacy levels in all languages, accommodate adequate training of translators and improve implementation. References Albaugh, E.A. (2005) Language Policies in African Education. Brunswick: Bowdoin College. See https://www​.bowdoin​.edu​/profiles​/faculty​/ealbaugh​/pdf​/Language​-Policies​ -Updated​_2012​.pdf (accessed 25 July 2020). Assan, J.K. and Walker, L. (2012) The political economy of contemporary education and the challenges of switching formal language to English in Rwanda. In M. Campioni and P. Noack (eds) Rwanda Fast Forward, Social, Economic, Military and Reconciliation Prospects (pp. 176–191). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Assan, J.K. and Walker, L. (2018) Enhancing citizens capability to compete globally: Rwanda’s formal language and education policy and its implications for development. Journal of Education and Human Development 7, 37–46. Benson, M. (1963) African Patriots: The Story of the African National Congress of South Africa. London: Faber & Faber. Buregeya, A. (2019) Kenyan English. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Burundi (2018) Burundi’s Constitution. See https://www​.constituteproject​.org​/c­ onstitution​ /Burundi​_2018. pdf (accessed 3 April 2022). Deumert, A. (2010) Imbodlela zamakhumsha: Reflections on standardization and destandardization. Multilingua 29, 243–264. Deumert, A. and Mabandla, N. (2018) Beyond colonial linguistics: The dialectic of ­control and resistance in the standardization of isiXhosa. In P. Lane, J. Costa and H. De Korne (eds) Standardizing Minority Languages: Competing Ideologies of Authority and Authenticity in the Global Periphery (pp. 200–221). London: Routledge. Deumert, A., Panović, I., Agyepong, D. and Barasa, D. (2019) African languages and mobile communication: Between constraint and creativity. In H.E. Wolff (ed.) The Cambridge Handbook of African Linguistics (pp. 555–574). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Oduor, J.A.N. and Rotich, X.J. (2016) The status of mother tongues in Kenya and China. The University of Nairobi Journal of Linguistics and Languages 5, 14–32. Okombo, D.O. (2001) Language policy: The forgotten parameter in African development and governance strategies. Inaugural Lecture, University of Nairobi, Kenya. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (2019) International Student’s Edition (9th edn). Oxford: Oxford University Press. PanSALB (2000) Language Use and Language Interaction in South Africa: A National Sociolinguistic Survey. Pretoria: MarkData (Pty). Pennycook, A. and Makoni, S. (2020) Innovations and Challenges in Applied Linguistics from the Global South. New York: Routledge. Republic of Rwanda (2003) The constitution of the Republic of Rwanda. See https://www. google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwj84vj 79P9AhWETOUKHT-6DPQQFnoECA0QAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ilo. org%2Fdyn%2Fnatlex%2Fdocs%2FELECTRONIC%2F64236%2F90478%2FF2386 86952%2FRWA64236.pdf&usg=AOvVaw0pyMApQ4EJQzVpS3rZs9di (accessed 7 August 2020). Republic of Rwanda (2003, rev. 2015) Constitution of 2003 with amendments through 2015. See https://www​.constituteproject​.org​/constitution​/Rwanda​_2015​.pdf​?lang​=en (accessed 7 August 2020). République du Rwanda (2005) Recensement (2002) 3ème recensement général de la ­population et de l’habitat du Rwanda le 15 août 2002. Caractéristiques socio-culturelles de la population. Analyse des résultats (Recensement de 2002. Ministère des finances et de la planification économique/Commission nationale de recensement/Service national de recensement). [Republic of Rwanda (2005) census (2002) 3rd general census of population and housing of Rwanda on August 15, 2002. Socio-cultural characteristics of the population. Analysis of Results (2002 Census. Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning/National Census Commission/National Census Service)]. Rosendal, T. (2010) Linguistic landscapes: A comparison of official and non-official language management in Rwanda and Uganda, focusing on the position of African languages. Doctoral thesis, University of Gothenburg. Rwandese Republic (1998) Study of the Education Sector in Rwanda. Kigali: Ministry of Education (Revised edition with the support of UNESCO and UNDP Ed-98fwsf33). See https://unesdoc​.unesco​.org​/ark:​/48223​/pf0000113890 (accessed 3 April 2022). Rwantabagu, H. (2011) Education in Burundi: An Evolutionary Perspective. Bujumbura: University of Burundi. Samuelson, B.L. and Freedman, S.W. (2010) Language policy, multilingual education, and power in Rwanda. Language Policy 9, 191–215. Sibomana, E. (2014) The acquisition of English as a second language in Rwanda: Challenges and promises. Rwandan Journal of Education 2, 19–30. Simala, K.I. (2019) Capacity Assessment of the Development and Use of Kiswahili in the EAC. Zanzibar: EAKC (KAKAMA). Treffgarne, C. (1986) Language policy in Francophone Africa: Scapegoat or panacea? In A. Davies (ed.) Language in Education in Africa: Proceedings of a Seminar Held in the Centre of African Studies, University of Edinburgh, 29 and 30 November 1985 (pp. 141–170). Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh, Centre of African Studies. UNESCO (1995) Our Creative Diversity: Report of the World Commission on Culture and Development. Paris: UNESCO Publishing House. UNESCO (1996) Learning: The Treasure Within – Report to UNESCO of the International Commission on Education for the Twenty-first Century. Paris: UNESCO Publishing House. Wa Mberia, K. (2016) Mother tongues as media of instruction: The case of Kenya. The University of Nairobi Journal of Linguistics and Languages 5, 46–59.

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10 Conversation with Lynn Mario Menezes De Souza

This conversation took place between Lynn Mario De Souza (University of University of São Paulo, Brazil), Ana Deumert (University of Cape Town, South Africa) and Sinfree Makoni (Pennsylvania State University, USA) in August 2021. Ana:

Lynn Mario:

Lynn Mario, as you know, this interview is for a book on southern theory, decolonization and sociolinguistics. We thought maybe we could start by asking you to reflect on your own embedding in these debates. How do they relate to your intellectual project, in the past and in the current moment? A biographical and experiential reflection on your engagement with southern theory and decolonial theory? Sure. In fact, when I started engaging with these theories nearly 15 years ago, I felt liberated because I had always noticed that my academic work has a very strong biographical slant to it. But it was something which I always felt guilty about because of our modernistic scientific inheritance of objectivity. I got into southern theory through reading Donna Haraway and her idea that knowledge is always situated. That whole idea of situated theory liberated me quite a lot; previously I was working with postcolonial theory, even before it was called postcolonial theory. I did my PhD with a research period at Sussex University, co-supervised by Homi Bhabha. What he was working on at the time was called Commonwealth Literature; it was not exactly literature, it was a kind of meta-level of reflection on literature. I always felt, not just in my own

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case, that people are very biographically oriented in their academic work. As Bakhtinian, postcolonial and decolonial thinking brings to mind, we think from our bodies located in particular contexts, with particular histories and traversed by particular discourses, so of course our thinking has a strong biographic slant. In my case, this was very clear to me because, as you may know, I was born in a British colony, it was at the time called the colony of Aden in southern Yemen. And so, I was one of the natives, literally, but at the same time, my family were doctors and bureaucrats of the colonial authority, a shoehorn to the colonial boot. As such, they were also part of the colonial elites and that gave us this very ambiguous location: in relation to the white British colonial authority, we were the natives together with everyone else; but, when they needed us, my parents and my ancestors would also grace the cocktail parties at the clubs with the colonial authorities, so at that level, in those moments, we seemed to be less like natives and nearer to the white colonial authorities than the rest of the native population. When we were growing up, my father was very critically conscious of this and would always tell us that we did this in order to function in this society, but we should not ever believe that we are one of them. So, we had this double consciousness: we were the natives, and we were not the natives; but we were never the white British. This was apparently very confusing, but we learned to see ourselves as one thing in one position and another in another position. This also happened at a linguistic level: my father’s first language was Portuguese and my mother’s was English. And the local language was Arabic. When my parents met, they used school French, it was the language that they had in common, and my grandparents would speak Konkani, an Indian language, as well. We had all of these languages circulating, and there was never any stage where someone told us to speak this language and not that. Language didn’t have a name. We were quite conscious that you spoke in a certain way depending on a certain context. We had no notion of languages as plural

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or named objects, no multilingual awareness: after all, with any single person in any given situation, we only spoke one language; we were monolingual! That ironic mono-linguistic consciousness or awareness was also an ideological awareness. When you are rubbing shoulders with the white English in their clubs you behave like them, when you are with the others, who are the natives, you behave like them, we had this very contextual awareness and ambiguity: you are always one, but never the same, consistent one. The first linguistic, identitarian trauma I had was when we were sent to boarding school in England when I was 11, and it was a private boarding school; this was in the 60s. Most of the people in the boarding school were white and English and their parents had coffee farms in Kenya or rubber plantations in Malaya at the time. They were accustomed to seeing people like me as their servants. The first day that we got to the boarding school, my brother and myself were grabbed in the playground and were told ‘to speak our language’. At 11, I had no idea what they meant, we’re speaking English like they do, what do they mean by ‘speak your language’? It slowly dawned on us what they were trying to do, they were trying to mark our difference; racially we were the only nonwhites in the school. We began to recite to each other names of dishes, curries, etcetera, with nonEnglish names, it sounded weird but to the English boys who desperately wanted to make sure we were different, this was convincing; as they wished, it marked our difference. After this experience I realized traumatically that speaking a language meant marking who you were; though you always spoke one language at a time (and that to me meant I only spoke ONE language), and the language varied according to who you spoke to, and in which context, for people who weren’t familiar with this, we spoke many languages and this confused them and even may have represented a threat to them. That was the reason why I chose to do linguistics when I went to university. I went to university in Reading. At the time, it was the only university that offered a

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linguistics course at the undergraduate level. I was very disappointed in my first year at Reading, as it became clear that they were not interested in me because of my multilingual background; they were interested in me as they saw me as what they called a ‘language informant’; they weren’t interested in the problem that languages represented to me. I didn’t know which was ‘my’ language; until today, I still don’t. At Reading they wanted me to be a language informant of language X or Y or Z, and I found that very irritating and disappointing and frustrating, because that didn’t reflect my experience of language. They kept saying, oh, this is Lynn Mario, he speaks X number of languages; that’s not what I felt. I knew that they were languages; I could say things in Konkani, the language of my grandparents, but I couldn’t pray in that language, I couldn’t read or write in that language. I didn’t feel that I could be a language informant. I was quite aware of this complexity of language. I think the concept of a mother tongue is overrated and very problematic. To me it’s an agglomerate of different abilities in different languages; I wouldn’t say it’s a question of ‘repertoires’ in different languages, as that implies the existence of named and bounded languages and worse still, fragmentation. It’s not even a question of ‘interconnected’ multilingual repertoires, because the very word ‘interconnected’ implies separable bounded entities. The Latin American thinker, María Lugones (2007), would say that rather than interconnections, we should speak of ‘enmeshing’ or ‘coalitions’. Perhaps we should change our perspective when we speak of multilingualism; we should stop adopting the perspective starting from abstract, named, bounded languages, and exchange this for the always situated perspective of the language user. I always felt I had a ‘multiple mother tongue’, always in the singular, but always a composite of enmeshed resources. I did two things in my PhD: I looked into what came to be called postcolonial theory which at the time came under ‘commonwealth literature’; and I looked at normativity, at situatedness and the locus of enunciation. Reading Edward Said, Gayatri

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Sinfree: Lynn Mario:

Spivak and Homi Bhabha, I came to be involved in discussions and concepts of what language has got to do with being and how it’s connected to epistemologies and knowledges and loci of enunciation. That, for me, was very liberating. That’s the origin of my interest in what is now southern theory or decolonial theory. At the time of postcolonial theory, they called it displacement. It’s not, I don’t feel displaced. And I feel other people are displaced when they think they have only one place. Again, displacement is a term that comes from the perspective of those who have only ever experienced one language and one culture – and I would even question if this were possible, considering language and culture as always incomplete and unbounded. The problematic of the onto epistemological issues that decolonial theory talks about are very dear to me, they speak to me at a biographical level. I can’t separate who I am, my history, from what I know and what I do. Could I expand on the question of your intellectual trajectory? Where does your interest in Indigenous literacies fit in? Yeah, okay, that comes in with the fact that I was very conscious that I spoke English, but that the way I spoke English was not considered to be English in England. This provoked me to vengeance. I would get top marks in English as a subject just to prove that what I did was English. That concept of language, as abstract and bounded, even though it was supposedly a monolingual issue, for me it wasn’t. And here is the irony: monolingualism never existed, from my perspective, as it does for monolinguals. As I said before, though monolinguals may consider me to be multilingual, I consider myself to be monolingual. In what seems to them like ‘several languages’. This happened in literature as well. At university, I would read Achebe and Soyinka, not so much the Indian writers. The Indian writers who wrote in English in what they call ‘Indo-Anglian literature’, for me, were traitors because they wanted to be more English in their writing than Indian. What bothered me in this version of Indian literature in English is that the English that they write is very

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much 1930s and 1940s English. They tried to be extremely canonical or what they perceived to be canonical. It was through literature that I began to notice that there were pieces of literature that exist, but don’t form part of the canon. I would read Kipling, and Kipling was not considered as canonical as E.M. Forster. And Forster, himself, was only considered canonical in some of the things that he wrote. I would read Achebe, even Tutuola – who wrote the Palm Wine Drinkard – that to me was fascinating, because the whole issue of the English these writers used, made it clear to me what was going on there: a question of normativity, it brought my attention to normativity, canonicity and situatedness, and I made connections with Indo-Anglian literature and the literature written on India by Kipling and Forster. It brought to my mind the importance of locus of enunciation. These issues, which are very important to me, are now thought through in southern theory and decolonial theory. But I still don’t think we have a final answer. In relation to my interest in Indigenous literacies in Brazil in the 90s, it also stems from these issues. I was involved with an Indigenous community (the Kashinawa or Huni Kuin as they now prefer) in the western Amazon; they have a culture of visions and shamanic journeys brought on by a ritual drink – ayahuasca. At the time they were being made literate in their own language and in Portuguese. In the process of learning to write, however, they produced a huge amount of what seemed to be doodles or meaningless child-like drawings before they wrote the written tasks given to them. These drawings did not seem to have anything to do with their written tasks. Observing these drawings, however, as a field linguist who was taught to look for regularities in unknown languages as a starting point for their description, I began to identify regularities in the drawings – geometrical images on the one hand, figurative images on the other, with few dispersed written words. Each of these images occupied regular locations on the page: the geometric patterns, for example, occurred in the margins and the figurative images in the center, and the written words appeared as titles or subtitles for images. Speaking

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to the adult learners that produced these images, I came to see them as meaningful and always connected to the themes of the written tasks they were asked to do. They even used the same word – kene in their language (Huni Kuin), to refer, both to their drawings and to the written tasks we asked them to do. To cut a long story short, the drawings were certainly not doodles. They responded to the themes the learners were asked to write about. Connecting this to their culture of shamanic vision, which teaches that knowledge is received through vision and not voice, I perceived that they were following our own teaching to them that literacy was important as it helped one to register knowledge on paper. That is exactly what they were doing. As for them, knowledge was always received as images in a vision, when we asked them, in written tasks, to write about certain themes, they did the task following their own cultural dictates. As for them, knowledge was initially visual, they registered this knowledge on paper visually. This was how important the concept of situated knowledge and locus of enunciation are, and how our ignorance of this can blind us in the classroom. That classroom was actually an epistemological encounter between, on the one hand, us, non-Indigenous teachers, with our grapho-centric and logo-centric beliefs that writing (and written knowledge) came from alphabetic representations of voice and, on the other hand, our Indigenous learners with their beliefs that knowledge came from vision. Thus, from their perspective, as the alphabet cannot represent vision, alphabetic text seemed to function as subtitles to the more important visual texts. We, the teachers, could not see the connection between the visual texts and the alphabetic texts. We couldn’t even see the drawings as texts. We just couldn’t see how ‘writing’ meant different things epistemologically and not just semantically. This was a question of language in its broadest sense: language beyond the verbal. It was also a question of politics and ethics; in Brazil, Indigenous cultures and languages are thoroughly dominated and marginalized and undervalued; they are never treated as equal.

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Sinfree:

Lynn Mario:

That’s true. My first thinking that there was something wrong with language was at high school. I could never pass the test that was set in chiShona, I could do well in English, but I never passed chiShona. I was always trying to make sense of why is this thing that is supposed to be my own so difficult to write in, or to follow. Until I gradually ended up thinking that perhaps it’s just not there. I could make sense of everything around me but, when it came to my so called ‘language system’, it just wasn’t adding up right. I spent a bit of time encouraging myself to pursue that line of explanation; that is, why talking about language acquisition was political. But of course, with the pressure to complete the PhD, I lapsed into psycholinguistics, and I did a couple of experiments in my PhD. My gut feeling was that it was all political, but I didn’t have the language to explain the politics at that point in time. I didn’t have that sensation that it was political at the time. But I knew it was connected to power because of my colonial childhood – ‘don’t argue, just do as they say’ in one context, and ‘don’t do as they say’ in another. Power became traumatic to me with my experience of growing up in England as a child, both inside and outside of the boarding school, with racism. In the 60s in England, there were only two categories: white or Black, and we were always Black. I grew up with the teachings of my father. My father was a doctor in Yemen, he secretly supported the anti-British movement, the rebel movement. But at the same time, he worked for the British government. One of the things he said to us when he sent us to England in the early 60s was ‘these people rule the world, you have to learn how they think so that you don’t do what they do’. That was very important to me growing up in England, so whenever I encountered racism, I would react because, though I knew it came from their sense of superiority, that was not something that I was going to accept or do myself. This probably has something to do with my social background, coming from a relatively elite background where we are

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Sinfree:

not accustomed to being trodded upon; perhaps trodded upon only metaphorically, by the colonial system, but not materially. I would always react against racism in England; I had the experience of going into shops as a child to buy sweets and the shop owner would say we don’t serve Blacks. In England in the 60s, it felt like there were no laws against racism. And even as a child, I would fight back; I would argue, that’s when I began to realize that I would always be the troublemaker. Always. I would get told off: ‘You have a chip on your shoulder! Stop victimizing yourself’. I would hear ‘racism is only there when you see it, racism is in your eyes, it doesn’t exist, look at us; we treat you all alike’. And that’s when I began to realize that it’s a question of power. Nowadays, I would see it as a conflict of locus of enunciation, traversed by power. They wanted me to see when they couldn’t see. As a child, I made my decision: I may have British nationality, a British education, but as soon as I graduated from university, I could not live in that country. And I didn’t. I left when I was 21 and I never went back to live there. It became clear to me that whenever you encounter racism, you are expected to suffocate your reaction; I could never do that, and so as I said, I always got into trouble. Actually, for me, politics was always about trouble. It wasn’t an abstract philosophical thing; it was about ‘troubling’ the status quo that I saw as troubling. It was about physically reacting, or discursively reacting, to being victimized and running the risk of being victimized again in return; so that’s my first experience of politics. It’s only when I began to reflect on this later at the age of 20 or 21, that I began to see the political dimension of this. Power was so incredibly life-threatening, embodied and discursively embedded, and you were expected to suffocate and deny your suffering. When I went to the UK, I was about 18 or 19. At that time Zimbabwe was not independent. The argument that I’ve been told to make was that since the UK was responsible for Rhodesia, we were to some extent coming back home, so they just

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Lynn Mario:

had to accept us. They couldn’t reject my passport. I got in and made my case, and these guys said I had no right to stay there, they argued that they didn’t recognize the passport I was carrying and all that. After a long drawn out process, they allowed me to go find my aunt. But that was not the crisis; the crisis came when I got a scholarship to go to West Africa, and now I wanted to leave the country. I wanted to leave the UK because I didn’t want to study there. They said, but you can’t go out of this country because your passport is not valid, so I said to them, when I was coming in you didn’t want me, now I don’t want to stay here, I just want to get the hell out of this place. Eventually, they gave me a British passport that said, this person has no permission and automatic right to live in the UK, and the passport was only valid for a week. When I got to Liberia I had two passports, one valid for a week, and the other was a Rhodesian passport. The immigration officer allowed me into Liberia. So, every time I read the literature about mobility and migration, the only thing that comes to my mind is that traumatic experience of having to negotiate these different boundaries, where I had to convince the institution that I’m one of you, but when I wanted to leave, they say you can’t go anywhere, you just have to stay here. You didn’t want me anywhere at the first place, why are you keeping me here now? They eventually said the only way out is to give you a passport that says, if you go out now, you can’t come back. And I said, I’ll take the risk, I have my scholarship. They were not willing to give us scholarships because Zimbabwe’s independence was being negotiated at that time with the British. You had to put together your life path between these different institutions. That’s the sensation of what I call suffocation or negation, one of the things of growing up in racist colonial Britain which I very clearly felt: if you want to be accepted, you have to deny all the other languages you speak, you have to be a monolingual Brit. I had forgotten about this until I began to read about super-diversity at the end of the 90s. And I thought, what the hell! They have recently

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discovered the diversity! And then I began to think, maybe they hadn’t seen it before from a white perspective or locus because it was suffocated; they themselves had pushed it underground, and now, at the height of neo-liberalism and its quest for the marketability of difference, they are discovering not just diversity, but super-diversity! Just an example: the largest district of Indian and Pakistani immigrants in London at the time was Southall in West London. So, whenever I wanted to buy spices to make my curries, that’s where I went. When you went to Southall and physically looked like me, they wouldn’t attend to you in the shops if you didn’t speak Hindi or Urdu or Punjabi, but they would use English to attend to any white person. The monolingual politics of language, identity and place were at work there, different to what would have happened if you were in India or Pakistan, where, as the Indian sociolinguist Lachman Khubchandani said, the focus would be on interlocution and getting done the task at hand. At that time, in Southall, I could understand Hindi or Urdu, but I could never speak them. But my trips there helped me to learn them because I had to be able to use them and not just understand them to be served. As you know, at the everyday, informal level, the difference between Hindi and Urdu is minimally lexical; it is the effects of the use of certain lexical items that are political or ideological. Having being born in a Muslim country and speaking Arabic, it was not difficult for me to swap words in Hindi with Arabic words and make it sound like I spoke Urdu. Whereas in everyday Hindi, the English ‘thank you’ is acceptable, in Urdu I would switch to the Arabic equivalent shukran, rather than the more usual Urdu, shukria. I would also, for effect, drop into my ersatz Urdu common Arabic religious expressions like bismillah and inshallah for immediate effect. And this had the curious effect of raising my Urdu from informal to more formal. Beyond taking into account situatedness and locus of enunciation, this is an example of what Lachman Khubchandani described as the ‘plurilinguistic ethos’ that is at work in the Indian subcontinent, an ethos that takes the form of what

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he calls ‘serendipity’ and ‘synergy’. Remembering that, he said that in plurilingual transactions interlocutors focus primarily on interaction and attaining the task in hand. Synergy involves taking an active interest in making the contact/interaction successful; serendipity, on the other hand, refers to being open to the unexpected, or accepting the interlocutor on his own terms. So, I was successful with both Hindi and Urdu in those circumstances, but in no other circumstance would I ever say that I spoke Hindi or Urdu. And that was in the 60s, the 70s. And it wasn’t just Hindi or Urdu; they were the general languages in Southall, but there was also Punjabi, Bengali and all these other languages of the subcontinent. So, I was surprised, I remember precisely, I don’t know if you were there Sinfree, at the conference organized by Mastin Prinsloo and Christopher Stroud in Cape Town in the early 2000s. A British colleague was speaking about his research on super-diversity and presented data of, I believe, a Punjabi-speaking family in London switching languages. But this wasn’t new to me, it was ancient. He was presenting this within the recently ‘discovered’ mode of super-diversity. My memories of the racism in the UK that obliged one to suppress languages came back to me quite strongly. As I said, before this issue of neo-liberal super-diversity, if you were white, you didn’t see the diversity; moreover, by demanding assimilation, you indirectly suffocated the linguistic diversity. And now, in the early 2000s, when they speak in terms of globalization and global mobility, suddenly the diversity doesn’t only become apparent, but also becomes super-diversity. A few decades before, when the paradigm was postcoloniality, should we assume that people from the colonies went to Britain and became monolingual in English? To me this is a monolingual presupposition that sees plurality in terms of convergence: different forms of ‘the same language’ are assumed to naturally converge into ‘one’ language, and different languages co-existing in the same space are assumed to assimilate to the dominant language. And, when they don’t, causing trouble for peaceful communication, it’s because apparently the

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Ana:

Lynn Mario:

Ana: Lynn Mario:

(singular) mother tongues of these speakers come in the way of the presumably desired assimilation. I want to come back to what you said about English, and Indian writers and English. Many of us are publishing our scholarship in English, and yet we are drawing on multilingual histories and experiences, we are drawing on Indigenous scholarship, where language is connected to epistemologies and knowledges. Engaging in southern theory and decolonial theory, as you said, is a political project, but by publishing in English we come complicit with the neo-liberal knowledge factory. And because decolonial and southern theory is published in English, it can be appropriated by the Global North; can become an intellectual commodity that is increasingly consumed and circulated by international elites. How do we reconnect as scholars, writing in English for an international audience, to Indigenous communities, to those who are at the vanguard of decolonial thinking? I’m asking for advice here, because I think we are in an intellectually exciting space, but politically we are in a dangerous place where our ideas can be co-opted. Certainly! I think decoloniality has become a commodity and an object of consumption. If you want to be in vogue academically, you have to work with decoloniality, which to me becomes a joke. By the way, I’m not sure if a non-neo-liberal university exists today. Research funding is profit-driven. The humanities in many universities, especially in our case, in Brazil, are tolerated as long as their counterparts in the sciences, seen as more profitable, can capture the resources that the universities need to ‘accommodate’ the ‘wasteful’ humanities. And thus we risk becoming complicit with the neo-liberal project. The question of complicity is a troubling one. Exactly, let me begin with complicity, I think what decolonial theory brought to the table was complicity. Postcolonial theory, in its praise for the hybrid, never brought complicity to the table. Postcolonial theory always assumed we were already postcolonial because we had access to both the pre-colonial culture and the colonial culture, and both had been mutually affected by each other. On the other hand, decolonial

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theory invites you to be ­decolonial, ­especially in the case of Latin America, by de-­universalizing ­colonial knowledges, and by ­recognizing that the universalization of ­colonial knowledges was achieved by separating the ­enunciated from the enouncer and the context of enunciation. In other words, ­colonial cultures ­concealed the ­situatedness – within Eurocentric ­contexts – of the producers of their knowledges, and thus generated the illusion that they were ­universal. The fact that our ­universities treat ‘­science’, ‘scientific ­methodology’ or ‘­scientific rigour’ as ­universal, and that we uncritically regurgitate ­academic Eurocentric theories as if they were universal, to the detriment of non-Eurocentric ­knowledges, ­theories and ­methodologies – seen as local, and of limited value – is evidence of our complicity in the legacy of colonization. Another aspect of this ­complicity is when our ­universities claim to be open to Indigenous knowledges but expect them to fit into the Eurocentric straitjackets of science, rigour and scientific methodology. We see this as being largely decolonial – after all, now we are open to previously excluded knowledges. However, our complicity in colonial paradigms and yardsticks of what constitutes knowledge persists. I mentioned my work with Indigenous literacies. That work showed me how I had been complicit with colonial assumptions of literacy and written culture and how this could have blinded me to appreciating a culture and epistemology that was radically different. Again, in terms of complicity with colonial paradigms in decolonial times, as we speak (in 2021), our Parliament in Brazil is discussing a law that will remove land rights from the Indigenous people if they can’t prove that they had land rights before 1988. If they can’t legally ‘prove’, according to our Eurocentric, literate culture, and our norms of legality, their ownership of the lands they have occupied since before colonization, they’re going to lose their rights to land. And this means that the large corporations in Amazonia who are interested in the minerals and the wood and the water on Indigenous lands will be able to go in with the help of the government, legally. This is what

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unperceived complicity with epistemologies inherited form colonization does: it makes destitute, it kills. This means that massacres will take place and human lives will be lost because of the way these corporations work, they call it ‘clearing the land’. For the Latin American decolonial thinker, Enrique Dussel, if one does not adopt an ethical stance of complicity and solidarity with the victims of injustice and inequality, one is necessarily complicit with the status quo. Decolonial thinkers call attention to the fact that the difference in the colonization of Latin America, Asia and Africa is that most of the populations in Latin America are descendants of the colonizers. Latin America doesn’t like to see itself as a settler-colonial region, but it is. Brazil has various layers of being settler colonized, originally by the Portuguese. And since the end of the 19th century when industrialization began in Brazil, after the end of slavery in the late 1880s, there was another influx of European settlers. The influx was of Germans, Italians, Spanish and other Europeans who were not connected with the original colonial design of the Portuguese. We’re very clearly a settler colony, and when we don’t accept this idea in Brazil, because we claim that the Indigenous population is less than 2% of the total, we are being complicit with colonization and blind to how colonization exterminated the Indigenous peoples in the colonial project of ‘clearing the land’ to make way for ‘civilization’. In Brazil, this complicity with colonization has another aspect: at the same time as we say that the Indigenous peoples are less than 2% of the population, we prefer not to mention that our Black population is 56% of the population. Though our Black population is underrepresented in universities and in our professions, it is over-represented in our prisons and among victims of police violence. Our silence makes us complicit with our hegemonic epistemological and racialized logics inherited from colonization. So, when in Brazil we speak of the colonizing north, as if it’s there at a geographic distance, it has always bothered me. Whatever we blame the colonizing north for – meaning the USA – we are replicating in relation to our Black and Indigenous communities.

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Not just that. São Paulo does this in relation to the rest of the country. São Paulo is a very important national colonizing hub, emanating coloniality to the rest of the country. Brazil’s Indigenous and Black populations are still suffering from coloniality, it has never stopped. We embark on the bandwagon of decoloniality but remain silently complicit with continuing, ever-present coloniality. A bit like singing the praises of super-diversity but silently demanding monolingual assimilation. In relation to the plight of our invisibilized Black majority in Brazil, one has to remember that the abolition of slavery in Brazil in 1888 was a farce. It was sought for, among others, also by the plantation owners because slavery became consistently less profitable. There was never any compensation to the previously enslaved, there was never any discussion of what the situation looked like from the locus of enunciation of the enslaved. The vision that predominated was that of the plantation owners; always top-down discussions and decisions. And it continues till today. This means that there has been no interruption of the colonial paradigm in Brazil. The hatred of the poor, which we currently see in the currently hegemonic extreme right orientation of our present government, is simply the continuation of and complicity with coloniality in relation to the Black population, because the poor, in the majority, are also Black. The hate of the poor, which is understood as being a conservative capitalist issue, is in fact, a colonial racial hangover. And this, unfortunately applies to language as well, in Brazil. The huge influx of enslaved Africans – spread over 200 years in Brazil and later supplemented by Brazilian-born Africans – is rarely taken into account in considerations of Brazilian Portuguese. These enslaved Africans learned Portuguese under very precarious conditions because, as you know, they were forcibly separated from their original African languages. They were not allowed access to formal education, and learned Portuguese informally, and used it daily. For centuries, this population outnumbered the settler colonizers and the Indigenous population and formed the vast majority of the population of Brazil.

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Ana:

Numerically speaking, it was their Portuguese, with their African heritage and their experience of forcibly learning it informally, that influenced and represent the origins of Brazilian Portuguese. This is the Portuguese which today is our informal Brazilian spoken Portuguese. Our formal, written Portuguese, with minor differences, recognizably comes from Europe and has been consistently enforced through the school system; but Brazilian spoken Portuguese, which shocks traditional grammarians by the consistent lack of agreement in person and number, can still be traced to the Portuguese learned informally by the enslaved Africans. This, however, is tragically denied in our linguistics of Brazilian Portuguese in Brazil. Only a very small group of linguists persist in making the connection. Besides being evidence of complicity with colonization (our language is officially seen to have uniquely European roots), I see a very strong racist connection there. Linguists from the prestigious universities will say no, the characteristics of Brazilian-spoken Portuguese can be traced back to the historical-spoken Portuguese of Iberia and insist that there’s no African presence in present-day Brazilian-spoken Portuguese. Of course, they do this by using linguistic, historical and etymological arguments, ignoring totally the social history of Brazil and the significant fact that, for centuries, enslaved Africans constituted the overwhelming majority of the population of Brazil. Another significant fact is that this population was mobile: slaves were bought and re-sold all over Brazil. Many escaped and formed quilombos (communities of previously enslaved Africans with only Portuguese as a common language but with memories of African cultures and cosmologies), and freed slaves sought jobs in a nomadic fashion all over the country, as they had little or no access to property markets. So, what we have in our predominant linguistic theories of Brazilian Portuguese is a mix of complicity with coloniality; it’s part of the whole paradigm of coloniality which is still predominant in Brazil. I’m glad you brought in settler colonialism because I think it links to this idea of the settler-colonial

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Lynn Mario:

Sinfree: Ana:

Lynn Mario:

mindset. What you’re saying about Brazilian Portuguese is exactly the same in South Africa with Afrikaans, which had to be the ‘white man’s tongue’ and any other influence had to be denied. I would say it’s the same in the US, another settler colony where anything which came from enslaved peoples had to be denied. It’s in the end, the settler-colonial mindset of the empty land, nothing can interfere with that vision that the land was empty, and settlers were free to take it. The ‘elimination of the native’ – to cite Patrick Wolfe – is at the heart of these different ideological moves. What you’re saying is that this idea of denying and being denied, what I referred to previously as suffocation and negation, is central to coloniality. Now, when we talk about southern theory or decolonial theory, these issues should be brought to the table and discussed. But I still think there is a problem here, we have to be careful. Here I come back to super-diversity, which I connected to neo-liberalism. We could look at our multilingualism through the lens of post-modernity and diversity and plurality, and all of those issues that are celebrating choice and the plural, and we see plurality as consisting of separable, independent elements. If we do this, we lose the importance of the enmeshing, the locus of enunciation of the victim of the status quo, and the suffering involved. The inequality, the power, the politics involved become totally different. Yes, indeed, there is a tendency to romanticize the plurality and to understate the suffering that emerges from that plurality. It often seems to me that decolonial theory has a stronger political orientation than postcolonial theory, and a closer alignment to anti-capitalist thinking as well; that is, a stronger recognition of the suffering that has resulted from colonialism-capitalism. I think the post-colonial, like the postmodern, was a phase and a perspective. It was a time when independent post colonies were beginning to mature in the 70s and the 80s, and it was about culture and representation and hybridity as the interconnection of separable elements. Coming from Edward Said’s Orientalism was the belief that ‘we

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Ana:

Lynn Mario: Sinfree:

refuse to continue with your representations of us, we have more authentic representations of ourselves, even if we bring in the hybridity, we can’t go back to who we once were, and we can’t deny your presence here, even though you have left your marks on us, we are not who you think we are’. But it was still primarily at the level of culture, not the level of suffering. And it was often celebratory. Look at what we also can do, how we also can write. You mentioned a critique of capitalism, even the Indians in the post-colonial subaltern theory group that was criticizing capitalism, they were still using Eurocentric theories, and believing in universal knowledges. That’s the space where the critique from decoloniality comes in. All that emerged from the subaltern studies group was very much Eurocentric. Like post-modernity, it was making criticisms of capitalism and colonialism from the point of view of the north. It didn’t take into account situatedness, it didn’t take into account contextuality or complicity or even nonwestern knowledges. It was simply doing another euro-­centric-cum-universalist Marxist reading of ­capitalism and colonization. A classical Marxist reading – this is very different from Cedric Robinson’s Black Marxism. Earlier I was intrigued that you said you were inspired by Donna Haraway because that brings another current of thought to the discussion: radical feminism. For me, it is interesting to reflect on how these different currents link: southern theory, colonial theory, Black studies, Indigenous studies, queer studies and feminist studies, and so forth. And Donna Haraway is not just a feminist, she’s also in the eco-movements, and the other-thanhuman movements. I want to take you back to the discussion of complicity. But I want to frame it slightly differently. It’s possible that the Global North scholarship is not as powerful as it looks, and it’s also possible that it is afraid. That it is generally frightened of some of these developments. The current interest in decoloniality even in the north is the instinctive reaction stemming from fear, they don’t know what to do with the changes that are occurring.

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Lynn Mario:

Sinfree: Lynn Mario:

Because in my discussions with some of them, you can really see that they are completely at a loss of why this thing is happening, but if you tell them that this has always been like that, they gradually begin to realize that decoloniality is not something that will disappear any time soon. Let me give you a very practical example, the three of us are talking about a book now, but we are also involved in different ways in another book in which Ana wrote the afterword, and Lynn you’re writing the preface. It’s like moving players. What’s fascinating about this is that we’re all engaged in all these different projects which are slightly different, but they overlap. For example, the interview between Jane Gordon and her mother, Jean Comaroff in Handbook of Language in the Global South/s (2022) to which you, Lynn and Ana, have contributed, it’s fascinating to read about issues of global Blackness and the contributions of enslaved Africans to the economic development of the United States. I’m optimistic that this thing will last longer, and I don’t think the north is intellectually robust. The north is economically powerful, but I don’t think it is as intellectually robust as it may look from another perspective. Why am I saying this? For example, if you listen to a keynote address Diana Larsen Freeman gave recently, she was citing a lot of stuff about decoloniality in passing. To some extent, given the trajectory of her career, it’s quite fascinating to listen to. Sinfree, I’m smiling here because one of the things in writing the preface, it’s got to do with fright. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the work of the Belgian philosopher/anthropologist Isabelle Stengers? No, not yet. She began in a similar vein to Bruno Latour. She is from a scientific background, and she’s got several books on trying to understand the philosophy of science and how can science deal with the possibility of interpretation or the lack of objectivity; she problematizes objectivity in all her work. One of her works is called ‘cosmopolitics’. She has this interesting proposal where she says, the only thing we can do when we talk about the conflict of

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interpretations is to understand that we’re dealing with cosmo-politics, where the cosmos is a nonphysical, epistemological space in which various interpretations of the universe collide. We each have our interpretation which we believe is complete, uniquely true and offers a singular vision of the pure absolute truth. Our interpretation, however, collides with that of others who also believe, though very differently, in the completeness, uniqueness and substance of their version of the truth. The collision occurs within this epistemological non-space which she calls the cosmos. She creates the term cosmos to conceive of these various fundamentalist visions coming together and vying for existence and singularity. Isabelle Stengers says that this coming together is not a question of relativism because relativism implies a certain degree of essentialism; relativism says that we all see the same thing from different perspectives. This presupposes that there IS a ‘same thing’ we can all see. But there is no same thing. If we all see the same thing from different perspectives, who unequivocally sees that thing which we all call the same thing? The only one who can say that we all see the same thing is whoever puts himself hegemonically in a position superior to all of the other interpretations of that thing. Isabelle Stengers then says it’s not a question of relativism, where we all have different visions of the ‘same thing’, it’s a question of relationalism. In other words, what we see is always connected to what someone else is seeing, we don’t live in a disconnected world, we live in a world that relates, in which each participant borrows elements from and loans elements to others. Here, where relations are important and entanglements and enmeshings occur. Now, what is important in cosmopolitics, according to Isabelle Stengers, is that when we are brought together in this non-space of the ‘cosmos’, where our certainties collide with each other, what we experience is fright, we are frightened into believing that we may not be the only ones who have the truth. We are frightened by our belief that ours is the only, substantial truth. The political and ethical

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aspect of this cosmopolitics that she proposes is the fright. When we are colliding within the same space, it’s a question of a conflict of whose view is the real true view. We are frightened into the perception that we may not be right, or there may be no right view, and the ethico political issue comes to the fore: if none of our truths are the only, absolute truths, and it is this certainty that makes us who we are, how can we live together in the space of this cosmos, colliding with, disagreeing and not understanding each other, being reminded that there are other truths that conflict with ours? How can we do this and still not threaten the existence of each other? This moves in a new direction to what we see in the convergence that assimilation proposes – the many become one (monolinguals, the mother tongue and native speakers become hegemonic). It is also not the idea of the happy co-existence and freedom of choice of different elements that we see in concepts of super-diversity and hybridity, because here the discomfort of doubt and the fear of the loss of certainty prevail. The cosmopolitical ethic involves seeing elements as enmeshed and incomplete and emphasizes the ethic of conviviality. This means that if the certainties of one in the cosmos threaten the livelihood of another in the same cosmos, those certainties have to be addressed and re-thought. The logic is similar to that proposed by the Brazilian thinker Eduardo Viveiros de Castro who discussed the importance of what he called ‘controlled equivocation’ in transcultural contact. He sees this contact of different cultures as involving an ongoing process of translation. However, rather than being a translation that seeks convergence among differing elements, it is a translation that calls to mind the difference that separates and makes difficult the contact between the elements. The logic is that, after all, if convergence abounded, there would be no need for translation. So, it’s the task of translation to emphasize, and not overcome, the unsurmountable differences between elements in contact, and progressively address and work these differences, thus controlling the equivocation that

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Sinfree:

undeniably exists. Like Isabelle Stengers’ cosmopolitical ethic, it involves ‘understanding that one doesn’t understand’, and working out the ethical implications of co-existence from this point. It also approximates to what Lachman Khubchandani called the ‘plurilingual ethos’ of serendipity and synergy. The Afro-Brazilian quilombo thinker, Antonio Bispo de Santos, speaks of something similar when he says that the dominant white, colonial community constantly attempts to ‘in-fluence’ the language and thinking of his community. For him ‘in-­fluence’ means attempting to hegemonically replace his community’s values with their dominant values. He compares this with what he calls ‘con-fluence’, which is what occurs when various tributaries come together to form a single river; here there is no replacement but change. He also compares ‘influence’ and ‘con-fluence’ with what he calls ‘transfluence’; here he seeks to explain the planetary connection between a Brazilian river and an African river and does this through the role of enmeshed natural planetary processes such as rivers flowing into oceans, evaporation, cloud formation, winds, condensation and rainfall. Through trans-fluence, apparently differing, disconnected and separate elements co-exist to each other’s benefit. In terms of language, in-fluence represents the constant threat of monolingualism. I suggest that the difference between con-fluence and trans-fluence, in terms of language, would be the locus of enunciation or the situated perspective from which we see multilingualism: from the monolingual perspective of bounded, separate languages, multilingualism could be seen as a ‘coming together’ of languages, or con-fluence. This ends up in the monolingual presupposition of one language: in coming together, the many languages become one. From a multilingual perspective, on the other hand, where the presupposition is the inseparability and enmeshing of elements, multilingualism could be seen as transfluence. These are just examples of non-hegemonic or southern thinking through which we can reflect on language. I think the fear in Global North applied linguistics or sociolinguistics is what if they [the decolonial/

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Lynn Mario:

Ana:

Sinfree:

Lynn Mario:

southern scholars] are right? Or, what if they are raising topics that are of interest to our students? That is the fear that they have, what if my students get interested in what Lynn Mario and Ana are talking about? Walter Mignolo is often quoted as saying that we have to change the terms of the conversation. But basically, what he’s saying is not something new. In relation to our reflections on language, we have the understanding of positionality, of what I have been calling the locus of enunciation; we have the importance of the context and ownership of the means of production, which the Marxist origins of the humanities has taught us about, together with the role of historicism. I think when decoloniality becomes a fashion, we hear and read a lot with the word ‘decolonial’, but the colonial conditions of production have not changed. They claim to be putting into practice something decolonial, but the question remains, are they decolonial? Or are they just using the word decolonial? What they are saying appears to be decolonial; but it’s like, speaking French doesn’t make you French. Adopting a decolonial perspective can never be a fashion, because it’s a commitment that guides you in every moment. It shapes not only your scholarship, but also how you interact with people in the streets, how you interact with everyone. It is every part of your life; it’s like being a revolutionary. You can’t say ‘my work is decolonial’, and your project remains the same. If you’re now decolonial, that changes the entire project. You can’t say, for example, I’m working on translanguaging, its decolonial, but translanguaging remains the same, it cannot remain the same if it has become decolonial. Fundamentally, it’s affected by political commitment. I’ll give you an example or maybe two. 2021 is the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Paulo Freire. So, in Brazil, many universities are organizing events and celebrating the centennial. I was a colleague of Paulo Freire at the Catholic University of São Paulo, I would read Freire all the time, I’ve been influenced by his work. But I have also seen in Paulo Freire a very strong presence of coloniality.

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In his more recent work, after he returned from exile, he reflects on his work. It begins to be less dichotomic as it was when the oppressor–oppressed dynamic marked his original work. But still, he has ideas about people from the urban peripheries in Brazil; his idea is that their thinking is very much common-sensical, naïve and directly connected to their concrete reality. And they have got to learn rigorous thinking, meaning that, we, the academics, have rigorous thinking, and they don’t. He sees their thinking as context bound, as if ours isn’t. For me, from an ethical viewpoint, Paolo Freire adopted only part of the stance of a decolonial ethics, the part that relates to the need of speaking from the margins; his pedagogy does recognize the existence of subaltern local knowledges and begins from this recognition. However, there is a second important aspect of the decolonial ethics: besides speaking from the margins you have to speak with the margins. Also, the decolonial call for the critique of the universalization of knowledges – their appearance as contextually un-anchored statements – and the necessary un-concealment of the locus of enunciation is not visible in Freire. He generalizes when he perceives local knowledges as naïve, common-sensical and tied to the concreteness of everyday existence whereas he considers his own academic knowledges as epistemologically rigorous and suggests that the former should be replaced by the latter. Here he parts company with the margins and is clearly not speaking with the margins. I find this a very colonial and monolinguistic perspective – the many should be replaced by the one. Is this the fear of the many challenging the certainties of the one? I am not convinced Freire is decolonial; not avant la lettre nor après la lettre. In a keynote I was invited to give recently, about Freire, I decided to change all the metaphors I use to speak of Freire, and I didn’t even talk about decoloniality. I spoke instead about hacking Paulo Freire, where hacking is the counter-hegemonic invasion of something institutional, to undo the power of that institution and question the claims to univocality of that institution. And I’m very consciously paying a

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Ana:

price for this. Paulo Freire, to many people, is the exemplar of decoloniality in Brazil. To me, he isn’t. The second example refers to something that occurred to me recently at a northern European university. The Department of Politics of that university invited me to speak on decolonial theory. They said they knew very little about decolonial theory, so I began with the Latin American theories that connect colonization and Eurocentric modernity. I noticed they were getting bothered with my critique of modernity. Needless to say, I was speaking to a public of all white, mostly blonde, northern Europeans. And at question time, a significant member of the department stands up and says, ‘I’m curious about all of this critique of modernity: tell me something, if someone from Latin America was suffering from a serious medical problem would they not want to be treated in a hospital with the most modern facilities?’ This came from someone in a political science department! Please! And it was said in such an ironic way that I realized I was expected to take it as an offense, so I did. Perhaps they didn’t know I grew up fighting against racism, so they came to the wrong address! So, I said ‘okay let’s look at it from a different perspective, or locus of enunciation: let’s say you are ill and in the most modern of hospitals and none of their cures work; would you not want to knock at my door in tropical Brazil and say, do you know of any witch doctor who could help?’. All hell broke loose. Other members of the department stood up and said, ‘why do people who have been colonized always accuse the colonizer of all their ills?’ Again, this came from a political science department! And then I couldn’t take it anymore, so I said, ‘have you heard of a term called white privilege?’ If they had guns in their hands, I wouldn’t be here to tell the story. That’s the price I pay for speaking about decoloniality. Maybe this is the litmus test for being a decolonial scholar? You upset people in power because if you wouldn’t upset the hegemony, you wouldn’t be doing your job. If you manage to put decoloniality into your work in such a way that everybody leaves

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Lynn Mario:

your seminar with a smile on their faces and not deeply disturbed, then you have done something wrong. I think it has to unsettle. Yep, which is the activist aspect of our work. You know, the people who had invited me to northern Europe, my hosts, later said to me ‘we had never realized how short sighted we are. We’re sorry those people at the university offended you and that they felt offended’. I said ‘no, I wouldn’t call any of it an offence; I’d call it moments of epiphany’. Now, one of the things I saw in your questions you sent me before the interview was the question on positionality which I think is problematic. I’m working with anti-racist groups here, and what bothers me is that this idea of positionality, or what I call locus of enunciation, often becomes a new essentialism. For me, positionality is being situated under specific conditions of enunciation, which means that I speak from a space that is traversed by multiple discourses which constitute me as a subject; and it’s also a place that is traversed by history and by time. It means that the discourses that constitute me as a subject also change with time and some of them short circuit each other. This means that I’m speaking to you today from a particular position, but tomorrow I may be saying something slightly different because of what I’ve read since then. Also, on the same day, I may say something different to another public or another interlocutor. My locus of enunciation apparently remains the same, but what I say will vary according to who I am speaking, about what and why; this variation occurs according to my decision to access one or other of the various discourses that constitute me. From this sense, a locus of enunciation is a potentiality or virtuality which actualizes itself or becomes visible when I speak. That’s why, given this potentiality, positionality cannot be a fixed substance. Positionality is telling you how I am located and how the discourses that I am currently using constitute me. But it doesn’t mean it is something frozen. Positionality has to maintain the dynamism which is present in it. I

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Ana:

Lynn Mario:

Ana:

Lynn Mario:

see many people in anti-racist movements, and in feminist movements, using positionality from a very frozen perspective. I am speaking to you from this position, this is my locus of enunciation, it is now at this moment, but it may not be the same thing tomorrow. This is interesting because all too often positionality statements become finite lists of social attributes or identities, which actually tell us little about the writer and, as you say, their place of enunciation, which is complex and changing through time and space. It’s like the question of how many languages do you speak. I think there’s a short circuit that occurs within each of the discourses that constitute us when we are exposed to new bibliographies. Suddenly the reading of a bibliography on gender may affect what you do, which may have nothing to do with gender. And one of the problems that I see in a lot of queering theories is centralization. Queerying was a very important concept which could be compared to decoloniality or southern theory. It showed the situatedness, and hence limitation, of normativity. And then suddenly it’s taken up by some people in linguistics and sociolinguistics as an essence, a new normativity. When one normativity is critiqued only to be replaced by a new one, I think we have lost our capacity of critique or queering. That’s why the postcolonial emphasis on hybridity and fluidity – while problematic in its own way – was important, it reminded us to move away from essentialism, except for strategic reasons. Politically sometimes we need essentialism, it can make political sense. I think our positionalities also go beyond the individual subject, they are about our interconnections and entanglements with others as well; and about our lack of interconnections. I like Santos’ concept of intercultural translation. We need the concept of intercultural translation because we’re all speaking from ethnocentric positionalities or ego-centric positionalities. We need to ethically cohabit the same space or cosmos and co-exist. I think the most important thing at

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the moment is co-existence. Frantz Fanon talked about coming back into existence; now we need co-existence, otherwise, with our current polarizations, we’re going to end up eliminating each other. The most important thing in co-existence is understanding that we don’t understand. And to understand that we don’t understand ethically obliges us to adopt an imperative towards understanding. This requires recognizing one’s incompleteness and adopting an openness to things that you didn’t know before and that you still don’t understand. It requires, more importantly, stepping down from your desire for hegemony; these are problematic things, which are also things that are very important in southern theory or decolonial theory. If only we can look at multilingualism from this perspective! For me, the question that remains is: is multilingualism the expression of a desire for the new and unknown or an instrument of control? References Achebe, C. (1958) Things Fall Apart. London: Heinemann. Bhabha, H. (1994) The Location of Culture. London: Routledge. Dussel, E. (2013) Ethics of Liberation: In the Age of Globalization and Exclusion. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Forster, E.M. (1924) A Passage to India. London: Edward Arnold. Freire, P. (1995) Pedagogy of Hope: Reliving ‘Pedagogy of the Oppressed’. London: Continuum. Kipling, R. (1901) Kim. London: Macmillan. Latour, B. (2004) Whose cosmos? which cosmopolitics? Common Knowledge 10, 450–462. Lugones, M. (2007) Heterosexualism and the colonial/modern gender system. Hypatia 22, 186–209. Makoni, S., Kaiper-Marquez, A. and Mokwena, L. (2022) Handbook of Language in the Global South/s. New York: Routledge. Mignolo, W. (2007) Delinking. Cultural Studies 21, 449–514. Nascimento, G. (2021) Pretoguizar a língua portuguesa: o português dos africanos. Museu da Língua Portuguesa. See https://www​.mus​euda​ling​uapo​rtuguesa​.org​.br​/pretoguizar​ -a​-lingua​-portuguesa​-o​-portugues​-dos​-africanos​-escravizados​-e​-trazidos​-para​-o​-brasil​-artigo​-de​-gabriel​-nascimento/ (accessed 6 March 2023). Nascimento, G. and Windle, J. (2021) The nexus of race and class in ELT: From interaction orders to orders of being. Applied Linguistics 42, 473–491. Robinson, C. ([1983] 2000) Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. Said, E.W. ([1978] 2014) Orientalism. New York: Random House. Santos, A.B. dos (2018) Somos da terra. Piseagrama 12, 44–51. Souza, L.M.T.M. (2005) The ecology of writing among the Kashinawá: Indigenous multimodality in Brazil. In A.S. Canagarajah (ed.) Reclaiming the Local in Language Policy and Practice (pp. 73–98). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

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Soyinka, W. (1965) The Interpreters. London: André Deutsch. Spivak, G. (1999) A Critique of Postcolonial Reason. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press Stengers, I. (1996) Cosmopolitiques Vol. 1 (La guerre des sciences). Paris: La Découverte. Tutuola, A. (1952) The Palm Wine Drinkard. London: Faber. Vertovec, S. (2007) Superdiversity and its implications. Ethnic and Racial Studies 30, 1024–1054. Wolfe, P. (2006) Settler colonialism and the elimination of the native. Journal of Genocide Research 8, 387–409.

11 Thoughts on ‘Love’ and Linguistic Citizenship in Decolonial (Socio) linguistics Sibonile Mpendukana and Christopher Stroud

I should constantly remind myself that the real leap consists in introducing invention into existence. Frantz Fanon, [1952] 1967a: 219

Introduction

Arguably, one of the most important tasks of a decolonial linguistics is to rethink language in order to reimagine ourselves as human. This involves deconstructing discourses and practices of language, which, honed through centuries of (neo)colonial exploitation, continue to racialize, dehumanize and estrange different others through what Gabriela Veronelli (2016) has termed the ‘coloniality of language’. Moving beyond linguistic coloniality involves understanding how language informs how, and in what ways, we inhabit our bodies and engage with others racially. More precisely, it obliges us to develop a decolonial (socio)linguistics that has as its centrepiece a theory and practice of selfhood. Writing from South Africa with its continuing struggles to transform racially, we suggest that selfhood in a decolonial (socio)linguistics must tackle the problem of how selves can become something else than they are. How might racialized meetings of tense(d) subjectivities – formed through repeated moments of painful colonial and apartheid trauma – become moments of entanglement? How can we excise what it means to be human from what Sylvia Wynter (2003), a Caribbean author and philosopher, calls (the ethnoclass) Man, the White Bourgeois Male? These are questions in need of answers if we are to rehabilitate the loving relationships between self and others that in themselves are the very foundation of language and homo sapien amans (Maturana & Varela, 1980). In approaching these questions, we elaborate an idea of ‘acts of linguistic citizenship’ (Stroud, 2001, 2015, 2018) as semiotic acts like love. This implies discursively mediated relations to difference, to otherness, that do not appropriate or reduce 199

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the ‘other’ to ‘self’, but that engage different ‘others’ in moments of self becoming otherwise. We elaborate this idea using linguistic citizenship as a lens through which to read Frantz Fanon. Frantz Fanon, the Martiniquan psychiatrist and revolutionary, has written extensively on the construction and reconstruction of subjected colonized (Black) selfhood and the necessity for extensive transformative social and political change in order to redress injurious colonial relations. As a psychiatrist, he brought to these topics a perspective from colonial trauma, novel psychological insights and a critique of the assumed universality of Western psychoanalysis, as well as a rejection of the universal pretensions of humanities, providing a revolutionary social science scholarship more broadly. However, Fanon also has much to offer to decolonial thought on language, and two of his works in particular are especially relevant in this regard, namely Black Skin, White Masks (henceforth Black Skin; Fanon, [1952] 1967a) and The Wretched of the Earth (henceforth Wretched; Fanon, 1967b). In fact, Fanon’s writings are a substantial contribution to a decolonial philosophy of language politics. In this chapter, we bring the notion of linguistic citizenship (Stroud, 2001; Stroud & Heugh, 2004; Stroud & Williams, 2017) into conversation with Fanon’s thoughts on language in order to draw out the potential of Fanon’s writings for a decolonial (socio)linguistics, in particular one grounded in love. The notion of linguistic citizenship was coined at the turn of the millennium in Southern Africa to draw attention to ‘grassroots’ engagements with language (specifically multilingualism) as a dynamic of transformation. At the time, issues of language and multilingualism were approached predominantly from the standpoint of a politics of recognition and within the affirmative framework of linguistic human rights (LHR). It was argued that LHR, contrary to the intentions of its proponents, maintained and reproduced linguistic and social inequalities (cf. Stroud, 2001, 2009; Stroud & Heugh, 2004). Linguistic citizenship sought to provide a framework for critically interrogating the historical, sociopolitical and economic determinants of how languages are constructed, ideologized and practiced, at the same time as pinpointing the linguistic, structural and institutional conditions necessary to accompany change. It emphasized the bivalency of language, such that ‘neither socioeconomic maldistribution or cultural misrecognition are an indirect effect of the other, but… both are primary and co-original’ (Fraser, 1995: 85). This dictates that refiguration of language must go hand in hand with social, political and economic transformation. Bivalency allows us to see language and citizenship as two sides of the same coin: citizenship as mediated by forms of language, while forms of language in turn emerge out of, and with, the fluid, tense and shifting entanglements of social and material engagement (Stroud, 2009: 217). Importantly, linguistic citizenship is about politics in the sense of Jacques

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Rancière (1999), who contrasts it with policing and sees politics as that which allows what was previously seen as phonos (noise, rabble-rousing, etc.) to become logos (voice). Thus, the sense of citizenship in linguistic citizenship goes beyond the institutionalized and regulated forms of engagement in conventional understandings of (nation-state) citizenships to (other) forms of relationality in order to re-establish humanity in a society of plural others as co-conversationalists and interlocutors. Acts of linguistic citizenship build collectivities and new relationalities in the interstices, margins, cracks, fissures and flows that make up the rhizomatic underbellies of societal structures and institutions that are premised on exclusion. Likewise, the diverse and complex configurations of citizenship outside of the conventional understanding of politics and its institutions invite a critical stance towards notions of ‘language’ that occlude a diversity of ‘other’ voices as ‘noise’. In the process of engaging politically in the Rancièrean sense, speakers reconfigure language through the creation of new meanings, repurpose genres and transform repertoires in using their languages over many modalities (Williams & Stroud, 2013, 2015). These are often transgressive and non-conventional language (and other forms of semiosis, e.g. tattoos) that open up possibilities for thought and action beyond the constraints of established genres of power (Rancière’s policing). Linguistic citizenship is thus an invitation to listen beyond and within that which is conventionally classified as ‘noise’ and attending to those forms of language through which also speakers ‘who do not count’, who find themselves on the margins of society, find voice and gain agency, thus broadening what we take to be language. In this way, it encourages disciplinary disobedience (Mignolo, 2013) so as to clear the ground for a reconceptualization and expansion of ‘legitimate’ modalities for voice, thereby doing ‘violence’ to language in linguistics. In other words, the conjunction of ‘linguistic’ with ‘citizenship’ unsettles our conventional understandings of both language and citizenship. In all of these respects, acts of linguistic citizenship frame a decolonial ethos that articulates well with that of Fanon. Fanon writes passionately on the plight of the dispossessed, marginalized and excluded – the ‘damned of the earth’ – who inhabit the zone of non-being. He seeks revolutionary transformation in new socialities and the creation of a ‘new man’. This requires fundamental change in the distribution of inequitable material, and economic and political capital, and going beyond the strictures of a normative language long appropriated to structural Whiteness in an idea of language misrecognized as signification without body (cf. Allen, 2004).1 Just as importantly, it requires creating conditions for nurturing ‘loving’ relations with different others. In what follows, we engage Fanon in conversation with linguistic citizenship in three parts. Firstly, we review Fanon’s critique of (colonial

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French) language as normative and conserving of the White status quo and bring his phenomenological and embodied sense of language into conjuncture with the idea of voice and agency as construed in linguistic citizenship. Secondly, we read Fanon’s tactics of institutional and identitarian rupture for revolutionary transformation in Wretched as modalities of acts of linguistic citizenship and as exemplifying an extended notion of ‘language’. And, thirdly, we bring Fanon’s overarching thinking on love as a revolutionary, transformative dynamic to bear on the understanding of vulnerability and plurality in linguistic citizenship. By way of conclusion, we offer a linguistic citizenship informed by Fanon as a contribution to a decolonial ontology of language centred around a radical construct of linguistic subjectification. Black Skin and Wretched

Black Skin and Wretched are two very different books; they were written 10 years apart by ostensibly two ‘different’ Fanons – or at least a Fanon living intensely in two very different sets of circumstances – and therefore, not surprisingly, they deal with different concerns. Black Skin was penned by a young Fanon, the medical student, studying in Paris, preoccupied by the shocking, all-pervasive construction of Black bodies and souls by Whiteness. In Black Skin specifically, language (of the colonizer) is vividly and viscerally described as positioning Black people in a zone of non-being. In this way, Black Skin frames the fundamental point of departure of linguistic citizenship, namely language as a dynamic in the construction of silence as the semiotic modality through which a restricted ontology of the human as MAN (Wynter, 2003) is reproduced. As pointed out by Ricky Lee Allen (2004), it is here that Fanon begins to develop an idea of language as ‘fleshy corporeality’, and it is this sense of language on which linguistic citizenship builds and that comprises the lens through which we read Wretched. Wretched was the work of a revolutionary Fanon, writing in the heat of the Algerian War of Independence in which he played a number of important roles. In this volume, there is an urgency for radical change that necessitates tactics of revolutionary transformation beyond colonial systems of meanings and conventional linguistic expression. Here, we read the visceral performances of anti-institutional and anti-identitarian selves in search of new socialities and the ‘new man’ as acts of linguistic citizenship comprising new registers of emotionality (Veronelli, 2015) that destabilize colonial systems of meaning (e.g. dance and performance in keeping with the visceral and embodied idea of selves). Highlighting how linguistic citizenship lifts forward the pluralities of others brings to the fore a theme that runs throughout both volumes, namely ‘love’. We expand briefly on the implications of this for a decolonial (socio)linguistics.

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Black Skin: Language and Body

In Black Skin, Fanon is preoccupied with how Black people are ‘degraded’, made into a phobic object, dehumanized (literally) and positioned in a zone of non-being. Throughout the volume, the mechanism for the inhuman constitution of Black people is given as failed relationality, the impossible encounter with Whiteness in a complex co-constructed (Black–White) semiotic of difference under conditions of denial and lack of intersubjectivity (cf. also Gordon, 2015). We get some sense of the mundane ordinariness of the manufacture of Blackness from the following snippet of a South African talk show interview that took place in 2016. In the excerpt, we follow an exchange between a realtor in Durban, Penny Sparrow, and Phat Joe, the radio talk show host. Sparrow, a White, middle-aged woman, had risen to notoriety after a post had gone viral on Facebook a few weeks earlier. In that post she had likened Black revellers on the beaches of Durban on New Year’s Eve to ‘monkeys’. When challenged with being racist, her defence was that she loved monkeys, but that they also tended to empty waste onto beaches from scavenging in garbage bins, so thereof the likeness, but that no racial slur had been intended. In the call-in talk show that took place a couple of weeks later, Sparrow appeared initially unaware that her host was Black until he himself declared it, whereupon the following exchange took place: Phat Joe: So, hold on: I’m a Black man, I’m a monkey – is that what you saying? 2 Sparrow: Really? You don’t sound Black at all. That is surprising. Were you educated? 3 [Voice of female studio co-host, mimicry with strong African accent] Were you educated Joe? Were you? 4 Phat Joe: I don’t even wanna dignify that with an answer. 5 Sparrow: You speak very well, it’s a compliment for a Black man. I’m sorry. 6 Phat Joe: Penny, why did you even apologize? What was with the apology? (https://www​.youtube​.com​/watch​?v​=lpeqS92hX9I)2

1

The exchange is a vivid illustration of a marked lack of relationality and intersubjectivity, as well as illustrating the centrality of language in Black racialization. In Line 2, Sparrow avoids directly answering the question as to whether the radio interviewer is a ‘monkey’, thereby leaving the presupposition that this might be a possibility unchallenged. Generally, Sparrow explicitly avoids engaging with any of the questions or prompts by the interviewer, seemingly intent only on pursuing her own train of thought throughout the interview. She chooses, for example, to focus on the fact of the interviewer’s declared Blackness by way of reference to the

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standard of his English – ‘You don’t sound Black at all… Were you educated?’ – making explicit an assumed link between a particular language variety (‘good English’) and a racialized White body, and she is ostensibly taken aback by a body of the wrong colour sounding the way it does: White. She flags Phat Joe’s speech as marked and unexpected, thereby classifying him as an exception to the rule, but also at the same time reinforcing the ‘rule’ that equates the sound of Whiteness with education. In Line 4, she again positions herself as an authority on good language with the words ‘You speak very well, it’s a compliment’, but also reaffirms the hint of a possibility that her ears might still pick up some indication of non-Whiteness, a trace of ‘not-quite’ in Phat Joe’s speech with ‘for a Black man. I’m sorry’. The concluding lines of ‘apology’ appear to be a perfunctory counter to Phat Joe’s question of ‘What was with the apology?’, which we can read as an attempt to probe whether Sparrow was apologizing for her assumption that Blacks cannot speak good English or whether she was apologizing for hurt inflicted on him personally. In her response, she again side-steps the force of the question, taking it literally by explaining that in her upbringing it is ‘polite’ to apologize if you have offended somebody. By so doing, she can also be seen to be implying that Phat Joe might be lacking in middle-class (White and male) tact – again an assumed equivalence between politeness, Whiteness and what it means to be properly human (cf. Wynter, 2003). What we see in the Sparrow excerpt is captured in lively phenomenological detail in Black Skin. We see in quite some explicit detail in the radio interview how the manufacture of Black dehumanization that Fanon writes about takes place in everyday interactional engagements through discursive constructions and representations, where Blackness is repeatedly called into existence as ‘skin’ and construed as nothing beyond this outer shell. Fanon ([1952] 1967a: 111–112) notes that ‘the lived experience of being Black’ was ‘like being put together by another self’ and seeing oneself through the eyes of a third person, eroding the distinction between an inner self and a bodily exterior (cf. also Gorgis, 2015: 86). The Black is entrapped, in Fanon’s words, in ‘an essence, of a visible appearance’, experiencing the self as divided, a state that Fanon ([1952] 1967a) calls fissiparity – a medical term referring to ‘dissection under a microscope’, and that he creatively appropriates to express not only division but also ‘breaking apart’.3 The short snippet demonstrates an important fact about Blackness made by Fanon, namely how Blackness is ‘manufactured’ time and again through anecdotes and stories; ‘you speak good English, for a Black man’; ‘you must be educated’; ‘it is polite to apologize’. The everyday interpellations and interactions we see taking place in the interview are not fabricated on the spur of the moment, but they are contextually, historically and institutionally determined. Fanon ([1952] 1967a: 111) calls this sociogeny, characterizing it as the weave of ‘a thousand details,

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anecdotes and stories’, through which the symbolic is made flesh, and the skin and eye are opened up to cultural context (Gibson & Beneduce, 2017: 71). Language is one of the important modalities through which the psyche and body are glued into the social world; historically White constructs of language and ways of speaking, conserved in institutions and enacted in the everyday, work to imprint a racialized socioeconomics onto bodies, and minds, Black or White. The ideology and practice of language ‘racialize’ Phat Joe and interpellate him further as Black, related to monkeys, where monkeys are mischievous and naughty, and good language is White, polite and human. The tropes in Black Skin are the failure of relationality, harmful affectivity and alienation. These are part of the dynamics of structures and institutions in racialization that produce the experience of language as a prison-house of historically recycled socio semiotic determinants of Blackness and the position of the Black in the zone of non-being. This is the failure to count or to be counted, to be ‘audible’ and to unsettle ideas of recognition. The dynamics of epidermalization are what project an unjust socioeconomic order onto the body of the Black, positioning them in the zone of non-being, a zone of non-selves and non-others (Gordon, 2007). Linguistic citizenship shares with Fanon the understanding that selves are essentially dependent on the affirmation of ‘ethical self–other’ relationships, and that such reciprocal recognition by a plurality of others is a prerequisite for voice and agency – and thereof freedom (Arendt, 1958; Fanon, 1967b). Reciprocal recognition is what allows speakers to become interlocutors and to engage in the building of ethical constituencies of others. In Black Skin, it is precisely the White’s refusal to engage the Black as interlocutor that leads to fissiparity, despite (or because of) the Black seeking audibility in a shared language, French, with the colonizer. However, colonial languages remain tainted by centuries of colonialism and coloniality and offer only certain historically dis-privileged subject positions to Blacks where important dimensions of colonized selfhood are silenced. Linguistic citizenship recognizes that language (as we know it) produces vulnerabilities and marginalizes speakers, and that in order to be ‘heard’ and to count, new forms of language are a precondition for – as well as an outcome of – new socialities. As Veronelli (2015, 2016) emphasizes, there is a need for new registers of emotionality to capture meanings and selves that are otherwise distorted by conventional linguistic expression and a politics of structural Whiteness. Acts of linguistic citizenship refer to those linguistic – and more broadly, semiotic – ‘gestures’ that build communities/pluralities of ‘mutually and reciprocally’ recognized ‘others’. They are the means whereby interlocutors are created and semiotic spaces are crafted where ‘absences’ emerge as presences. Fanon captures something of the linguistically non-conventional, creative and utopic dimensions of linguistic citizenship when extending

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the visceral, non-conventional registers of meaning to the language code itself. According to Lazali (2011: 154), Fanon refers to the colonized subject as ‘reinventing his own language woven with rejected desires’ and in a letter to his publisher, expresses a deep belief in the power of words to transform. When explaining the meaning of a sentence to his publisher, he went on to say: I cannot explain this sentence. When I write things like that, I am trying to touch my reader affectively, or in other words irrationally, almost sensually. For me, words have a charge. I find myself incapable of escaping the bite of a word, the vertigo of a question mark. (Fanon, cited in Macey, 2012: 159)

Fanon points us here to the visceral charge of language and the evocative sensuality of language suggestive of other meanings beyond what is ‘said’, or might be conventionally meant behind the appearance of words. ‘Linguistic viscerality’ as a modality for meaning, the ‘charge of language’ that Fanon alludes to, reiterates the importance that he accords to corporeality in Black Skin and offers the beginnings of a novel ontology of language built on the indivisible synergies between language, body and agency (cf. also Allen, 2004).4 However, acts of linguistic citizenship go beyond emerging genres of ‘conventional’ language – or the repurposing or rupturing of established genres in new functions. They also involve the ‘invention’ of new modalities of expression (Williams & Stroud, 2017). We turn to Wretched to illustrate some of these modalities, and thus read ‘Wretched’ as a catalogue of ways through which voice and agency are articulated beyond colonialities of language and outside of conventional language as a normative system. Wretched: Language as Performance

In Wretched, Fanon returns to the broken bodies, embodied language and dispossessed agencies introduced in Black Skin, in order to suggest a revolutionary and anti-colonial agenda for change by bringing voice to the silenced and foregrounding those most marginalized. Importantly, he argues that it is the dispossessed or wretched of the earth, the peasantry, alone that can lead a total revolution because ‘they have known naked brutality of oppression’ (Fanon, 1967b: 47). The experience of living in deprivation provides revolutionary credibility to the ‘agency of performative escape’ (Fanon, 1967b: 44), and here Fanon once again (as in Black Skin) sources the body as a locus of enunciation, action and agency. The intimate connection Fanon (1967b: 44) makes between the experience of brutality ‘on/of the skin’ and the role of viscerality as a catalyst for change and a privileged place of insight and knowledge through

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struggle, finds resonance also in other, contemporary, decolonial struggle epistemologies (e.g. Santos, 2016). In Wretched, Fanon is also concerned with genres of the political, such as performance (dance), and the potentiality of language for other meanings than conventionally read. Performance, the beat in noise, the emotionally evocative and sensual, draw our attention to the constituencies emerging out of alternative semiotic articulations. Some instantiations of central tropes of Wretched, such as ‘body’, ‘performance’, ‘other expressive modalities’, affect (such as anger) and anti-institutional ‘politics’, are found in the #Shackville protest that took place at the University of Cape Town in 2016. This was an event where Black students demonstrated against what they saw as social class and racial bias in favour of (foreign)5 White students6 in the allocation of student campus housing. It took the form of the construction of a typical township shack with an accompanying Portaloo on the Jameson (this has since been renamed Sarah Baartman Hall) staircase, blocking a major university thoroughfare and obstructing the ‘imperial gaze’.7 This protest was one in a long and complex articulation of Black frustration and pain at White privilege carried over centuries. It was an instantiation of Fanon’s point that the Black is fundamentally an epidermal consequence of socioeconomic injustices, with Black pain more than skin deep, and where Black alienation is not an individual question but a systematic consequence of material deprivation and a question of ‘sociodiagnostics’ (Fanon, [1952] 2008: xv–xvi). #Shackville manifests one of Fanon’s most important insights in Wretched, namely the claustrophobic foreclosure of the Black body, also graphically foreshadowed in Black Skin where there are frequent references to the Black body depicted in metaphors of spatiality as ‘locked in’, ‘body broken’, living in ‘compartments’, ‘motionless’ and ‘hemmed in’, underscoring again the viscerality of the experience of alienation. This world in which the Black (native) learns ‘to stay in his place, and not go beyond certain limits’ (Fanon, 1967b: 40) turns the body of the Black into a repository of colonial violence, thereby sustaining a steady grip on the colonized body as a canvas of both violence and erased agency. In the #Shackville protest, the foreclosed Black body is made highly visible and present, and decades, if not centuries, of anger is given vent. One such expression is highlighted in the wearing of T-shirts on which the words ‘Swaart gevaar’ (‘Black danger’) is written in Afrikaans, the language of the former oppressor, echoing the racist fear that Black bodies harbour a violence of bloody White slaughter and revolution. The violent foreclosure of the Black body is also symbolically inscribed in the material and (geo)spatial structure of the shack and Portaloo. These are two vivid and powerful icons of the Black–White separation of apartheid South Africa; symbols of material poverty and lack of basic amenities such as an adequate water supply and sanitation.

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Fanon often uses spatial metaphors of enclosure to refer to how time stands still for the Black (Gibson & Beneduce, 2017). To be ‘hemmed in’ is to be confined to an eternal present that endlessly repeats the past and where the colonized have no agency to determine their own futures beyond ever-present colonial Whiteness. #Shackville captures this endless beat of time in the different ways that the shack and Portaloo symbolically connect numerous Black pasts with multiple presents. Not only is the shack itself an icon of timeless coloniality, but the very name #Shackville calls forth the memory of desperate protests such as the Sharpeville massacre, one of the turning points in Black resistance history (cf. Mpendukana & Stroud, 2019). #Shackville also elicits associations to the so-called service delivery protests that take place in South African townships on a regular basis, where dwellers take to the streets to protest at the lack of basic infrastructure.8 The placement of #Shackville in the White suburban university grounds also draws attention to contemporary, so-called illegal land occupations where desperate people erect homes on empty parcels of land for themselves and their family. #Shackville also has clear echoes of transnational protest events such as Black Lives Matter, linked to the #Shackville protest through the use of the hashtag. #Shackville, in other words, literally enfolds these presents into eternal pasts, and transposes Black pain into the contemporary space of the ‘White’ university and beyond. The #Shackville protest culminated with the students marching on Jameson Hall, where they later torched the portraits of previous (White) vice chancellors and other (White) prominent alumni that had been hanging in residence. Moments before marching, students made a number of incendiary calls, among them an explicit inter-discursive reference to the apocalyptic movie titled Planet of the Apes, shouting out ‘The apes are out’. The Planet of the Apes movie refers to the replacement of an evil humanity by a new order managed by apes, and together with frequent references to Black Lives Matter, this call to march can be heard as further underscoring the students’ demands for a total overhaul of power relations for a transformed society.9 The #Shackville march on Jameson Hall resonates with Fanon’s use in Wretched of the power of motion and movement as a counterpoint to the foreclosure of the Black body and the endless reach of the colonial past metaphorically encoded in immobility and capture. Fanon remarks on ‘dance’ as the epitome of freedom through movement as ‘it dissolves all the negative energy’ in a ‘volcanic eruption’ (Fanon, 1967b: 44), but also goes beyond providing an outlet to express motion, rage and anger, becoming a space of healing and rejuvenation. He notes how, through dance as a form of collective performance, the deprivation of motion gains prominence and expression, breaking with the stagnation of enclosure to enact new selves and futures, and to offer a sensibility of an alternative world, free from the prescripts and over-determination of

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the colonizer, where the colonized ‘find a sphere of belonging to the community’ (Fanon, 1967b: 44–45). #Shackville throughout its course was famously anti-institutional. Students refused to engage with the leadership in any formal forum,10 or use institutionalized grievance structures to put forward their case. Negotiation and discussion were not seen as options, and the preference, as we have seen, was for other modalities of engagement, such as performance, and registers of spatiality, temporality and materiality. The students’ disengagement from the university’s institutional fora was even built into the rhizomatic structure of their own leadership, which shifted and changed its composition as the protest evolved. In Wretched, Fanon warns about endlessly engaging with those structures (nationalist, state) and stakeholders that have perpetuated injustices colonially if radical social change is to be possible. Concomitantly, he distances himself from the identities integral to the functioning of these structures, as well as the romanticism in reaching back to any essentialist precolonial identities, noting that, ‘identification is pathogenic, self-destructive’ rather than transforming.11 His injunction is to move ‘beyond’ current configurations of (racialized) roles and identities into a different future construct of the human and sociality. Thus, his is an anti-institutional stance – critically addressing those who would want to engage in dialogue with Whiteness within the structures and on the terms of Whiteness. Also in this regard, #Shackville was a Fanonian event. Fanon’s locating of transformative, emancipatory and anti-colonial semiotics12 beyond a conventional understanding of language partially accounts for his critical stance on the colonial language as a liberatory modality. He remarks on how ‘the language of the ruling power is felt to burn […] lips’ (Fanon, 1967b: 178). And that the colonial languages that were once the languages of honey, of desire and prestige are now languages that taste bitter. ‘Languages that came imbued with the desire to be/for whiteness now are now violent on the bodies of the colonized’ (Fanon, 1967b: 178). His choice of the peasant, or the bodies of those worst abused, as the locus of enunciation for change is reflected in his warning that (for the colonial elite to seek revolutionary redress) merely speaking a local language does not necessarily make either the speaker or the language decolonial. Of course, given the colonial appropriation of Indigenous languages over centuries, we should not expect that they can easily become the decolonial panacea they are willed to be in ­decolonial discourse (cf. Stroud & Guissemo, 2015; Stroud & Kerfoot, 2021; V ­ eronelli, 2015; Williams, 2021). Given the fact of language as a normative system of institutional closure in the sense of Fanon, language as such requires a radical and transformational revamp together with other institutions of human stricture. Acts of linguistic citizenship engage with transgressive and non-­ conventional language, and, more generally, with forms of semiosis that

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open up possibilities for thought and action beyond the constraints of established genres of power and their institutionalization. The practices may comprise unconventional genres such as (multimodal) performances, and/or use of material artefacts that lay bare the synergies of body, affect and language in the pursuit of voice and ontological refashioning of self (cf. Stroud, 2018; Williams & Stroud, 2015, 2017). Much in Fanon’s Wretched can be read through such modalities of linguistic citizenship as performance, poetry and dance (cf. Stroud & Williams, 2017; Williams, 2021), and as alternative ‘genres’ of his visceral, corporeal idea of language. These modalities are manifestations of acts of linguistic citizenship that return and interlace language with the beat and rhythm of the body, thereby making the first stitch of re-suturing what fissiparity had divided. Williams (2021), for example, shows how hip hop can help to reinstate consensual coordinated engagements across and with ‘difference’. In particular, he showcases the potential of hip hop for deep ‘corporeal’ connects to other histories and potent knowledges of self, where care, hope and love can be engineered. #Shackville illustrates in all its complexity the workings of linguistic citizenship as an understanding of language extended and deployed in protest and transformation. In #Shackville, we find Fanonian corporeal registers articulated in modalities of the semiotic landscape, such as the use of space/place and material artefact to redefine relationships between Black and White, and Black and Black. Thus, in #Shackville as well as in Fanon’s example of dance, we find new co-relationalities evolving with clear ramifications for how voices can be (re)articulated. Although Fanon is most often cited for his calls to ‘violence’, an important theme across both Black Skin and Wretched is radical and revolutionary love. Violence is rupture that can create the conditions for new conversations. Black Skin and Wretched: (Decolonial) Language as Love

Although gesturing towards ‘love’, Fanon himself does not write extensively on the topic, nor explicitly on love as a construct of revolutionary political change. And in Black Skin, he is less than optimistic about the possibility of love across racial borders.13 However, Nigel Gibson (2011: 6) notes how going beyond Manichean relations was always Fanon’s ([1952] 1967a: 231) goal, as when he wrote (at the end of Black Skin), ‘why not quite simply attempt to touch the other, to feel the other, to explain the other to myself’. ‘Touching’, phenomenologically speaking, is to engage in mutual and ethical recognition of the consciousness of the other, as touch between humans feels and is felt as touch, and there is an expectation that there is a mutuality and reciprocity in contact (semiotically as well as in corporeal terms). Black Skin illustrates the dehumanization in not touching – that is, in not being sensitive to the moment of return (by

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the interlocutor) – as there is no expectation that ‘objects’ will touch back, will reciprocate or are even able to ‘feel’ the touch as anything but a force of physics (although they may explode like in Fanon’s cry to the mother, ‘Fuck you’; Fanon, [1952] 1967a: 114).14 Black Skin paints in some vivid detail how the zone of non-being is a space populated by objects that are neither a self nor an other, where bodies and consciousness do not engage, and where bodies are never ‘touched’ in any way besides brutally. These are spaces of White fear and denial, and Black shame and pain – a place of mutual alienation (Monahan, 2011). When Fanon ([1952] 1967a: 231) makes the appeal to ‘touch the other, to feel the other, to explain the other to myself’, he is gesturing towards a relational engagement that is exploratory and deeply empathetic, a relation of self to other; one in which Black people and White people meet as interlocutors.15 When he exclaims in Wretched that ‘today I believe in the possibility of love; that is why I endeavour to trace its imperfections, its perversions’ (Fanon, 1967b: 43); and ‘I can now believe in love’ (Fanon, [1952] 1967a: 43), he is referencing the reciprocal recognition of ‘otherness’ on which relations like ‘love’ (Baldwin, 1962) appear. In Wretched, a community of others that engage the self, and that are in turn reciprocally engaged/touched by the self, are built out of the alternative registers of emotionality that are multimodally articulated through acts of linguistic citizenship. It is through these acts of linguistic citizenship that a community of coordinated pluralities of voice is created; this, in turn, opens up spaces for the agencies and freedoms of those historically marginalized and silenced. Looking at linguistic citizenship through the lens of ‘love’ offers an opportunity to reflect on acts of linguistic citizenship as acts like love, with implications for a (decolonial) construct of language as love. Firstly, ‘love’16 is a relation of reciprocal recognition and ‘interdependence’. It comprises tangible moments of a self fully engaged with an other, with the full acknowledgement of the autonomy and difference of the other, thereby affirming the existence of some other distinct from the self but intimately entangled with the self (Butorac, 2018). Love is about these distinct interlocutors listening through layers of voice for meanings sensed (as whispers) but as yet unarticulated. These are the voices of acts of linguistic citizenship seeking to establish significances beyond the bounds of normative (political) language. Building on work that shows how empathy is triggered by neural mirroring and the alignment of bodies, Flockemann (2021) reflects on how theatrical performances can generate such a powerful identification with the other, even with vivid experiences of actually momentarily ‘becoming’ the other, as in one of her participants claiming ‘I am the Other I am yet to become’. Central here is ‘love’ understood as recognition of ‘otherness’ that, while nurturing the ‘self’, does so with no wish to appropriate or reduce the loved one to the self. It is this sense of reciprocal otherness that makes up the grounds for a community of others – a citizenship where

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reciprocal recognition by plural others is what acknowledges individuality, and confers agency and ultimately ‘freedom’ for each self. These are the communities that acts of linguistic citizenship seek to build, where inclusivity of multiple voices, differently articulated but recognized as significant by ‘interlocutors’, make silenced voices audible – be this through dance, translation or other creative/imaginative genres. The South African author Antjie Krog (2021) provides an example of how ‘re-translations’ of African language texts that reject the need to consider ‘reader cultural appropriateness’ and appropriation by dominant voices may generate new, ‘rich points’, instances of shock and surprise at an unexpected juxtaposition of word and meaning that suddenly tip awareness in the reader of a radically different world. The translations lay bare the coloniality of contemporary conversations, the deep complicities between coloniality and modernity, and challenge the monovocal colonial voice. They are about stepping out of scripted spaces of engaging with historical voices at the same time that language is redesigned and is an example of acts of linguistic citizenship. As we see from Krog’s example, re-translation may open up and widen the space in between self and other, not only creating shock and surprise, but also an overwhelming sense of vulnerability at loss of common ground, firmament disintegrating in a flood of ‘foreign’ meanings. Acts of linguistic citizenship, like acts of love, also shock the self into a separation and recognition of difference that creates an unpredictable and precariously unscripted space where common ground cannot be assumed but must be (re)claimed. James Baldwin (1962: 33) notes how ‘Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word “love” here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being’, aptly speaking of Fanon’s ‘dilemma’ in Black Skin and his anti-identitarian critique in Wretched, an event/ moment of loss and discomfort as we stand ‘de-robed’ in encounters with the other. The productivity of vulnerabilities, of dis-inhabiting or rejecting the mask, is the basis for refashionings of self and new knowledge of the other – although always partial and equivocal. Fanon is obviously acutely aware of the material and economic deprivation of Black lives, and the need for material revolutionary change in order to end the misery and alienation of White and Black alike. As we saw above, he uses metaphors of the body captured, ‘hemmed in’, to physically describe the lack of Black agency in determining a future, and motion with others in dance and performance to bring into being new, co-agentive selves. Seen through the lens of ‘love’ as the dynamic undergirding change, Fanon’s account evokes a sense of love in all its corporeal materiality that underpins a politics of sharing and generosity towards the loved one – at times at the cost of self-sacrifice. From the perspective of linguistic citizenship, remedying the historical silencing of marginal voices must be transformative, deconstructing vulnerable identity

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ascriptions layered into language simultaneously with the dismantling and replacement of the structural, material and economic mechanisms that maintain linguistic exclusion. Fanon sees violence as a dialectal necessity if we are to change the nature of exploitative relations. It is here that Fanon stages violence as a catharsis for creating conditions for engagement, to instate an interlocutor and recognize a co-conversationalist. ‘In this sense, violence is for one to be impacted by another, to be put into a position of vulnerability. It involves rupture, a turbulent moment that will result in a tip to a new normativity and a new order of being’ (Stroud, 2015: 34). Is ‘love’ not such a moment of turbulent rupture? Acts of linguistic citizenship are also forms of violence in this sense of rupture. Linguistic citizenship incites disobedience towards the institution of normative language by denying its sovereignty to be the sole arbiter of what may constitute voice. It unsettles understandings of language and its conventional uses and causes discomfort among those who have an investment in standards that exclude not just speakers, but equally the ‘linguistic lawmakers’ with a professional stake in how languages are wielded (see Monahan, 2011, for the implications of anti-racism for philosophy). Decolonial (Socio)linguistics

Reading Black Skin and Wretched alongside an unfolding of l­ inguistic citizenship lays bare a weave of love as language threaded through both books. Linguistic citizenship in a Fanonian framing would quite simply comprise a community of others in reciprocal recognition, vulnerable engagement and ‘loving’ transformation. This is a community not of sameness or of diversity, but of differences. To engage in acts of ­linguistic citizenship is to engage in jointly orchestrated becomings, in pursuit of non-determinate futures, as openness to a plurality of others will ­inevitably gestate ripples of continuous change. Political philosophies of language carry implications for ontologies of language, and the ­question is what might it mean to entertain a construct of language based in ‘love’. There are some pointers in Wynter’s (2003) calls for a ‘new theory of the word’, one where language is seen indivisible from a politics of affect, the ethics of the other, the material contingencies of voice and the neurophysiology of ‘love’. This is an idea of language congruent with Humberto Maturana and Fransisco Varela’s (1980) idea of the origin of language(ing) in loving. Such a theory of the word will capture selves as the unpredictable, entangled and non-essentialist new ­experiential self that emerges continually once removed from the strictures of coloniality – in Fanon’s ([1952] 1967a: 229) words, ‘in the world in which I travel, I am ­endlessly creating myself’. This requires a radical notion of subjectification in decolonial (socio)linguistics. In a critical review of

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contemporary sociolinguistics, Erez Levon (2017: 282) appeals for what he calls a ‘theory of selfhood’ that would be able to address the question of ‘how individuals stitch together … disparate moments in the construction of a continuous whole, into a self that perdues over time and across contexts’. From a Fanonian perspective, we might ask how seams of selfhoods could be ruptured and re-sutured into new configurations and geometries of self in a continuous process of becoming otherwise,17 or in the words of the psychoanalyst Karima Lazali (2011: 156) in a moment surely mimicking falling in love, how to give ‘the unfamiliar within the “self” a status of intimate interlocutor’. Conclusion

In Black Skin, to be Black is to be a victim of the coloniality of language; it is to be confronted with the ‘historical task’ to challenge or dethrone a construct of language and linguistic order honed over centuries to efficiently manage coloniality/modernity (and to protect and conserve its ongoing aftermath). Linguistic coloniality has perpetuated the subjection of difference rather than engage it in conversation, constrained agency, smothered voices and moulded bodies and souls racially. It has done so by materially constructing difference as race, ethnicity, sexuality and gender through legitimizing hierarchies of languages and their speakers, and according them differential values on markets of the (non)­human. In Black Skin, language forecloses and relegates the Black to the zone of non-being. Language is at the nexus of subjective trauma under structural conditions of political, existential and economic subjugation. In Wretched, escape from the prison-house of language comes about through engaging corporeal, visceral registers of bodily performances that allow a new-found, newly re-scripted self in collective enactments of sociality-belonging beyond structural Whiteness. In Wretched, we are offered avenues to go beyond the coloniality of language and to envisage a future free from notions of identity, in order to pursue the desire for a different narrative of the human – although one yet to emerge in the process. This requires a radical break with institutional practices and processes of Whiteness, including its conserving modalities of articulation, in order to create a ‘space to breathe’ – also for White people. The idea of linguistic citizenship incorporates a Fanonian perspective on language as corporeality and the centrality of subjectification and its ‘powered’ production, as laid out in Black Skin. Reading through the lens of linguistic citizenship highlights Fanon’s unique construct of language as embodied/corporeal (Black Skin), and as performative, political and loving (Wretched). Importantly, it helps trace the ‘seepage’ of agency and voice out of language proper to a spectrum of multi-semiotic articulations (Wretched) that open up the possibility for actors to collectively break free from the normativities of the old. It therefore not only lifts

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forward Fanon’s contribution to thinking language, but also suggests how the two volumes – seemingly quite different – can be read as from the same pen. Language in Black Skin is about locating voice in the body, retrieving it from the (fissiparous) subterranean rooms in which it has been dispersed; in Wretched, language is what emerges into the light of day in the wake of collective efforts to tunnel beyond the detritus of its burial. Out of these moments of vulnerability, new productive modalities of expression and significance emerge on the margins and the sidelines of structural Whiteness. We have suggested that putting Fanon in conversation with linguistic citizenship offers traction to the materiality of language as a dynamic in revolutionary social change generally, and to a decolonial (socio)linguistic more specifically. It is also a struggle over language and identity located at the nexus of political (valuational) and socioeconomic (material) struggles. Loving encounters through acts of linguistic citizenship are where the opiate and neurochemistry of citizenship and communion start to simmer, and where possibilities for engaging a plurality of others in reciprocal recognition of voice and agency can be actualized. These are the conditions for freedom and a more equitable life together. Reading linguistic citizenship through Fanon shows us that the foundation of language must be ‘love’ (Maturana & Varela, 1980) and the building of communities of others in joint, continuous becomings. In Black Skin, Fanon ([1952] 1967a) asks the question: ‘What does the Black want?’ Ultimately, what the Black wants is to be human. The implication for a decolonial (socio)linguistics is to build a theory of subjectification that is unsettling and must be loving – in the spirit of Fanon, ‘introducing invention into existence’. Notes (1) Linguistic citizenship, with its attention to marginal and plural voices, offers the lens with which to read Fanon ‘marginally’ and ‘between the lines’ and sometimes ‘contrarily’. As noted by Allen (2004), this is also the way Fanon himself uses citational practices – reading French poetry against authorial intent in Bakhtinian irony. (2) This interview was conducted on Metro FM by Phat Joe via The First Avenue – a breakfast drive show that aired from 5am to 9am in the morning. He was with his co-hosts Zamanyuswa Nyuswa and Owen Hannie. (3) Cf. Stroud and Williams (2017) for a contemporary South African example of linguistic viscerality involving Black speakers and Afrikaans. (4) Allen (2004) notes the originality of Fanon’s ‘fleshiness’ of language when leading linguists of the time were abstracting language from speech, ‘when sign was wrenched from signifier’. (5) Chumani Maxwele made mention of ‘white students from America and Europe who came here on a term basis’ in an eyewitness interview (https://www​.youtube​.com​/ watch​?v​=KNJ5iTLkry8). (6) UCT has a large number of foreign, international (often White) students who are catered for in the residences.

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(7) Jameson stairway, now the Sarah Baartman steps, sweeps majestically up the mountain and from the top (where the statue of Rhodes once stood) the view of the cape is an ocular spoil of magnificent White conquest. (8) Conradie (2014) traces the genesis of the urban problem that culminates in the protests for sanitation, from land dispossession and its effects on urban areas. This is while Robins (2014), when writing about the ‘poo’ protests of 2014 against the city of Cape Town, states: ‘these faeces flingers from the urban periphery literally dragged the stench from the shantytowns to Cape Town’s centres of political and economic power’. (9) The use of racist allusion (a sidelong glance to the Penny Sparrow debacle is not lost) is an example of the Bakhtinian irony that Fanon himself employs in Black Skin. (10) This didn’t start with #Shackville though; it was already firmly in place in 2016. (11) His critique of the essentialist claims to authenticity associated with Negritude is a case in point. (12) See Matthieu Renault (2011). (13) In chapters  3 and 4 of Black Skin, Fanon gives a clear account of why true (intimate) ‘love’ is not possible between Black and White under conditions of structural Whiteness. (14) In fact, Black people continue to be dehumanized through manners of handling typical of how objects are engaged, namely pushed (to the ground), pulled, parked, chained, stamped on, topologically contorted (with handcuffs), used for target practice and extinguished/switched off. As we revisit this paper, a number of such ‘handling’ events have been broadcast into our living rooms, one of the more flagrant being the murder of George Floyd. (15) It is important to note that ‘relationality’ has been much emphasized by African scholars (e.g. the idea of ‘ubuntu’). Cf. Ndhlovu and Makalela (2021) for a recent overview. (16) Throughout, we use quote marks around ‘love’ to keep in mind that we are referencing a state, event, moment, ‘like love’ (Baldwin, 1962). (17) We take it that any larger-scale institutional changes must be engaged with political subjectivity.

References Allen, R.L. (2004) Whiteness and critical pedagogy. Educational Philosophy and Theory 36, 121–136. Arendt, H. (1958) The Human Condition. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Baldwin, J. (1962) The Fire Next Time. New York: Vintage Books. Butorac, S.K. (2018) Hanna Arendt, James Baldwin and the politics of love. Political Research Quarterly 71, 710–721. Conradie, E. (2014) From land reform to poo protesting: Some theological reflections on the ecological repercussions of economic inequality. Scriptura 113, 1–16. Fanon, F. ([1952] 1967a) Black Skin, White Masks. New York: Grove Press. Fanon, F. (1967b) The Wretched of the Earth. London: Penguin Books. Fanon, F. ([1952] 2008) Black Skin, White Masks (trans. R. Philcox). New York: Grove Press. Flockemann, M. (2021) Affect, performance and language: Implications for an embodied and interventionist pedagogy. In Z. Bock and C. Stroud (eds) Reclaiming Voice: Languages and Decoloniality in Higher Education (pp. 67–84). London: Bloomsbury Press. Fraser, N. (1995) From redistribution to recognition: Dilemmas of justice in a post-­ socialist age. New Left Review 1, 68–93. Gibson, N. (ed.) (2011) Living Fanon: Global Perspectives. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Gibson, N. and Beneduce, R. (eds) (2017) Frantz Fanon, Psychiatry and Politics. Johannesburg: Wits University Press.

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Gordon, L. (2007) Through the hellish zone nonbeing: Thinking through Fanon, disaster, and the damned of the earth. Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of SelfKnowledge 5 (3), 5–11. Gordon, L. (2015) What Fanon Said: A Philosophical Introduction to His Life and Thought. Johannesburg: Wits University Press. Gorgis, M. (2015) A permanent state of carnival: Frantz Fanon on language, subjectivity and violence. Karib – Nordic Journal of Caribbean Studies 2, 78–92. Krog, A. (2021) Indigenous texts, rich points and pluriversal sources of knowledge: Siswana-sibomvana. In Z. Bock and C. Stroud (eds) Reclaiming Voice: Languages and Decoloniality in Higher Education (pp. 47–66). London: Bloomsbury Press. Lazali, K. (2011) The emergence of the subject in politics: Some reflections on the Algerian situation and on the work of Frantz Fanon. In N.C. Gibson (ed.) Living Fanon: Global Perspectives (pp. 149–158). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Levon, E. (2017) Situating sociolinguistics: Coupland – theoretical debates. Journal of Sociolinguistics 21 (2), 272–288. Macey, D. (2012) Frantz Fanon: A Biography. London: Verso. Maturana, H.R. and Varela, F.G. (1980) Autopoiesis and Cognition: The Realization of the Living. Dordrecht: Reidel. Mignolo, W. (2013) Geopolitics of sensing and knowing: On (de)coloniality, border thinking, and epistemic disobedience. Confero: Essays on Education Philosophy and Politics 1, 129–150. Monahan, M.J. (2011) The Creolizing Subject: Race, Reason and the Politics of Purity. New York: Fordham University Press Mpendukana, S. and Stroud, C. (2019) Of monkeys, shacks and loos: Changing times, changing places. In A. Peck, C. Stroud and Q. Williams (eds) Making Sense of People and Place in Linguistic Landscapes (pp. 183–200). London: Bloomsbury Press. Ndhlovu, F. and Makalela, L. (2021) Decolonising Multilingualism in Africa: Recentering Silenced Voices from the Global South. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Rancière, J. (1999) Disagreement: Politics and Philosophy. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Renault, M. (2011) Rupture and new beginning in Fanon: Elements for a genealogy of postcolonial critique. In N.C. Gibson (ed.) Living Fanon. Global Perspectives (pp. 105–116). New York: Palgrave/McMillan. Robins, S. (2014) Poo wars as matter out of place: ‘Toilets for Africa’ in Cape Town. Anthropology Today 30, 1–3. Santos, B. de Sousa (2016) Epistemologies of the south and the future. From the European South: A Transdisciplinary Journal of Postcolonial Humanities 1, 17–29. Stroud, C. (2001) African mother tongue programs and the politics of language: Linguistic citizenship versus linguistic human rights. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 22, 339–355. Stroud, C. (2009) Towards a postliberal theory of citizenship. In J. Petrovic (ed.) International Perspectives on Bilingual Education: Policy, Practice and Controversy (pp. 191–218). New York: Information Age Publishing. Stroud, C. (2015) Linguistic citizenship as utopia. Multilingual Margins 2, 22–39. Stroud, C. (2018) Linguistic citizenship. In L. Lim, L. Wee and C. Stroud (eds) The Multilingual Citizen: Towards a Politics of Language for Agency and Change (pp. 17–39). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Stroud, C. and Heugh, K. (2004) Linguistic human rights and linguistic citizenship. In D. Patrick and J. Freeland (eds) Language Rights and Language Survival. A Sociolinguistic Exploration (pp. 191–218). Bristol: St Jerome. Stroud, C. and Guissemo, M. (2015) Linguistic messianism. Multilingual Margins 2, 6–19. Stroud, C. and Williams, Q. (2017) Multilingualism as utopia: Fashioning nonracial selves. AILA Review 30, 167–188.

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Stroud, C. and Kerfoot, C. (2021) Decoloniality in higher education: Multilingualism, linguistic citizenship and epistemic justice. In Z. Bock and C. Stroud (eds) Reclaiming Voice: Languages and Decoloniality in Higher Education (pp. 19–46). London: Bloomsbury Press. Stroud, C. and Williams, Q. (eds) (forthcoming) Linguistic Citizenship and Vulnerability. The Making and Unmaking of Selves. London: Bloomsbury Press. Veronelli, G. (2015) The coloniality of language: Race, expressivity, power and the darker side of modernity. Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women’s and Gender Studies 13, 108–134. Veronelli, G. (2016) A coalitional approach to theorising decolonial communication. Hypatia 31, 404–420. Williams, Q.E. (2021) Linguistic citizenship as decoloniality: Teaching hip-hop at a historically black university. In Z. Bock and C. Stroud (eds.) Reclaiming Voice: Languages and Decoloniality in Higher Education (pp. 85–110). London: Bloomsbury Press. Williams, Q.E. and Stroud, C. (2013) Multilingualism in transformative spaces: Contact and conviviality. Language Policy 12, 289–311. Williams, Q. and Stroud, C. (2015) Linguistic citizenship: Language and politics in postnational modernities. Journal of Language and Politics 14, 406–430. Wynter, S. (2003) Unsettling the coloniality of being/power/truth/freedom: Toward the human after man, its overrepresentation – An argument. CR: The New Centennial Review 3, 257–337.

12 ‘Sociolinguistics Maak My Skaam [Sociolinguistics Makes Me Ashamed]’: Humour as Decolonial Methodology Marcelyn Oostendorp

A WhatsApp Conversation (or How I Learned about the Coloured Women Study) Journalist friend: Hi Marcy, hoe gaan dit dame Me: My jinne! Journalist friend: Ekt jou hulp nodig, dalk kan jy dit access want ek kan nie, MB het iets gepost van n sport science student se thesis, ekt jou da in getag Dis getitled Age and Education related effects on cognitive function in Coloured South African women

Wiet jy daarvan en wat het Sport Science te doen met soe ‘n research topic? Me: Ek fb nie eintlik meer nie is dit die full title vd tesis? En was dit by Udubs gedoen? Journalist friend: Stellies Me (later): Kon n artikel daaroor kry, stuur jou email adres en dan stuur ek dit vi jou1

The WhatsApp conversation above is how I first learned of the controversial ‘coloured women’ study. This was a study conducted by researchers at Stellenbosch University, where I am employed. The study made claims about cognitive functioning in coloured women (a population group with which I identify), many of whom found it offensive (see Nieuwoudt et al., 2020). Outrage that this article passed peer review followed, and the article was subsequently retracted, but its after-effects on the university will be lasting (see Msimang, 2020, for critical reactions). Among other 219

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things, ethical procedures have since been tightened up. Cynically, I joke that every study that has ‘coloured women’ in the title now takes twice as long to get ethical clearance. The impact this event has had on me is to reflect more critically on my positionality: I am part of them, all of them – not only those who were written about, but also those who researched and wrote. I am a coloured woman. I am an academic. Politically and racially, I self-identify as black; culturally, I identify as coloured. In this text, I will shift between black and coloured to also signal that some of the experiences and discourses I refer to are reminiscent of discourses found in black communities – not necessarily only those perceived or positioned as coloured. The fact that I sometimes use black instead of coloured is also intentional to signal the multiple identities and alliances formed and constituted in discourse. My position of in-betweenness is akin to the ‘mestiza’ (Anzaldúa, 2012). Gloria Anzaldúa (2012: 100) asks ‘which collectivity does the daughter of a dark-skinned mother listen to?’ Who then, as a member of both those who research on and those who are researched on, do I listen to? This chapter takes this position of inbetweenness seriously by reflecting on the possibilities of humour as a methodology in sociolinguistics. Like any other academic field, linguistics has never been valuefree or completely neutral (Koerner, 2000: 19). Even sociolinguistics, a sub-discipline that espouses the advantages of diversity and variation, is implicated in serving the colonial project. Topics such as language policy and planning, language endangerment and multilingualism, all commonly addressed by sociolinguists, have suffered from research conducted with a Western bias. In a critical overview of language policy and planning as a field, Thomas Ricento (2000: 198) states that a ‘widely held view among Western(ized) sociolinguists (in the 1960s) was that linguistic diversity presented obstacles for national development, while linguistic homogeneity was associated with modernization and Westernization’. Joseph Errington (2008: 168) warns that researchers who are working on documenting endangered languages should scrutinize how their work is entangled with ideas developed in previous eras. Similarly, Wesley Leonard (2018: 57) has urged researchers to take speakers rather than existing academic archives as the starting point of reclamation efforts ‘because it can reproduce colonial hierarchies by elevating named academic fields over the much broader sets of lived experiences and issues that underlie language documentation need’. Focusing specifically on multilingualism, Kathleen Heugh (2017: 211) states that recent reconfigurations of multilingualism seem to hark ‘back to colonial and postcolonial ideologies’. In addition, these ‘new’ views on multilingualism incorporate southern experiences and expertise only tangentially, even though researchers from the south have been foregrounding people’s actual multilingual practices before the current view of ‘multilingualism as a new linguistic dispensation’ (Aronin & Singleton, 2008: 1). The focus on variation and

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diversity within sociolinguistics has thus not insulated the discipline against colonial practices. This chapter focuses on humour as one potential way of moving towards a more decolonial sociolinguistics. My ideas and reflections in this chapter were sparked by my investigation of a column that regularly appeared in a South African tabloid newspaper. This column, 7de Laan maak my skaam (‘7th avenue makes me ashamed’), appeared on a weekly basis in Son, an Afrikaans tabloid, and parodied the Afrikaans soap opera 7de Laan. Son is primarily geared towards coloureds as the target market. Although all racial categories in South Africa are constantly debated and discussed, one of the most contested racial categorizations is that of ‘coloured’ (Adhikari, 2009). This apartheid racial classification served to distinguish those of mixed descent from black and white (Erasmus, 2000). As a self-identifying member of the coloured community,2 I will – as Walter Mignolo (2009) proposes – put sociolinguistics at my service as a coloured woman, instead of putting myself at the service of sociolinguistics. This approach allows me to ‘engage in shifting the geography of reason – in unveiling and enacting geopolitics and body-politics of knowledge’ (Mignolo, 2009: 172). The chapter initially started out in a more conventional fashion with an intertextual and interdiscursive analysis of 7de Laan maak my skaam in order to understand how ‘colouredness’ was constructed in this column. However, I constantly found myself questioning my analysis, wondering if I could find textual evidence to support my interpretations which were aided to a great extent by my familiarity with the kinds of discourses found in the column. I will present part of this analysis before I introduce my use of humour as analytic. Through this first analysis, I realized how significant humour has been as a form of resistance within discourses of colouredness. This observation is what led me to explore the potential of humour as a methodology and to try to delink ‘from the modern concept of theory versus praxis’ (Mignolo & Walsh, 2018: 7). Mignolo and Catherine Walsh (2018: 7) state that by abandoning the idea that theory and praxis are two opposites, one embraces the interdependence and flow between the two. It is in this space that ‘decoloniality is enacted and, at the same time, rendered possible’ (Mignolo & Walsh, 2018: 7). Exploring this possibility, I will both study and do humour simultaneously in this chapter. Being Coloured

My initial interest in the construction of ‘colouredness’ was, of course, influenced by my own experiences of race and by the fact that, in South Africa, ‘race remains a primary mould into which everyday interactions and identities are cast’ (Williams & Stroud, 2014: 277). Apartheid lawmakers relied on a combination of ‘descent, appearance, general acceptance and repute, and mode of living’ (Posel, 2001: 90) to

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classify people into racial categories. This made for many ambiguities, particularly in the ‘coloured’ racial category, which was defined in the Population Registration Act as ‘a person who is not a white person nor a native’ (Posel, 2001: 102). Subsequently, those classified as coloured encompassed a heterogeneous group that includes people with ancestry from the Indigenous Khoisan (the first people of Southern Africa), slaves from Java, Madagascar, Mozambique and Indonesia, other Indigenous African groups and Europeans (note that other groups are not excluded from this heterogeneous group). Quentin Williams and Christopher Stroud (2014: 278) argue that, even in the present day, the group comprises ‘a floating signifier, available to capture multiple positionings and stand proxy for a variety of social expression in ways similar to its construction in apartheid-era South Africa’. According to Mohamed Adhikari (2009: ix), although coloured identity is a product of European racist ideology, the bearers of the identity also played a fundamental role in constituting and determining what shape the identity would take. Thus, in more recent research, the focus is on the agentive abilities of this group to either take up or reject the identity marker ‘coloured’ (see e.g. Adhikari, 2009; Williams & Stroud, 2014). The majority of people who were historically classified as coloured speak Afrikaans as their first language, also making up the largest number of Afrikaans speakers. The community is usually bilingual and employs heteroglossic meaning-making resources on a daily basis. These resources include Standard Afrikaans (usually learned at school), local varieties (such as Kaaps or Oranje Rivier Afrikaans), Standard English, other varieties of English (e.g. Cape Flats English) and other registers such as Sabela (a register associated with prison gangs). The variety most associated with coloureds is that of Kaaps, now commonly regarded as one of the oldest varieties of Afrikaans (Hendricks, 2016: 6). Kaaps is also sometimes referred to as ‘Cape Vernacular Afrikaans’ or ‘Kaapse Afrikaans’ (Hendricks, 2016). Frank Hendricks (2016: 6) defines Kaaps as ‘a variety of the dialect group Southwestern Afrikaans which, as a form of colloquial Afrikaans, refers back historically to the seventeenth century influence of slaves on the formation of Afrikaans and which is currently chiefly manifested as a sociolect associated with the working class of the Cape Peninsula’. The humour within this group historically classified as coloured, primarily performed in Kaaps, constitutes the primary interest of this chapter. Humour in the Social Sciences and Humanities

Humour is largely acknowledged to be a universal feature of human culture. According to Peter Berger (1997: x), no human culture has been without humour. However, despite this universality, humour ‘is resistant to a firm analytical definition’ (Sciama, 2018: 1). In fact, Jan Bremmer

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and Herman Roodenburg (1997: 1) argue that to try and find a coherent account of humour is not only futile but also misplaced, as humour should always be seen as contextually and historically placed. They opt to use a simple definition that sees humour as ‘any message transmitted in action, speech, writing, images or music intended to produce a smile or laugh’ (Bremmer & Roodenburg, 1997: 1). Humour is contradictory in many ways: it is both universal and particular, ‘social and anti-social’ and difficult to analyze but also comprehensible and open to analysis (Billig, 2005: 175). Three main theories have been proposed that explain laughter and humour: the superiority theory, the relief theory and the incongruity theory (Critchley, 2002). Proponents of the superiority theory claim that ‘we find humour in the misfortune of others’ (Watson, 2015: 24). Cate Watson (2015: 26) contends that although we might, under some circumstances, find the misfortune that befalls others funny, it might not be entirely motivated by a feeling of superiority and could be more complex. Instead, Watson (2015: 26) argues that humour might also arise from a feeling of recognition in which we are confronted with the human condition in its material form, and we laugh because we find it absurd. The relief theory puts the reason for laughter in its ability to release tension, which then produces pleasure. Sigmund Freud was a proponent of this theory and, although it has been heavily criticized, Watson (2015: 27) notes that the theory did acknowledge that laughter and humour involve both body and mind. Incongruity has arguably been the most enduring and influential theory of humour (Watson, 2015: 31). This theory proposes that humour is the result of an incongruity between what we expect and what actually takes place (Critchley, 2002: 3). As with the other two prominent theories, there are criticisms against this one, ranging from issues to do with the definition of humour to a failure to explain why not all incongruities are funny. Just as a uniform definition of humour is not forthcoming, it seems a universal theory of humour is probably not possible and that, instead, we should accept that all the major theories provide insights into different aspects of humour (Watson, 2015: 26). Humour in Tabloids: Analysis 1

The site of the current investigation is tabloid newspapers. The South African media landscape was significantly changed by the introduction of tabloid newspapers in 2002 with the launch of the Daily Sun. Due to the huge success of this newspaper – quickly becoming the biggest selling daily in South Africa with a circulation of more than four million – other tabloids were launched soon after. In 2003, the first Afrikaans tabloid, Die Kaapse Son (now just known as Son), was launched and was geared towards a coloured audience. By 2007, Son was the biggest selling daily Afrikaans newspaper.

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Despite the fact that these publications are clearly popular, academic research focusing on language (or other semiotic means) is almost completely absent. There has been interesting work on tabloids from other disciplines such as sociology and journalism studies (see Smith, 2012; Wasserman, 2008, 2010). However, linguistic research on tabloids has been lagging behind, with only a few master’s theses and articles on the sociolinguistics of South African tabloids in existence (Blignaut & Lesch, 2014; Els, 2013; Matthews, 2009; Saal, 2017). My focus on tabloids might seem out of step with current interests in sociolinguistics, which recently have not focused all that much on printed newspapers. My focus is driven by the importance of Son to readers (Smith, 2012; Smith et al., 2012),3 and the fact that it has been argued that tabloids might have the potential to open up an alternative public sphere (Örnebring, 2006). This entails that participants who do not usually have access to the mainstream media have an opportunity to participate, and that issues that are not usually taken on receive more coverage in forms not found in the mainstream press (Örnebring, 2006). Through this chapter, I also wish to highlight how practices that are under-researched could actually be very important to the people who engage in them. 7de Laan maak my skaam

I will present an analysis of one weekly column in Son, titled 7de Laan maak my skaam (‘7th Avenue makes me ashamed’). I collected all the columns appearing in the online version of Son from December 2014 to September 2016. The column was written by Robert (Robbie) Daniels and appeared in both the printed and online versions of the newspaper. Daniels also administers a Facebook page, 7de Laan maak my skaam. It seems as though the online column has been discontinued (the last column appeared in October 2019), but, at the time of writing, the Facebook page is still going strong. This column gives a weekly satirical overview of the events in the Afrikaans language soap opera 7de Laan. This ‘soapie’ is multilingual and features other languages besides Afrikaans, with subtitling in English. It has been on South African television since 2000. Although the soapie has a big crossover appeal, coloured viewers in particular seem to have a love/hate relationship with the programme. On social media, there has been talk that the coloured characters in particular are ‘inauthentic’, that they do not sound or act like coloureds typically do (Milton, 2015). The column in Son uses a seamless switch between Afrikaans and English. It moves the soap opera from its original context and from its original modality, or – as Rick Iedema (2003) calls it – ‘resemiotizes’ 7de Laan and places it within a coloured frame of reference. With these shifts in context and modality, the meaning of the soap opera changes. My first analytical attempt at 7de Laan maak my skaam used the notion of

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intertextuality in its broadest sense – namely ‘the ways in which voices of prior texts are incorporated into texts’ (Scollon, 1998: 252) – to understand the construction of colouredness. Norman Fairclough (1992: 269) argues that an intertextual analysis provides a way ‘into the complexity of discursive events (realized in the heterogeneity of texts, in meaning, form and style)’. In addition, Richard Bauman (2005: 145) argues that a focus on intertextuality allows for more comprehensive understandings of how historical relations are embedded in discourse, as well as giving us insights into power and authority that are not necessarily bound to the text or speech event under study. I used a number of related theoretical concepts such as interdiscursivity (Fairclough, 1992; Scollon, 1998), genre (Briggs & Bauman, 1992; Fairclough, 1992) and resemiotization (Iedema, 2003) to interpret the data. I provide examples from two 7de Laan maak my skaam columns to display the analytical approach I initially used. Excerpt 1 (9 May 2016) Errol lyk die slegste as hy huil, maar Bonita, oftewel Bonitrane, kan gerus ophou huil vir enige k*k. Sy is erg uitputtend. ‘Errol looks the worst when he cries, but Bonita, or rather Bonitears, can really stop crying for any shit. She is really exhausting’ Oukei, jou man is weg, maar dis niks vreemds vir ’n bruin vrou op die Kaapse Vlakte om angstig na haar man te soek nie. Jou krisis is maar eintlik net nog ’n Vrydagmiddag in Elsies. ‘OK, your husband is gone, but that is nothing strange for a coloured woman on the Cape Flats to look anxiously for her husband. Your crisis is actually just another Friday afternoon in Elsies’ Bonitrane, Vanessa en hierdie nuwe Tarryn-kind moet al drie baie dringend by ’n haarsalon uitkom. ’n Salon waar hulle die conditioner lank aanhou en ’n plek waar hulle regtig weet waar jou roots begin. ‘Bonitears, Vanessa and this new Tarryn child must all get to a hair salon urgently. A salon where the conditioner is kept in for a long time and a place where they really know where your roots start’

In this example (and many in my sample), the columnist evokes humour by transporting the characters into a Kaaps, coloured, Cape Flats setting.4 This is achieved by interdiscursively relating 7de Laan to a number of ‘genres, situations, registers, social practices or communities of practice’ (Scollon, 1998: 252), which have to do with discourses about or from the Cape Flats and/or coloureds. Some of these discourses are evoked implicitly and rely to a great degree on the background knowledge of the readers, while others more explicitly mirror existing genres or discourses. A number of social discourses on coloured women are evoked through presupposition. Fairclough (1992: 283) defines presupposition

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‘as propositions which are taken by the producer of the text as already established or “given”’. The other text (that is presupposed) is in many cases ‘not an individual, specified, or identifiable other text, but a more nebulous text corresponding to general opinion, what people tend to say, accumulated textual experience’ (Fairclough, 1992: 283). For example, it is presupposed that disenfranchised black women often have absent ­husbands/partners. Bonita’s ‘crisis’ is thus resemiotized as a reality, a normal occurrence for coloured women living on the Cape Flats. The fact that Bonita sees this as a problem constructs her as not really coloured and her problem as ‘white people’s problems’. Another discourse that is evoked in these excerpts is that of ‘hair politics’. Zimitri Erasmus (2000) found this discourse in many black communities, with the most d ­ esirable hair being straight hair. The three coloured female characters are ­constructed as inauthentic because they do not seem to be aspiring to this ideal of straightness, further emphasized by the ambiguous use of ‘roots’. Excerpt  2, from the column appearing in the 25  April 2016 edition of Son, once again incorporates discourses around coloured men and women, transports the characters to the Cape Flats, and also brings in both historical and current political discourses. Excerpt 2 (25 April 2016) Paula, jy sal daai man maar moet los en ’n ander plan maak. Daai man se lewe is ’n tragiese gemors. Daar’s niks te redde nie. Loop pluk vir jou ’n bruin Springbok. Jy’s mos blond. Hulle sal jou likes. ‘Paula, you will have to leave that man and make another plan. That man’s life is a tragic mess. There is nothing to be saved. Go and fetch yourself a coloured Springbok. You’re blonde. They will like you’ Stiefma Felicity en haar stiefseun wat ook vir haar vreeslik lekker maak, is toe betrokke by die sieklikste troue in ’n baie lang tyd. Elaine het gevoel Felicity kan sommer strooi ook. Toe maak sy haar aan ’n stoel vas. Gelukkig is Felicity oorspronklik van Eldoradopark en sy weet hoe om knope los te maak. ‘Stepmother Felicity and her stepson, who also has sex with her, were involved in one of the sickest weddings in a long time. Elaine felt that Felicity could be a bridesmaid as well. Then she tied her to a chair. Luckily, Felicity is originally from Eldorado Park and she knows how to untie knots’ Toe Felicity uiteindelik ontsnap, voel sy baie duiselig en loop tiep agter die rusbank. Bel skaars die polisie. Sy loop tiep eerder, man. Dis mos nie reg nie. Sien julle wat die dopstelsel aan ons gedoen het? Tiep is belangriker as alles. ‘When Felicity finally escapes, she feels very dizzy and goes and sleeps behind the couch. Doesn’t even call the police. She rather goes to sleep,

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man. This just isn’t right. Do you see what the dop system did to us? Sleep is more important than anything else’ Elaine sit toe vir haar en Willem gasmaskertjies op en daar dood albei van hulle. Wel, ek dínk hulle is dood, want te danke en Malema en Zuma het ek minstens twee episodes dié week gemis. ‘Elaine put gasmasks on both herself and Willem and there both of them die. Well, I think they are dead because, thanks to Malema and Zuma, I missed at least two episodes this week’

References are made to a discourse found in black communities about successful black men (especially, in the case of South Africa, Springbok rugby players) marrying white women. The coloured character, Felicity, is also placed in a coloured setting by saying she comes from Eldorado Park, a historically coloured township in Johannesburg. Specific expressions familiar to speakers of Kaaps are used in order to achieve a connection with the audience, such as tiep (referring to a booze-induced sleep) and lekker maak (meaning to have sex). Furthermore, there is reference to the dopstelsel, a system during apartheid in which (mostly) coloured farmworkers were paid for their labour in the form of alcohol, a practice which is said to persist on some farms even today.5 Although the dopstelsel was legally outlawed in the 1960s, practices that offered alcohol as a gift remained for quite some time. The historical legacy of the dopstelsel remains to this day, with high levels of alcohol abuse noted on farms (London, 1999). The column ends with an explicit reference to formal politics, specifically the battles in parliament between former President Jacob Zuma and the leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters, Julius Malema.6 The column uses intertextuality by referring to a number of social discourses circulating in poor black communities and, more specifically, in coloured communities. On one level, the discourses are weaved together and resemiotized to poke fun at 7de Laan, and on another, to provide commentary on the current sociopolitical place and identity constructions of coloureds. Besides the implicit type of intertextuality or presupposition, vertical intertextuality is also used. In his historical overview of intertextuality, Allen (2000: 39) refers to Julia Kristeva’s (1986) assertion that in the vertical dimension, intertextuality is ‘oriented toward an interior or synchronic literary corpus’, while Fairclough (1992: 271) notes that texts that are vertically connected are historically linked across various temporalities in various dimensions. 7de Laan maak my skaam is connected to a corpus of genres in Kaaps that use parody and evoke humour while still giving sociopolitical commentary. Some of these genres exist in the same time-space but also draw on older texts within this tradition, thus illustrating Fairclough’s point that this corpus of genres can be connected across timescales. One such genre that is

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connected to 7de Laan maak my skaam through vertical intertextuality is the Moppie (also called Komiek), which are humorous songs used by the Kaapse Klopse (Cape Minstrels). Moppies date back as far as the early 18th century and were originally ‘a blend of Indonesian and Dutch folk songs that combined humour with the styles of both traditions’ (Drewett, 2002: 82). According to Drewett (2002: 83), these songs and the double meaning of the lyrics became a form of resistance that could be ‘overheard by the slave owners’ without fear of punishment. Martin (2013: 113) states that various topics are addressed in Moppies, such as dayto-day life, particular personalities found in coloured neighbourhoods and special occasions. What these songs have in common is that they are all subjected to ‘witty treatment’. Moppies challenge the common stereotype that coloureds do not have culture (Martin, 2013) by evoking past events and showcasing creative ability. This use of humour to create alternative constructions of self and to provide commentary on the politics of everyday life is also found in other older written forms. In the African Political Organization’s (APO) newspaper, the first newspaper with coloured people as the target audience, the column Straatpraatjies (‘Street Talk/Street Chat’) appeared (Adhikari, 1996). Straatpraatjies was written ‘in a variety of Cape Vernacular Afrikaans, spoken in particular by the coloured working classes residing in the inner city of Cape Town’ (Adhikari, 1996: 5). Whereas in other early writing in Afrikaans, the use of what later became known as Kaaps was used to mock coloured people, in Straatpraatjies, ‘coloured people [were] invested with a dignity and the language they [spoke] with a propriety not found elsewhere in early Afrikaans writing’ (Adhikari, 1996: 5). The column – one of the earliest examples of satirical writing in Afrikaans – provided a means for ridiculing opponents, those seen as sturvy (vain and uppity), and ‘exposing social injustice and even evoking nostalgia’ (Adhikari, 1996: 8). Like these two examples, 7de Laan maak my skaam uses parody to focus on issues related to the coloured community. The column shows readers that there is a history and culture associated with the coloured community. The columnist ‘creates indexical connections that extend far beyond the present setting of production or reception, thereby linking a particular act to other times, places and persons’ (Briggs & Bauman, 1992: 147–148). This analysis shows that humour is a significant sense-making tool within the coloured community and has been so for many generations. As I was working through this analysis, a particular comment kept coming back to me, one that I received from an anonymous reviewer on another paper I wrote using intertextuality as a theoretical framework. The reviewer said: ‘the author clearly has good background knowledge about the topic, which seems to interfere with the analysis [my emphasis]. She/he should let the data speak for itself [my emphasis]’. Luckily, the editor agreed with my response (below) and the paper was ultimately published:

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However, since all types of intertextuality rely on background knowledge to make meaning, I do still refer to my own background knowledge on the topic to present a deeper analysis. This, I do not believe to be a hindrance, but a valuable resource I can draw on. I did, though, try to distinguish the more explicit forms of intertextuality from the ones that rely on assumption much more.

However, the comment still brought up issues such as: Should my own background knowledge not count as an asset? Can data actually speak for itself? Boaventura de Sousa Santos (2014: 118) argues that ‘modern western thinking is an abyssal thinking’. Social reality is divided into the realm of ‘this side of the line’ and ‘that side of the line’. The other side becomes non-existent (Santos, 2014: 118). On the other side of the line of science, there are only beliefs, intuitions, opinions and subjective understandings. At best, this kind of knowledge could become material for analysis but not ‘real knowledge’. The reviewer’s comment is thus meant to relegate my inside knowledge to the anecdotal. In order to cross this abyssal line, Santos (2014: 158) proposes that common-sense knowledge should enter into a dialogue with scientific evidence, as common sense is produced from the experiences and life trajectories of social groups. Importantly, common sense merges functionality with enjoyment and the emotional, academic and practical (Santos, 2014: 158). These insights, together with my knowledge of how significant humour is in the coloured community, led to my experimentation with humour not only as a topic of investigation but also as a methodology and a form of knowing. What follows is my attempt to cross the abyssal line. Humour as Disruption: Parody in Progress

Watson (2015: 1) states that humour as a methodology has the potential to reveal ‘the precarious absurdities on which rationality rests’. However, using humour as a methodology comes with risks. One risks not being taken seriously (if one tries to be funny) or, if you go for a more serious approach, you risk being labelled a hypocrite. In addition, research produced with the intention to produce laughter can displease and offend, as no one likes being laughed at (Watson, 2015: 140). Approaches to humour as a methodology have included the use of humour to increase participant engagement (Stronach et  al., 1996) or as a way to relieve tension during research interviews (Gouin, 2004; Moran et  al., 2003). I am not going to use any analytical approaches developed in sociolinguistics for two reasons: firstly, sociolinguistics has not employed humour as a methodology to any significant extent; and secondly, Mignolo and Walsh (2018: 225) have urged us to know ‘beyond the disciplines’ and the colonial system of ‘institutionalization of belief’. Therefore, the approach I take is that of analytical parody

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(Cherry, 2008; Mulkay, 1988; Watson, 2015), mostly used in sociology. The definition of parody (as with humour) seems to be elusive. In fact, parody is sometimes viewed negatively, with Linda Hutcheon (2000: 3) stating that ‘parody has been called parasitic and derivative’. Parody has also often been equated with other forms such as ‘burlesque, travesty, pastiche, plagiarism, quotation and allusion’, but Hutcheon (2000: 42) argues that, while it is related to these forms, it is still very much distinct. Hutcheon (2000: 6) defines parody as ‘a form of imitation but imitation characterized by ironic inversion, not always at the expense of the parodied text’. Scott Cherry (2008) states that parody is ‘a form and an analysis of performativity’, a mode of ‘literary mimicry’ that keeps the formal properties of the original but recontextualizes the subject matter. By using this approach, the essence of the original work is laid bare. Similarly, in sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology, it has been argued that parody is not only mere repetition (Bauman, 2004; Pennycook, 2007). Bauman (2004: 5) refers to parody as ‘the ludic or inversive transformation of a prior text or genre’ and reminds us that parody has the ability to upend authority through the very same processes that uphold authority (Bauman, 2004: 158). Here, the use of Moppies in Klopse performances captures this dimension. Even in officially sanctioned performances in the language of the so-called oppressor, authority was subverted. Before presenting my parody, I note what Watson (2015: 120), citing Judith Butler (1997), states: that in order to perform a convincing parody, one needs an affiliation with what one parodies in a relationship that straddles desire and ambivalence. My parody comes not only from a familiarity with humour in the coloured community, reading tabloids, using Kaaps on an everyday basis and growing up in a working-class household in a neighbourhood designated ‘coloured’ during apartheid, but also with the ambivalence of knowing that I am now living a middleclass life and that I am an academic. My parody is performed from the position that my ‘colouredness’ is at times questioned by sections of the coloured community (in fact, I was always seen as a bit sturvy). It is performed from the position of someone who is seen as something of a sell-out because I am not living in a traditionally coloured community anymore and have abandoned some of the traditions. Through this parody, I hope to, as Cherry (2008) proposes, mimic 7de Laan maak my skaam. However, the target is also me and my own positionality. Through this, I hope to avoid someone else being the butt of my joke – the joke is on me as a sociolinguist; I am complicit in many of the points that I will make. So here it goes: En da study n coloured researcher alwee coloured identity. In plaas davan dat sy hou by haar joppie as n waiter by Oppie Koffie wil sy ha mos nou in die witmense se wek begewe, n proffie wees. Pleks dat sy ha

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hare gat uitblow want god weet met dai stywe perm kan sy nerens heen gattie. Ma seriously, coloured identity. Net soos die laan kry jy mos all sorts. Die Meintjies’se wat mos die Forresters is van die Laan. Nai kyk dai mense pratie Kaaps nie, dis net suiwer Afrikaans. En hulle luister net Whitey music gaan mal oor Snotkop en so antes. Nee kyk iemand wat al by Galaxy was gan mos nou nie vir Snotkop dans nie. En dan is daar die gangsters, die criminals en die streetkids. Maar selfs die praat regte Afrikaans. En so af en toe maak Charmaine breyani net om seker te maak almal onthou dat hulle coloured is. En moenie vergeet van die wat nie ka Afrikaans pratie. Dis net ra-ra, maar hulle exist nie in die laan nie want almal in die laan kan Afrikaans praat. So ek wetie vi wat sy Coloured identity moet study nie – ons praat mos almal Afrikaans, en eet breyani en blow onse hare uit of relax dit soos Zander. Seriously girl, kam tog net jou hare dan is jou identity issues uitgesort.

I will engage in an act of epistemic disobedience by not translating or analyzing my parody. With my non-analysis, I wish to bring up two related points: our engagement with communities and the dominance of current academic writing practices in sociolinguistics. Firstly, I want to use the non-analysis as a way of thinking through what is needed to understand my parody and, by implication, the communities we study and their meaning-making practices. There are a number of layers. You need knowledge about 7de Laan and would have had to watch more than just a few episodes. You also need to know the style of 7de Laan maak my skaam. You need to know Afrikaans and, specifically, you need to be well versed in Kaaps. More importantly, you need to have a deep familiarity with the coloured community. You need to know the kinds of issues we talk about, think about and – most importantly – joke about.7 You need to know about the long history of research on coloured people, by people both outside and inside the community (Jansen, 2019), and the in-between space occupied by coloured academics. When we do research on, or with, communities in sociolinguistics, are our dealings with them sufficient to have this kind of layered understanding? Are we aware of the ‘variations, different emphases, and even conflicts of interpretation’ (Santos, 2018: 54) that exist within the groups that we study? Often, our interactions with communities are brief and superficial – we spend a few weeks collecting the data, then return to our lives and write up the paper. Perhaps one test to make sure that we can study a particular community should be our answer to the question, ‘Do we get their jokes?’ Jokes work when there is a ‘tacit social contract at work’, when there is an agreement that the background to the joke is ‘the social world in which we find ourselves’ (Critchley, 2002: 4). Not getting a group or a community’s jokes can

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thus be a very good indicator of not understanding enough about their shared social realities. We often encounter problems like this in the field. Does this mean we should stop doing research when we do not get the group’s jokes? We usually mediate this by making use of cultural and linguistic brokers. They often end up doing much of the interpretive work because they know the language and the culture intricately. But rarely do these brokers feature beyond a brief mention in the methodology section or acknowledgements. Julietta Singh (2018: 71) recounts how Frantz Fanon, in his own work, erased his reliance on translators and interpreters since he was not proficient in Arabic and Kabyle. According to Singh (2018: 71), Fanon’s analysis of translated work signals that language should be treated ‘as thoroughly unmasterable’ (Singh, 2018: 71). A greater acknowledgement of all the nuances and all the layers we do not get is imperative to unthink mastery (Singh, 2018). Although I regularly engage in acts of mastery, I am also subjected to it – when my insider knowledge is regulated as interference and when my linguistic varieties are not represented in academic writing. My parody hopes to turn this experience on its head for a brief instance, with those usually judging my work in this way being in the position where their unmastery of my language and culture is pointed out. I hope to have turned the ambivalence of my position ‘into something else’ (Anzaldúa, 2012: 101). By presenting my parody without analysis and without translation, my linguistic variety is not only an example or data, but also a moment of performance that critiques coloured identity in 7de Laan, coloured perceptions of coloured identity, my own identity positions and the discipline of sociolinguistics. This is not how I usually approach the practice of analysis. Instead, I normally make sense of people’s lived experience through my sociolinguistic/discourse analytical/narrative tools, not considering that my ‘participants’ may regularly engage in their own forms of analysis. Keith Basso (1979: xii) states that ‘we miss the presence of analytic understanding in non-Western cultures whenever it does not take the form of a vocabulary’. In his book, Portraits of ‘the Whiteman’, Basso (1979: 46) shows how a striking feature of Apache life is ‘that serious things are always getting said in what appear to be unserious ways’. Similarly, joking in the coloured community has been a vehicle to express serious issues, thereby providing ‘audible voice and visible substance’ (Basso, 1979: 46) to coloured experiences. In our analyses, we should be careful not to erase the voices of those on whose behalf we speak. It would be good to keep in mind the following quote by bell hooks (1990): No need to hear your voice when I can talk about you better than you can speak about yourself. No need to hear your voice. Only tell me about your pain. I want to know your story. And then I will tell it back to you in a new way. Tell it back to you in such a way that it has become mine,

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my own. Re-writing you I write myself anew. I am still author, authority. I am still colonizer, the speaking subject and you are now at the centre of my talk. (hooks, 1990: 343)

Am I calling for an abandonment of analysis? No, but I want to propose other forms of (non-)analysis as a decolonial option, as another doorway into knowledge (Mignolo, 2011). Of course, sociolinguists are not the only ones grappling with representing participant voices. In feminist research, there have been various debates and approaches to analysis and voice. These approaches include emphasizing the partiality and plurality of such voices and their relations to researchers and their positionalities (see Jackson, 2003, for an overview). Similarly, in arts-based research in education, researchers have attempted to present analyses in different forms and modalities such as autofiction and poetry (Eisner, 2001). Keguro Macharia (2016: 185), an African queer theorist, states that ‘African voices and experiences are often absorbed as “data” or “evidence”, not as modes of theory or as challenges to the conceptual assumptions that drive queer studies’. I want to present my parody not as data; rather, I want to emphasize that, in its untranslated form, it is just as impenetrable as theory-dense writing for those outside of the community of regular users. Humour requires specialized insider knowledge for interpretation and to provide a (theoretical) perspective of the world. I offer humour as vernacular knowledge, as a way of ‘centring our concerns and world views and then coming to know and understand theory and research from our own perspectives and for our own purposes’ (Tuhawei Smith, 2012: 41). Secondly, I want to address current academic writing practices in sociolinguistics and what kind of contribution humour as a methodology can offer to change these practices. Simon Critchley (2002: 9) states that ‘a true joke lets us see the familiar defamiliarized. The genius of jokes is that they light up the common features of our world not by offering theoretical considerations […] but in a practical way’. He continues that jokes ‘mock, parody or deride the ritual practices of a given society’ (Critchley, 2002: 5). My non-translation emphasizes the expectation that my parody should have been translated into English. And this is exactly one of the absurdities of writing practices in sociolinguistics – that despite a wholesale agreement that all languages have the potential to express complex meanings, most sociolinguists (myself included) publish in English or other powerful world languages and in standard varieties thereof. By writing in another language (even if just short insertions) or in non-standard varieties, one can expose the absurdity of the practice of writing about variation and difference in monolingual and monomodal ways. By not translating, it is also a way of speaking back to sociolinguistics journals, the editors of which say that they welcome data and abstracts in other languages but that all contributions should be written in English (e.g. Journal of Sociolinguistics,

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Language in Society). It is speaking back to journals that say that second language speakers are welcomed but that ‘they may wish to have their English language manuscripts checked by a native speaker before submission so that the editors and reviewers’ (Language in Society) can understand the content of the paper. Santos (2014: 213) advocates for intercultural translation but emphasizes that ‘only equal power relations of shared authority fit the idea of intercultural translation’. In her more general discussion on the representation of voice, Jackson (2003: 704) states that ‘a disruption of knowing requires researchers to address the untranslatable, to be aware that as a translator of voices, researchers’ actions are violent, forced and foreign – at once inadequate yet necessary’. But this is also where the potential for new understandings lies – in working the tensions. In this chapter, my approach to working the tensions of translatability of voice and language is to do what Grace Musila (2019), drawing on Macharia (2016), calls an aspiration to be a native that simply wanders off. Macharia (2016: 188) describes the different subject positions that appear in research reports about Africans. These include: ‘the sly native, the trickster native, the desiring native, the sage native, the agential native, the undeveloped native, the homosexual native, the queer native, the deracinated native’. Macharia (2016: 188) then draws attention to another type of native, one that also appears in colonial archives, research and non-governmental organization reports: ‘this native fails to speak in the correct way. Chooses not to answer questions. Rarely shows up. Shows up when not expected. Offers banal observations—perhaps about flying termites’. For a brief moment, I want to be the native that studies tabloids (when everybody else has moved on), does not translate myself and will not explain my jokes; the native who is undisciplined. I want to emphasize that sometimes it might be more important that parts of the texts should be understood by the communities that are written about rather than by editors and reviewers. Through my non-translation, I further want to ‘refuse the rhetoric and pursuit of mastery’ (Singh, 2018: 90). Singh (2018: 94) proposes that this kind of refusal opens up a more vulnerable engagement which can transform ourselves and our disciplines. This move comes with vulnerability from my side, as I put parts of myself on the page and implore the reader to try not to analyze but rather to listen (and this means that I might be misunderstood). It also engages the reader in vulnerability in that they will wade through a text that comprises parts they do not understand. I wanted to highlight the analytical practices communities themselves possess, the kinds of layered meaning that we need in order to understand these analytical processes and the absurdity of a sub-discipline that embraces fluid understandings of language, variation and diversity, but continues to publish almost exclusively in English while the raw material

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of ‘exotic’ data is often in other languages. Chillingly, this harks back to colonial practices of knowledge production and the extractivist methods (Santos, 2018) that have been used in the past. Humour has the potential to disrupt monological narratives. According to Gary Fine (1988: 155), humour, because of its ambiguous nature, ‘can provide resonance that straight texts cannot’, while irony can be an effective tool for shaking readers from their complacency. Imprecise writing (which includes humour and other more poetic forms) can create dialogues and multiple interpretations (Fine, 1988: 155). By acknowledging that we are not masters, that we do not get the joke, do not understand the language or culture, we can go some way towards imagining new ways of doing. And here too humour can help. Humour can create a different world operating under different rules (Berger, 1997: x). This, Berger (1997: x) says, is ‘also a world in which the limitations of the human condition are miraculously overcome. The experience of the comic is finally a promise of redemption’. By joking, we can start seeing what is wrong with our discipline and then get some way to moving to a different state. To start this endeavour of laughing at myself in an effort to redeem myself, I end this chapter with a little joke (hopefully evoking a knowing smile): Why did the sociolinguist cross the road? To catch up to the next (spat​ ial/m​obili​ties/​bilin​guali​sm/de​colon​ial) turn. Notes (1) The fact that my friend could not access the article brings up another point in the broader discussion on knowledge production and accessibility, which is outside of the scope of this chapter (2) I acknowledge the problematics of the term ‘community’ and, like Amit (2010: 362), I do not attempt to use it as an all-encompassing cover term, but instead use it in the sense that ‘it speaks to the relentless uncertainties entailed in many different forms of plural subjecthood’. (3) My position aligns with that of Linda Tuhiwai Smith (2012) and Keguro Macharia (2016) who argue that even though a particular topic might be uninteresting to the academic community, its importance for the community that is studied should make it a valuable topic of investigation. (4) The Cape Flats is a low-lying, flat area towards the south-east of the centre of Cape Town. The area was previously uninhabited, but after the Group Areas Act was introduced in South Africa, (mostly) coloured people were forcibly removed from the centre of Cape Town to the Cape Flats. (5) My explanation of the dopstelsel is oversimplified due to space constraints. Williams (2016: 131) suggests that ‘the dop bound farmers and workers in relations of asymmetrical reciprocity’, and that labour markets and social control over labour are important parts of the history of this system. (6) During 2016, the South African Parliament was characterised by disruption by the Economic Freedom Fighters, an opposition party who called for the then-President Jacob Zuma to resign because of corruption allegations. These disruptions would sometimes become violent.

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(7) The ‘we’ I use refers to coloured people and, later, to academics. This is because I straddle a position of ambivalence and in-betweenness. If it is difficult to deduce when I am referring to coloured people or researchers, or when I am just referring to sociolinguists, this confusion is intentional, as this is the kind of ambivalence I straddle as I do my research.

References Adhikari, M. (1996) Coloured identity and the politics of language: The sociopolitical context of Piet Uithalder’s ‘Straatpraatjies’ column. In M. Adhikari (ed.) Straatpraatjies. Language, Politics and Popular Culture in Cape Town, 1909–1922 (pp. 1–18). Pretoria: Van Schaik. Adhikari, M. (ed.) (2009) Burdened by Race: Coloured Identities in Southern Africa. Cape Town: UCT Press. Allen, G. (2000) Intertextuality. London: Routledge. Amit, V. (2010) Community as ‘good to think with’: The productiveness of strategic ambiguities. Anthropologica 52, 357–363. Anzaldúa, G. (2012) Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. San Francisco, CA: Aunt Lute Books. Aronin, L. and Singleton, D. (2008) Multilingualism as a new linguistic dispensation. International Journal of Multilingualism 5, 1–16. Basso, K.H. (1979) Portraits of ‘the Whiteman’: Linguistic Play and Cultural Symbols among the Western Apache. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bauman, R. (2004) A World of Others’ Words: Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Intertextuality. Oxford: Blackwell. Bauman, R. (2005) Commentary: Indirect indexicality, identity, performance: Dialogic observations. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 15, 145–150. Berger, P.L. (1997) Redeeming Laughter. The Comic Dimension of Human Experience. Berlin: De Gruyter. Billig, M. (2005) Laughter and Ridicule: Towards a Social Critique of Humour. London: Sage. Blignaut, J. and Lesch, H. (2014) ʼn Ondersoek na die taalgebruik in Son as verteenwoordigend van Kaaps. Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics Plus 45, 19–41. Bremmer, J. and Roodenburg, H. (1997) Introduction. In J. Bremmer and H. Roodenburg (eds) A Cultural History of Humour (pp. 1–11). Cambridge: Polity Press. Briggs, C.L. and Bauman, R. (1992) Genre, intertextuality, and social power. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 2, 131–172. Butler, J. (1997) Merely cultural. Social Text 52/53, 265–277. Cherry, S. (2008) Parody as a performative analytic: Beyond performativity as metadiscourse. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung/Forum: Qualitative Social Research 9, Art. 25. Critchley, S. (2002) On Humour. New York: Routledge. Drewett, M. (2002) Satirical opposition in popular music within apartheid and postapartheid South Africa. Society in Transition 33, 80–95. Eisner, E.W. (2001) Concerns and aspirations for qualitative research in the new millennium. Qualitative Research 1, 135–145. Els, C. (2013) Constructing xenophobic discourses: The case of the Daily Sun. Language Matters 44, 47–67. Erasmus, Z. (2000) Recognition through pleasure, recognition through violence: Gendered coloured subjectivities in South Africa. Current Sociology 48, 71–85. Errington, J. (2008) Linguistics in a Colonial World. A Story of Language, Meaning, and Power. London: Blackwell. Fairclough, N. (1992) Intertextuality in critical discourse analysis. Linguistics and Education 4, 269–293.

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Fine, G.A. (1988) The ten commandments of writing. The American Sociologist 19, 152–157. Gouin, R.R. (2004) What’s so funny? Humor in women’s accounts of their involvement in social action. Qualitative Research 4, 25–44. Hendricks, F. (2016) The nature and context of Kaaps: A contemporary, past and future perspective. Multilingual Margins: A Journal of Multilingualism from the Periphery 3, 6–39. Heugh, K. (2017) Re-placing and re-centring southern multilingualisms. A decolonial project. In C. Kerfoot and K. Hyltenstam (eds) Entangled Discourses. South–North Orders of Visibility (pp. 209–229). London: Routledge. hooks, b. (1990) Marginality as a site of resistance. In R. Ferguson, M. Gever, T. Minha and C. West (eds) Out There: Marginalization and Contemporary Cultures (pp. 341–343). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Hutcheon, L. (2000) A Theory of Parody: The Teachings of Twentieth-Century Art Forms. Urbana and Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press. Iedema, R. (2003) Multimodality, resemiotization: Extending the analysis of discourse as multi-semiotic practice. Visual Communication 2, 29–57. Jackson, A.Y. (2003) Rhizovocality. Qualitative Studies in Education 16, 693–710. Jansen, J. (2019) From ‘die sedelike toestand van die kleurling’ to ‘the cognitive functioning of coloured women’: A century of research on coloured people at Stellenbosch University. Inaugural lecture, Stellenbosch University, 16 September. Koerner, E.F.K. (2000) Ideology in 19th and 20th century study of language: A neglected aspect of linguistic historiography. Indogermanische Forschungen 105, 1–22. Kristeva, J. (1986) The Kristeva Reader. Oxford: Blackwell. Leonard, W.Y. (2018) Reflections on (de)colonialism in language documentation. In B. McDonnell, A.L. Berez-Kroeker and G. Holton (eds) Reflections on Language Documentation 20 Years After Himmelmann 1998 (pp. 55–65). Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai’i Press. London, L. (1999) The ‘dop’ system, alcohol abuse and social control amongst farm workers in South Africa: A public health challenge. Social Science & Medicine 48, 1407–1414. Macharia, K. (2016) On being area-studied: A litany of complaint. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 22, 183–190. Martin, D.C. (2013) Sounding the Cape: Music, Identity and Politics in South Africa. Somerset West: African Minds. Matthews, W. (2009) Multimodality and negotiation of Cape Flats identity in selected daily voice front pages. Unpublished MA thesis, University of the Western Cape. Mignolo, W.D. (2009) Epistemic disobedience, independent thought and decolonial freedom. Theory, Culture & Society 26, 159–181. Mignolo, W.D. (2011) Epistemic disobedience and the decolonial option: A manifesto. Transmodernity 1, 3–23. Mignolo, W.D. and Walsh, C.E. (2018) On Decoloniality. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Milton, V.C. (2015) Screening culture, tweeting politics: Media citizenship and the politics of representation on SABC2. Journal of African Media Studies 7, 245–265. Moran, L.J., Skeggs, B. and Tyrer, P. (2003) Safety talk, violence and laughter: Methodological reflections on focus groups in violence research. In L.J. Moran, B. Skeggs and P. Tyrer (eds) Researching Violence (pp. 119–137). London: Routledge. Msimang, P. (2020) Lessons in our faults: Fault lines on race and research ethics. South African Journal of Science 116, 1–3. Mulkay, M. (1988) On Humor. Cambridge: Polity Press Musila, G.A. (2019) Against collaboration – Or the native who wanders off. Journal of African Cultural Studies 31, 286–293.

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Nieuwoudt, S., Dickie, K.E., Coetsee, C., Engelbrecht, L. and Terblanche, E. (2020) [Retracted article] Age- and education-related effects on cognitive functioning in colored South African women. Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition 27, 321–337. Örnebring, H. (2006) The maiden tribute and the naming of monsters: Two case studies of tabloid journalism as alternative public sphere. Journalism Studies 7, 851–868. Pennycook, A. (2007) ‘The rotation gets thick. The constraints get thin’: Creativity, recontextualization, and difference. Applied Linguistics 28, 579–596. Posel, D. (2001) Race as common sense: Racial classification in twentieth-century South Africa. African Studies Review 44, 87–114. Ricento, T. (2000) Historical and theoretical perspectives in language policy and planning. Journal of Sociolinguistics 4, 196–213. Saal, E. (2017) ’n Verkenning van taalvariasie in die Afrikaanse poniekoerante Son en Sondag. Litnet Akademies: ‘n Joernaal vir die Geesteswetenskappe, Natuurwetenskappe, Regte en Godsdienswetenskappe 14, 87–132. Santos, B. de Sousa (2014) Epistemologies of the South: Justice against Epistemicide. London: Routledge. Santos, B. de Sousa (2018) The End of the Cognitive Empire: The Coming of Age of Epistemologies of the South. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Sciama, L.D. (2018) Introduction. In L.D. Sciama (ed.) Humour, Comedy and Laughter. Obscenities, Paradoxes, Insights and the Renewal of Life (pp. 1–27). Oxford: Berghahn. Scollon, R. (1998) Mediated Discourse as Social Interaction: A Study of News Discourse. New York: Longman. Singh, J. (2018) Unthinking Mastery: Dehumanism and Decolonial Entanglements. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Smith, A.E. (2012) Acknowledging the audience: The readers behind the success of the Afrikaans-language tabloid Kaapse Son. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, NorthWest University. Smith, A., Fourie, L. and Froneman, J.D. (2012) Setting the tabloid agenda: What two Afrikaans-language tabloids offer their readers. Communicatio 38, 225–243. Stronach, I., Allan, J. and Morris, B. (1996) Can the mothers of invention make virtue out of necessity? An optimistic deconstruction of research compromises in contract research and evaluation. British Educational Research Journal 22, 493–509. Tuhawei Smith, L. (2012) Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. Wasserman, H. (2008) Attack of the killer newspapers! The ‘tabloid revolution’ in South Africa and the future of newspapers. Journalism Studies 9, 786–797. Wasserman, H. (2010) Tabloid Journalism in South Africa: True Story! Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Watson, C. (2015) Comedy and Social Science: Towards a Methodology of Funny. London: Routledge. Williams, G. (2016) Slaves, workers, and wine: The ‘dop system’ in the history of the Cape Wine industry, 1658–1894. Journal of Southern African Studies 42, 893–909. Williams, Q.E. and Stroud, C. (2014) Battling the race: Stylizing language and coproducing whiteness and colouredness in a freestyle rap performance. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 24, 277–293.

13 Decolonial Praxis and Pedagogy in Sociolinguistics: Concluding Reflections Ana Deumert and Sinfree Makoni

Introduction

As scholars we are not only writers and thinkers – we are also teachers, and as such we are involved in discussions about pedagogy and curriculum; discussions that go to the heart of knowledge production and knowledge transmission. In this final chapter, we reflect on the ­pedagogical applications of the work that we do as researchers: What do southern theory and decolonization mean for a reflexive pedagogical practice? What possibilities do these perspectives open for teachers and students as they engage collectively, inside and outside of classrooms? How can we think about doing and teaching sociolinguistics otherwise? Due to our own limitations, our focus is on the anglophone literature – a shortcoming that, yet again, highlights the importance of language and multilingualism in developing meaningful decolonial alternatives (see Chapter 1). There are other blind spots in our work, such as a lack of expertise in Islamic philosophy (Murad Iris, personal correspondence, 2022; see also Wright, 2022), and a limited engagement with work ­coming out of Asia (such as Chen, 2010). Questions of pedagogy and curriculum have been central to debates about decolonization: in the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States, Brazil, Columbia, Ghana, South Africa, Nigeria, the Philippines, India, Turkey and in many other places where scholars and students have made suggestions for decolonizing higher education. Recommendations include (and here we are drawing on Shahjahan et al., 2022, as well as Choudry and Vally, 2020, and Gordon, 2006): (i)

to prioritize texts and authors that have long been marginalized in our reading lists; (ii) to reconceptualize what we consider to be scholarly texts and knowledges, thereby challenging the logocentrism of existing 239

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scholarship and its entanglements with neoliberal understandings of knowledge as a marketable commodity; (iii) to work against the fragmentation of knowledge into disciplines and to encourage transdisciplinary work; (iv) to develop a decolonial pedagogy (including decolonial approaches to assessment); (v) to critically investigate the colonial histories of disciplines; (vi) to recognize students as active participants in the creation of knowledges (thus, echoing Freirean liberation pedagogy; see below); (vii) to pluralize methods of analysis within and across disciplines; (viii) to reimagine questions of authorship and to complexify notions of readership and audience; (ix) to establish links with communities outside of the academy; (x) to change the built environment in which teaching takes place and to reflect critically on the temporalities that shape our teaching practice (such as lecture times and examination schedules); (xi) to de-commodify higher education and to challenge the ‘neoliberal university’ with its focus on global rankings and profit; (xii) to recognize the exploitative-oppressive materiality of higher education from a historical perspective. Concerning the last point, universities across the globe have begun to examine their relationship to colonialism, enslavement and racist oppression. This has led to the renaming of buildings, the removal of statues and other symbolic-political acts. Yet, such acts are often seen as insufficient. At the time of writing the first draft of this conclusion (May 2022), Harvard’s commitment to address its historical ties to slavery was simultaneously lauded and critiqued: Is $100  million, committed to research and community outreach, enough to right the wrongs of the past? Wrongs that affected, and continue to affect, the livelihoods and futures of people through complex intergenerational traumas.1 Eve Tuck and Wayne Yang (2012) remind us that ‘decolonization is not a metaphor’; and Linda Tuhiwai Smith ([1999] 2008: 7) argues, citing Franke Wilmer, that Indigenous dispossession remains ‘the unfinished business of decolonization’. Thus, decolonization – of universities that are historically and currently (via the creation of a precarious workforce) implicated in exploitation and oppression – is not about discourse and epistemology alone: unless stolen lands are returned and reparations are paid to the descendants of those who were enslaved and dispossessed, coloniality will remain (Beckles, 2013; Campell, 2021). While calls for the return of the land and reparations are vital, it is equally important to realize that just like colonialism is a structure and not an event, decolonization – which is an open-ended process – will not happen through one sweeping gesture, but through a multitude of acts that challenge coloniality’s

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continuing force, including pedagogical acts (Attas, 2019; Battiste, 2013; on thinking about colonialism-capitalism-patriarchy as forces rather than structures, see Pratt, 2022). The intellectual landscape of decolonial pedagogy is complex and wide ranging. There is, for example, Sandy Grand’s ([2004] 2015) work on Red Pedagogy and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson’s (2014) reflections on Indigenous land-based pedagogies. Other projects include, ‘pedagogies of the home’ (Bernal, 2001), ‘Sentipensante (sensing/ thinking) pedagogy’ (Rendon, 2009), ‘culturally sustaining pedagogies’ (Paris & Alim, 2017), ‘Barrio/Tezcatlipoca pedagogy’ (Romero et  al., 2009), ‘pedagogy for precarity’ (Benswait & Pérez-Milans, 2022; Zembylas, 2019) and ‘pedagogies for being with’ (Villenas, 2019). We start our discussion by considering Nicholas Riemer’s critique of the teaching of linguistics and its impact on, particularly, undergraduate students. He describes a troubling situation whereby socialization into the discipline also means socialization into the colonial-capitalistpatriarchal order.2 Following this, we take a closer look at the radical pedagogies of Paulo Freire and bell hooks, two scholars who continue to inspire us and who shape our thinking and doing, inside and outside of classrooms. Taking our cue from, especially, bell hooks’ (1994) insistence that learning should be filled with passion and excitement (and, indeed, with love), we suggest that instead of pedagogies that uphold the status quo through the – all too often uninspiring – teaching of ‘agreed-upon’ truths and facts, we could develop – and teach – theories that groove (us) and theories that nourish (us). Drawing on the work of María Lugones (2003), we ask in our conclusion whether it is possible to think about teaching as ‘faithful witnessing’, creating a space where we listen to each other and break down colonial-educational hierarchies and universal truths. This chapter is a personal account of what matters to us as teachers and is offered with humility. Our ideas remain in flux; they are a necessarily imperfect – temporally and spatially grounded – attempt at ‘reimagining academia while inhibiting it’ (Benswait & Peréz-Milans, 2022: 16; Mabandla & Deumert, forthcoming). Apologists of Colonialism-Capitalism?

One of the questions that we must address as scholars and activists is whether we can move outside of the colonial-capitalist-patriarchal order, or whether we are – qua academic employment – inevitably entangled in it. Thus, even when we try to be defiant, the very structures under which we work, tend to ‘straighten’ our praxis so that fugitive scholarship and pedagogy become, over time, integrated into mainstream institutional discourses (Cushing-Leubner et  al., 2021; also Simpson’s, 2014, reflections on the ‘academic industrial complex’; and Gallegos, 2021, on appropriation). While aware of the possibility of co-option and

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complicity, we – Sinfree and Ana – continue to believe, intensely, that fugitive and subversive work remains possible and desirable within the academy. Yet, we acknowledge that it is a struggle; a struggle that risks – at times – intelligibility with what is seen to be the core knowledge of ‘the discipline’. Thus, by engaging with radical scholarship and pedagogy, we might contribute to our own marginalization (that is, the familiar accusation that what we do ‘is not linguistics!’), and for some it might even mean losing one’s livelihood. This is a risk that is especially high for precarious, untenured academic staff. Lest one forgets: Angela Davis was fired from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1970 for what those in power ‘adjudged as her unprofessional rhetoric and uncivil rhetoric in critiquing institutionalized racism and sexism’ (Reynolds, 2020: 155). Speaking ‘truth to power’ can be perilous in a world that seeks to contain those who speak out, who challenge the colonial and capitalist foundations of academia. For example, it is a risk that academics who speak out against the Israeli occupation of Palestine have experienced repeatedly (see the chapters in Landy et al., 2020). Nicholas Riemer (2016) has argued that disciplinarity produces various forms of exclusion through judgements about what is inside and outside of ‘the discipline’, about what is allowed and what is prohibited, as well as what is considered to be common-sense and agreed-upon truths. These judgements are encountered in assessment and in peer review, in the competition for grants and in promotion criteria. The logic of disciplinarity affects the humanities in general, and linguistics, including sociolinguistics, in particular. Riemer argues that the underlying idea which drives linguistic curricula across the globe is the idea that languages – and linguistic practice – may be diverse but that there is a system (la langue) inherent in all languages, and that this system constitutes ‘the real’ in (socio-)linguistics. In Chomskyan linguistics, this is pushed even further, and it is argued that all languages can be reduced to a single underlying set of computational principles; that is, to a single underlying form. This idea reinforces Western ethnocentrism by emphasizing homogeneity over heterogeneity, universality over pluriversality. In addition, cognitive theories tend to position language as the mental property of individuals, and speakers/hearers are conceptualized as rational agents. Riemer challenges linguists to reflect critically on their own discipline and argues that the epistemes that underpin linguistics advocate a particular idea of personhood, of one’s being-in-the-world. He writes: [Linguistic theories] reinforce a model of personhood – a model of what people are like – particularly compatible with the requirements of contemporary ‘globalized’, capitalist economies. Just like the other ‘human sciences’… linguistics contributes to one of universities’ most essential roles: ideologically ‘formatting’ students into the atomized, normalized, and rationalistic subjects that best match market norms. Human nature

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as idealized by linguistic theory – individualized, intellectualist, rulefollowing and uniform – embodies the perfect participant in technocratic capitalist economies. (Riemer, 2016)

Thus, by positioning language as a ‘rule-governed system’, linguists normalize forms of governmentality that rely on ideas of rules, norms as well as modernist rationality (see also Seargeant, 2010). In a talk, given at the African Studies Global Forum, Riemer (2020) poses a question that is pertinent to this volume; he asks: ‘What kind of linguistics do we need in an era of accelerating climate catastrophe and mounting authoritarianism?’.3 And we would like to add: What kind of linguistics do we need in an era where the slow emergencies of racism, patriarchy, coloniality and capitalism are ever present? One might, of course, argue that critical sociolinguistics has addressed many of these critiques. Have scholars not displaced individualistic ideas of language with concepts such as ‘distributed language’ (Cowley, 2011)? Emphasized the importance of emotions (Pritzker et al., 2019)? Emphatically critiqued the ideologies that underpin language standardization (Makoni & Pennycook, 2007; Milroy, 2001)? Articulated a commitment to a complexity that cannot be reduced (Blommaert, 2013)? The chapters in this volume speak to the new perspectives that sociolinguists have been articulating, moving beyond not only traditional linguistics, but also early sociolinguistics (Deumert, 2001). Yet, notwithstanding our engagement with the work of rethinking and critique, sometimes we might slip back into the modes of thought in which many of us were trained, modes of thought that constitute what we might call the ‘disciplinary unconscious’ (Steinmetz, 2005). For example, many of us who, in an increasingly massified university, teach large introductory classes might find themselves in a position where one lectures about the ‘rules’ of online communication and the variable rules of Labovian sociolinguistics; one might reflect on the ideologies of standardization in one’s lectures, yet mark students down for not using ‘academic language’ in their essays; one might be asked to teach an introductory overview of segmental phonology, or argue in an introduction to semantics that words ‘have meanings’, and that information is organized in topic-comment structures? How can, or should, one engage with the canon, the disciplinary heritage – especially in large undergraduate classes, where assessment is still often exam based, thus reinforcing the idea that there exist agreed-upon ‘facts’ about language that students ‘need’ to know? Ancestors

We call Paulo Freire and bell hooks our ‘ancestors’. Long before decolonization and southern theory became buzzwords in the ­academy, Freire and hooks reflected with deep commitment and passion on

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questions of pedagogy. We believe that staying attuned to one’s ancestors is important: sometimes we get so caught up in the current moment that we forget the many who were there before us, and who remind us that we are part of a larger tradition of radical thought, a tradition where teaching has been linked to concepts such as freedom and transgression, hope and love. To keep this archive alive and to learn from it is part of our larger intellectual project. Freire’s work has resonated with many people across the Global South. Freire’s ([1970] 2005; also Freire, 1994) Pedagogy of the Oppressed is a seminal text that has shaped discussions about education globally. Freire starts from the experiences of the students themselves, their lived realities, and emphasizes the importance of what we now call ‘southern theory’ throughout his work (Assié-Lumumba et al., 2019). He considers the Global South as a ‘prophetic space’; that is, as a space that prefigures our futures not as dystopian – shaped by colonial legacies, trauma and exploitation – but as hopeful and utopian, speaking to the ability of people to rise above the horrors of the past-present and to struggle for change, for a future (Torres, 2019: 14). Reflecting on South American approaches to education more generally, Sara Motta (2014: 5) notes that they articulate ‘an epistemological politics in which the pedagogical takes center stage’ – and which challenges existing education systems that seek to maintain ‘patriarchal colonial capitalism’ (Motta, 2014: 1). A luta continua, the rallying cry of the FRELIMO movement in Mozambique, reminds us that the struggles against oppression will ­continue until that day when ‘the people are free’. Freire ([1970] 2005: 56) writes in the Pedagogy of the Oppressed that the future will be ­configured in the south: ‘It is only the oppressed who, by freeing themselves, can free their oppressors. The latter, as an oppressive class, can free ­neither others nor themselves’. Formulated 50 years ago, this is a sobering a­ ssessment for those who still believe that Euro-American theory can be at the vanguard in the social sciences. Education is central to the project of southern theory and to decolonization: it is a political act; a form of praxis that, by combining theoretical reflection and transformative action, seeks to change ‘the world’; that is, its onto-epistemologies as well as materialities. Material conditions affect classrooms directly. Many of us work in contexts where the cost of higher education has become unaffordable, putting enormous pressure on students and their families (Motta, 2014). In South Africa, for example, student hunger is a serious concern. Babalwa Magoqwana (2018: 115) asks poignantly: ‘What are the ethics of teaching a hungry and starving student?’. And one might ask further: What are the ethics of working at a neoliberal university that is ‘dominated by the logic and dynamic of the market’ (Mamdani, 2007: 4), and thereby embedded – structurally – in colonial-capitalist-patriarchal relations, including multiple forms of exploitation among those who inhabit it? Yet, many of us find ourselves working in such places, and

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simultaneously seek to create spaces that can provide – even if just for a moment – refuge. This brings us to bell hooks – someone who has created just such spaces in her work, drawing on pedagogies that enable love and care, indeed healing. bell hooks (1994; also hooks, 2003) has written extensively about the influence Freire had on her pedagogy, a pedagogy that is grounded in the idea of the classroom as a community. hooks emphasizes the need for ‘presence’ in our classrooms and writes: ‘any radical pedagogy must insist that everyone’s presence is acknowledged’ (hooks, 1994: 8). This means that listening to everyone’s voice – carefully and with interest/ love/compassion – is central; teaching is dialogue, not monologue. While some activist academics might argue that their writing and research is the place where they strive for change (and bring about change in theory and epistemology), hooks (1994: 12) sees the classroom as ‘the most radical space of possibility in the academy’. This is worth reflecting on. At a time when the value of a scholar is often seen in one’s ability to withdraw from teaching (especially undergraduate teaching) and so-called ‘research chairs’ are highly prized achievements in the global academy, hooks asks us to stay in the classroom. While the academic-as-writer can, in principle, live a more traditional life-of-the-mind, focusing on the production of texts and thereby implicitly upholding a Cartesian mind–body binary, the academic-as-teacher can never become mind/text-only, can never neglect the body: when one is present in the classroom, one moves (maybe one strides, limps, stumbles, skips), and one’s bodily presence becomes palatable. hooks writes: The traditional notion of being in the classroom is a teacher behind a desk or standing at the front, immobilized. In a weird way that recalls the firm, immobilized body of knowledges as part of the immutability of truth itself … When you leave the podium and walk around, suddenly the way you walk, the way you move become very apparent to your students. (hooks, 1994: 137–138)

And it is because of this, because of the acknowledgement of our bodily presence as part of teaching and learning, that teachers, according to hooks, have a responsibility to be self-actualized individuals, to be more than simply experts in their disciplines. She writes: If professors are wounded, damaged individuals, people who are not selfactualized, then they will seek asylum in the academy rather than seek to make the academy a place of challenge, dialectical interchange, and growth. (hooks, 1994: 165)

This does not ask us to deny our vulnerabilities; on the contrary, it asks us to face them and not to hide behind the status of being ‘the professor’

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(however this persona is imagined). hooks asks us to make ourselves visible and vulnerable in the classroom. She also asks us to ‘teach with love’, thereby opening a discourse about teaching that is largely taboo in a higher education landscape where teaching is assessed through standardized course evaluations and celebrated through annual ‘awards’ that are given to individuals; rather than being a recognition of, and a commitment to, classrooms as learning communities. The vision of love that hooks writes about, is not simply a love for teaching (as an individualized skill or commitment), but a love for all of those who are co-present with us in this space. Talking about love – rather than care, which increasingly functions as a code for measures that restore workforce productivity by focusing on individual well-being – is inherently subversive in a world shaped by colonialism-capitalism-patriarchy. Theories that Groove

bell hooks (1994) emphasizes the importance of pleasure and enjoyment, not only in life but also in the academy, including the classroom. She writes about a student, O’Neal LaRon Clark, who loved to dance. He wrote in his journal: I loved to dance. When I was a child, I danced everywhere. Why walk when you can shuffle-ball-change all the way: When I danced my soul ran free. I was poetry… I guess for me, surviving whole means never to stop dancing. (Cited in hooks, 1994: 197)

As noted in the Introduction, the very title of this volume suggests a sense of movement, perhaps even a dance. It is a movement/dance from southern theory (as a primarily epistemological project) to decolonization (as a more strongly political project). Yet, the title is also a fragment and necessarily incomplete: the movement loops back (and forth), reconnecting the political to the epistemic, and the epistemic to the political. This creates circles and lines of flight – of escape and possibility – rather than unilinear progressions or historical inevitabilities (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987). Our interest in putting together this volume did not lie in providing definite answers to questions such as ‘What is southern theory?’ or ‘What is decolonization?’ (which could then be taught in classrooms as ‘truths’), but rather in an exploration of their dynamic and forever moving assemblages, their mobile interconnections and entanglements. Let us stay with dance and its counterpart, music. Can we rethink dance and music as onto-epistemologies without reproducing new forms of orientalism (Steingo & Sykes, 2019)? This, we believe, is a project that is worth exploring because dance/music allows us to link theory to praxis in ways that acknowledge the importance of

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affect and, following hooks, passion and bodily movement (see also Mabandla & Deumert, 2020, on sonic decolonization; see Denning, 2016, on dance and decolonization). Clyde Woods ([1998] 2017) proposed the idea of a ‘blues epistemology’ in his work on the Mississippi Delta. Woods proceeds from the idea that everyday ways of being, talking and creating are not simply practices but also epistemologies. The blues, argues Woods, is a Black working-class epistemology and social-political critique that, rooted in historical and present-day experiences of dispossession and oppression, reflects the complex dialectics of despair and hope, articulating vulnerabilities as well as strengths and resistances (also Baraka, 1963). Woods (2007) describes the blues as follows: [A] knowledge system Indigenous to the United States that is expressed through an ever-expanding variety of cultural, economic, political and social traditions. Embedded within the blues tradition are highly developed and institutionalized forms of philosophy, political economy, social theory and practice, and geographic knowledge that are dedicated to the realization of global social justice. (Woods, 2007: 49)

Thus, the blues is an onto-epistemology of the world, expressing resistance against the plantation logic that underpins past and current economies. It also articulates – as Angela Davis (1998) reminds us – radical Black Feminist thought. Drawing on a blues epistemology offers one a way to speak, write and listen in a different register – a register that recognizes that the world is in trouble and that we need to acknowledge these troubles in order to develop alternative futures (see also More, 2019: 149–150). Another scholar who has engaged with music as a way of thinking is Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, who argues that each language has its ‘own unique musicality’. It is this diversity of sounds that creates possibilities and futures outside of hegemonic norms, that allows one to challenge the power of empire. He expanded as follows during a talk he gave at the African Studies Global Forum (2020): Language is like a musical instrument, if you like. We have a piano for reasons, we have a guitar, we have – what do they call the one they play with strings over their shoulder like this? Oh my! Violin! …each of those instruments, whatever their size, whatever [their] shape, has its unique musicality… we don’t ever say that we ban all other instruments or suppress them and have the piano only. Or the guitar only… But if you had a colonial process … they tell you, no, there is some languages whose musicality is more musical… In fact, they go ahead and say, no, let’s suppress these other instruments, and [hear] only the ones that come from imperial centers!4

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Working through dance and music as onto-epistemologies for southern theory and decolonial thinking, one can also draw on Lewis Gordon’s (1997: 223) reflections on the philosophical and political importance of ‘the groove’. In Her Majesty’s Other Children, he writes about jazz and, like Woods and Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, sees it as a form of social and political theory: Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could live the folkways and mores of our society in the form of a jazz performance? Imagine what would happen if the laws and economic structures were opportunities for freedom instead of constraints upon it … Our current society is like an orchestra with a music sheet, but no groove. (Gordon, 1997: 23)

Thus, we might want to ask: Can we formulate – and teach – sociolinguistic theories that groove (us) and move (us)? Can sociolinguistics be bluesy or jazzy? What do we hear and sense as we listen to language’s musicality? Theories that Nourish

In the previous section, we wrote about ‘theories that groove’. Talking and thinking about music and dance links to our visceral experiences: music affects our bodies and, quite literally, moves them. By emphasizing music and dance, we emphasize the experiential – bodily and sensual – dimensions of social life. Another approach could be to focus on food, on what nourishes our bodies and emphasizes the multiplicity of our sensory experiences: taste is bound up with smell and vision, as well as a range of tactile sensations (i.e. the tools that we use to eat and the plates on which food is presented). Food is also linked closely to our identities – to our experiences of home and belonging; to the festivities and celebrations that shape our calendars. Food can even heal us, providing us with comfort in times of distress. Maria Paula Meneses (2020), for example, writes about women’s knowledge of recipes. These discourses span the Indian Ocean and contain rich and complex knowledges about food, cooking practices, tastes and aromas. Thus, talking about food can produce rich epistemologies and histories that are grounded in the everyday and the senses. Meneses (2020: 162) is especially interested in exploring whether ‘the ecology of tastes enables us to rediscover bridges between the known and the silenced, the familiar and the strange, thus ensuring the (re)existence of women in the struggles against oppression’. As sociolinguists, we might ask whether thinking about tastes and aromas can contribute towards the incipient development of a ‘post-abyssal’ epistemology of language that challenges ‘the abstract and impersonal regime of modernity by

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virtue of their radical interiority, boundary-transgressing propensity and emotional potency’ (Classen et al., 1994: 5, cited in Meneses, 2020). If languages have musicality, do they also have tastes and smells? And do different languages or ways of speaking have different tastes and smells? One can approach the ontology of language through metaphors of food and nourishment; one can also use this angle to explore the social and economic relationships that are created when food is sparse or even missing, when it is produced and consumed, leading to complex semiotic practices in, for example, commercial restaurant kitchens (Gonçalves, 2020) as well as in spaces of sociability where memories and food are entangled with communal eating (Harris, 2011). The poet Nikki Giovanni picks up on the idea of nourishment in a tribute that she wrote for Aretha Franklin. Giovanni remarks on Franklin’s astonishing vocal range and suggests that her voice – and its unique quality – can be understood as the embodiment of a trans-generational ethics of female care and love, an ethics that took the body and its nourishment seriously. Giovanni (cited in Lordi, 2013: 205) writes: Maybe she caught a cold when she was an infant and her mother and grandmother rubbed her chest with oil of cloves. Something like that must have given her that smoldering quality. Maybe it was the jowl bacon in the pinto beans with a side of cold water cornbread, or maybe fried fish with hush puppies. There had to be okra because she lived with Mahalia Jackson, so there must have been stewed okra with tomatoes or just good old collard greens with a splash of hot vinegar. Fried chicken.

We are nourished by food, and the visceral experiences of taste and smell permeate our lives and bodies; they shape our voices in material as well as symbolic ways. Food, in other words, is not simply a commodity (even though capitalist societies position it as such): it is sociability and spirituality, history and identity. We are also nourished by ideas – sometimes, like bell hooks (cited in the Introduction), we come to theory in search of nourishment and healing. In her conversations with Cornell West, hooks comments on the link between food and theory explicitly when she notes: ‘I think back to why we considered calling our dialogues together Breaking Bread – the sense of taking one’s nourishment in that space where you find it’ (hooks & West, 2017: 333). Breaking Bread – a concept that is deeply embedded in Black philosophy – refers to acts of communion and sharing, of coming together. Cornel West further reminds the reader of an old funk song, Breakin’ Bread, by Fred and the New J.B.’s (1974). The lyrics link food to tradition and home, to conversations with family and friends, to pleasure, enjoyment and sociability.

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Conclusion: Witnessing

In conclusion, we draw on María Lugones’ concept of ‘faithful witnessing’, a concept that emphasizes the importance of attending to multiple worlds of sense and being across time, thereby engaging in a politics of recognition that goes beyond conventional (colonial?) understandings of recognition (as political or legal visibility; also Smith, [1999] 2021: 143, 144, on ‘claiming’ and ‘testimony’). In doing so, in witnessing otros mundos/other worlds, one resists the colonialcapitalist-patriarchal order and its claims to universal forms of knowledge. Faithful witnessing as a political practice recognizes that no one is never fully controlled or defined by the forces of oppression, instead it is possible to find ways to live in the fracture by listening to ways of being and feeling that have been rendered unheard, unseen and unintelligible by coloniality/modernity (also Anzaldúa, 2007; Deumert, 2022; Figueroa-Váquez, 2020). Thus, instead of formulating an authoritative decolonial epistemology, which would stand in direct contradiction to the pluriversal ethos of decolonization, Lugones encourages us to keep seeking and searching, to keep listening and engaging and to attend to ‘multiplicity, impurity and complex communication’ (Velez & Tuana, 2020: 12). ‘Complex communication’, according to Lugones (2006: 81), allows us to articulate forms of knowledge that resist ‘reduction, translation and assimilation’. It is through ‘faithful witnessing’ that one can engage with knowledges that transgress and that resist integration into existing modes of thinking, including, perhaps, some decolonial narratives which risk becoming new hegemonies (see Singh, this volume). It also reminds us of the importance of conflict and tension, of taking communicative risks with others as we seek to understand each other, only then will we be able to form ‘deep coalitions’ which are grounded in ‘a loving connection towards liberation’ (Lugones, 2006: 79), and not in identificatory similarities. Following Omar Rivera (2020), we suggest that witnessing is further grounded in a particular temporality, one that seems to be far removed from our lives as academics, lives that appear to get busier and busier with each year as we meet performance targets, increase enrolments and become ever more ‘productive’. Stillness, which allows for ‘transgressing the expectations of a “western conception of agency”’ (Rivera, 2020: 95), enables ‘corporeal and affective metamorphoses’ (Rivera, 2020: 96), and focuses our attention – by being in the world and aware of it – on the mutability and instability of just this world. Thus, pedagogy, as we understand it, is not the hustle and bustle of running from class to class: teaching is not only about passion and enjoyment, but it is also about stillness, and witnessing, faithfully and lovingly, the complexity around us, the voices and bodies that we encounter.

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Notes (1) https://www​.nytimes​.com​/2022​/04​/26​/us​/harvard​-slavery​-redress​-fund​.html. (2) The phrase ‘colonial-capitalist-patriarchal order’ recognizes colonialism as foundational to contemporary forms of capitalism and patriarchy. (3) https://www​.youtube​.com​/watch​?v=​-9k4Ig4voGM. (4) https://www​.youtube​.com​/watch​?v​=LcHsqXB2dxM.

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More, M.P. (2019) Looking Through Philosophy in Black: Memoirs. London: Rowman & Littlefield. Motta, S. (2014) Introduction: Pedagogizing the political and politicizing pedagogy. In S. Motta and M. Cole (eds) Constructing Twenty-First Century Socialism in Latin America. The Role of Radical Education (pp. 1–18). New York: Palgrave McMillan. Paris, D. and Alim, S. (eds.) (2017) Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies: Teaching and Learning for Justice in a Changing World. New York: Teacher’s College Press. Pratt, M.L. (2022) Planetary Longings. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Pritzker, S.E., Fenigsen, J. and Wilce, J.M. (eds) (2019) The Routledge Handbook of Language and Emotion. New York: Routledge. Rendon, L.I. (2009) Sentipensante (Sensing/Thinking) Pedagogy. Educating for Wholeness, Social Justice and Liberation. Sterling: Stylus Publishing. Reynolds, J. (2020) Colonial apologism and the politics of academic freedom. In D. Lanty, R. Lentin and C. McCarthy (eds) Enforcing Silence. Academic Freedom, Palestine and the Criticism of Israel (pp. 155–182). London: Zed Books. Riemer, N. (2016) Diversity, linguistics and domination: How linguistic theory can feed a kind of politics most linguists would oppose. History and Philosophy of the Language Sciences. See https://hiphilangsci​.net​/2016​/05​/11​/diversity​-linguistics​-and​ -domination​-how​-linguistic​-theory​-can​-feed​-a​-kind​-of​-politics​-most​-linguists​-would​ -oppose/ (accessed 6 March 2023). Riemer, N. (2020) Linguistic form: A political epistemology. African Studies Global Forum. See https://www​.youtube​.com​/watch​?v=​-9k4Ig4voGM (accessed 6 March 2023). Rivera, O. (2020) Stillness, aesthesis, resistance. Critical Philosophy of Race 8, 84–101. Romero, A., Arce, S. and Cammarota, J. (2009) A barrio pedagogy: Identity, intellectualism, activism, and academic achievement through the evolution of critically compassionate intellectualism. Race Ethnicity and Education 12, 217–233. Seargeant, P. (2010) The historical ontology of language. Language Sciences 32, 1–13. Shahjahan, R.A., Estera, A.L., Surla, K.L. and Edwards, K.T. (2022) ‘Decolonizing’ curriculum and pedagogy: A comparative review across disciplines and global higher education contexts. Review of Educational Research 92, 73–113. Simpson, L.B. (2014) Land as pedagogy: Nishnaabeg intelligence and rebellious transformation. Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society 3, 1–25. Smith, L.T. ([1999] 2008) Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. London: Zed Books. Steingo, G. and Styes, J. (eds) (2019) Remapping Sound. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Steinmetz, G. (2005) The epistemological unconscious of U.S. sociology and the transition to post Fordism: The case of historical sociology. In J. Adams, E. Clemens and A. Orloff (eds) Remaking Modernity: Politics, History and Sociology (pp. 109–160). Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Torres, C.A. (ed.) (2019) The Wiley Handbook of Paulo Freire. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell. Tuck, E. and Yang, K.W. (2012) Decolonization is not a metaphor. Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society 1, 1–40. Velez, E. and Tuana, N. (2020) Tango dancing with María Lugones: Toward decolonial feminisms. Critical Philosophy of Race 8, 1–24. Villenas, S.A. (2019) Pedagogies of being with: Witnessing, testimonio, and critical love in everyday social movement. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 32, 151–166. Woods, C. (2007) Sitting on top of the world. In K. McKittrick and C. Woods (eds) Black Geographies and the Politics of Place (pp. 46–81). Toronto: Between the Lines.

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Woods, C. ([1998] 2017) Development Arrested: The Blues and Plantation Power in the Mississippi Delta. London: Verso. Wright, Z. (2022) Islam, Blackness, and African cultural distinction: The Islamic Négritude of Shaykh Ibrāhīm Niasse. Journal of Africana Religions 10, 237–265. Zembylas, M. (2019) The ethics and politics of precarity: Risks and productive possibilities of a critical pedagogy for precarity. Studies in Philosophy and Education 38, 95–111.

14 Commentary: From Southern Theory to Decolonizing Sociolinguistics – A Radical Listening Crispin Thurlow

This is the second time I find myself in the privileged but fraught position of commenting on a gathering of southern theory scholarship. The first time was in 2018 at the sociolinguistics symposium in Auckland where I had been invited to serve as ‘discussant’ for Ana Deumert’s invited panel ‘Sociolinguistics and Southern Theory – Voices, Questions and Alternatives’. Back then, while I sat listening to the presentations, I remember feeling a rising sense of discomfort – or mild panic – as the appointed ‘discussant’ moment approached: the white, middle-aged man from Colonial Switzerland was going to take the floor and cast some sort of summative opinion. It felt all wrong. I was simply in the wrong body and from the wrong place. As I grappled with this rising sense of my 255

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wrongness, it dawned on me that this self-consciousness was yet another way for a northerner to make it all about himself. If I didn’t get a grip, my anxiety would simply end up drawing attention away from the real task at hand. And, in order to get a grip, I realized I actually had to let go. As it happens, a solution was to be found in a different dimension of my subjectivity. Almost at the last minute, I decided to flip the script and queer things up a little. Instead of making some authoritative pronouncement, I invited anyone present – presenters and audience alike – to come to the front and write on the board their own brief comments or take-aways, their own reflections on the work of southern theory. Just as I valued the willingness of everyone to play along then, I’ve really valued returning to these snippets several years later. I am mindful that the exercise might be construed as my having side-stepped my duties or shirked my responsibility; worse, it might feel like I’d merely outsourced the intellectual labour. I certainly didn’t mean for it to be like this. Mostly, and somewhat uncharacteristically for an academic, I just wanted to shut up and listen. Finding myself now with an invitation to comment on the chapters gathered here, I’ve been in a similarly dithery state. Should I just bend to convention and do what people would normally be expected to do? Or maybe I find some alternative device for commenting without necessarily casting an opinion or positioning myself as assessor? Well, I’ve chosen the second of these options, following my queer instincts again but this time with an even more deliberate spirit of radical listening. This way of listening – without defense or counterpoint – is something white, middle-class people from the north often seem to find especially challenging; my kind of people can become very agitated when told, ‘no-one’s asked for your approval, your consent, or even your agreement; could you perhaps just listen and try to understand’. Well, it is with this in mind that I offer a selection of special moments from my cover-to-cover reading of the current volume. As a kind of ‘uncreative writing’, this is another performative attempt to reduce the space allotted to my voice and to make space for others’ voices. The following extracts are obviously a privileged, subjective curation, but they hopefully also represent my attempt to shut up – almost – and listen carefully. It is in this way that I’ve found myself opening up to the experience and wisdom of others who simply know better.  In this volume, we suggest that southern theory is an invaluable and necessary strategy in the creation of a decolonized sociolinguistic imagination. (p. 5)  Southern theory includes those forms of knowledge that have been erased, oppressed, silenced, exploited, and buried … Much academic theory remains Eurocentric and exclusionary to experiences that are outside

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of its hegemonic frame; a frame that is defined by whiteness, maleness, ableist and middle-class identities. (p. 5-6)  In postcolonial contexts, the question of what counts as one’s ‘own’ culture, one’s ‘own’ identity, is a matter of finding a locus of enunciation ... a space from which one can speak, from which one can assemble a hybrid identity, constantly negotiating between precolonial imagination, colonial mimesis and decolonial futures. (p. 18)  As critical scholars and democratic citizens, we are now in a position to sharpen our understanding of what decolonization and decoloniality mean to us, and if, and how much, we want to allow right-wing ethnonationalist movements that we see springing up across the postcolony today to engage with some perhaps dangerously similar ideas. (p. 34-35)  ...I see the south not as a geographical concept, but as a tool for understanding processes of marginalization, silencing and colonization. (p. 40)  Southern theory researchers have shown that colonialism led to an erasure of cultural memory and made the colonized people feel that their cultures were inferior and that abandoning them to adopt the cultural practices of the colonizer was the way forward to prosperity and civilization. (p. 45)  Southern theory shows that there are other possible futures, born out of struggle and awareness of suffering ... which remind us that facing hurt from the past is not in vain because this may lead us to new possible futures. (p. 53)  I think decoloniality needs multiple tools and technologies for meaningmaking, multiple graphisms if you will. But also, it needs to be done in and through multiple languages. (p. 58)  The first two moments of decoloniality are naming and detecting, the third moment is opposing, and the fourth moment is re-placing. If the opposing is really thinking through how to unsettle and delink, then re-placing is really the creative work and the collective work that comes after that. (p. 60)

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 There is a danger generally as we seek alternative ways of thinking from a southern perspective that in a rush to reject mind–body dualism or forms of rational and scientific thinking, we end up projecting a world of bodies and emotions onto southern epistemologies, a project that can start to look uncomfortably like a perpetuation of the colonial distinction between the rational Euro­pean mind and its bodily others. (p. 79)  This is not only a question of the development of epistemologies of the south and an ecology of knowledges but also the cultivation of a decolonial imagination ... This is not only about showing the limits of northern social theory, but also about joining in political struggle, and seeking alternative ways of thinking, researching and understanding. (p. 85)  Exploring the relevance of Santos’ ... dimensions of the epistemologies of the south, we conclude that the practices of [modern African Christian worship] are indeed an indication that the Eurocentric understanding of the world (in this case, the association of the religious domain with a particular ‘religious’ language or activity) is not the only way to view the world. (p. 106)  The protectionist and salvationist discourses underlying work in language endangerment are often based on romantic and acritical views … This means that the very idea of language and knowledge transmission has to be radically contextualized into the way people collectively experience language. (p. 114)  A decolonial approach to language policy aims at problematizing the historical process of construction and the crystallization of theological and European concepts of languages centred on ideas of grammar, dictionaries, literacy and research. This does not mean, of course, to cancel this theoretical-methodological framework, but to provoke a dialogue with other subjects and processes of knowledge construction and dissemination. (p. 122)  If the Eurocentric world has invariably believed in the existence of a single nature and different cultures (i.e. a multiculturalism), Amerindians

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have always understood that all beings live under the same culture while inhabiting different natures (i.e. a multinaturalism). (p. 128)  In this sense, doing research in the Anthropocene becomes an exercise in solidarity across social differences, borders and histories – a form of solidarity that is made up of affective lines, as all these six pieces of scholarship at stake demonstrate. In this process of common weaving, hope is a practical project, where one aspires with others to slowly change meanings in life … decoloniality is a philosophy that, in opposing itself to coloniality, promotes human inter-relationality and aims at challenging hierarchies of difference that dehumanize individuals and communities. (p. 142-143)  A nation with differing patterns of language use from one region to another may therefore have different multilingualisms to serve the language needs of each region. (p. 147)  The reality in the Global South is that when only a small number of languages are used in the education system, a large proportion of the population is denied the ability to participate in their own development and that of their country. (p. 158)  …decolonial theory invites you to be decolonial, especially in the case of Latin America, by de-universalizing colonial knowledges, and by recognizing that the universalization of colonial knowledges was achieved by separating the enunciated from the enouncer and the context of enunciation. (p. 181-182)  So, when in Brazil we speak of the colonizing north, as if it’s there at a geographic distance, it has always bothered me. Whatever we blame the colonizing north for – meaning the USA – we are replicating in relation to our Black and Indigenous communities … We embark on the bandwagon of decoloniality but remain silently complicit with continuing, ever-present coloniality. A bit like singing the praises of super-diversity but silently demanding monolingual assimilation. (p. 183-184)  So, it’s the task of translation to emphasize, and not overcome, the unsurmountable differences between elements in contact, and progressively

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address and work these differences, thus controlling the equivocation that undeniably exists … it involves ‘understanding that one doesn’t understand’, and working out the ethical implications of co-existence from this point. (p. 190-191)  I think when decoloniality becomes a fashion, we hear and read a lot with the word ‘decolonial’, but the colonial conditions of production have not changed. They claim to be putting into practice something decolonial, but the question remains, are they decolonial? Or are they just using the word decolonial? What they are saying appears to be decolonial; but it’s like, speaking French doesn’t make you French … Adopting a decolonial perspective can never be a fashion, because it’s a commitment that guides you in every moment … You can’t say ‘my work is decolonial’, and your project remains the same. If you’re now decolonial, that changes the entire project. (p. 192)  Given the fact of language as a normative system of institutional closure in the sense of Fanon, language as such requires a radical and transformational revamp together with other institutions of human stricture. (p. 209)  Acts of linguistic citizenship, like acts of love, also shock the self into a separation and recognition of difference that creates an unpredictable and precariously unscripted space where common ground cannot be assumed but must be (re)claimed. (p. 212)  Linguistic coloniality has perpetuated the subjection of difference rather than engage it in conversation, constrained agency, smothered voices and moulded bodies and souls racially. It has done so by materially constructing difference as race, ethnicity, sexuality and gender through legitimizing hierarchies of languages and their speakers, and according them differential values on markets of the (non)human. (p. 214)  Perhaps one test to make sure that we can study a particular community should be our answer to the question, ‘Do we get their jokes?’ Jokes work when there is a ‘tacit social contract at work’, when there is an agreement that the background to the joke is ‘the social world in which we find ourselves’. Not getting a group or community’s jokes can thus be a very good indicator of not understanding enough about their shared social realities. (p. 231-232) 

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Am I calling for an abandonment of analysis? No, but I want to propose other forms of (non-)analysis as a decolonial option, as another doorway into knowledge. (p. 233)  And this is exactly one of the absurdities of writing practices in sociolinguistics – that despite a wholesale agreement that all languages have the potential to express complex meanings, most sociolinguists (myself included) publish in English or other powerful world languages and in standard varieties thereof. By writing in another language (even if just short insertions) or in non-standard varieties, one can expose the absurdity of the practice of writing about variation and difference in monolingual and monomodal ways. (p. 233)  …it is equally important to realize that just like colonialism is a structure and not an event, decolonization - which is an open-ended process - will not happen through one sweeping gesture, but through a multitude of acts that challenge coloniality’s continuing force, including pedagogical acts. (p. 240-241)  One of the questions that we must address as scholars and activists is whether we can move outside of the colonial-capitalist-patriarchal order, or whether we are – qua academic employment – inevitably entangled in it. Thus, even when we try to be defiant, the very structures under which we work, tend to ‘straighten’ our praxis so that fugitive scholarship and pedagogy become, over time, integrated into mainstream institutional discourses. (p. 241)  We believe that staying attuned to one’s ancestors is important: sometimes we get so caught up in the current moment that we forget the many who were there before us, and who remind us that we are part of a larger tradition of radical thought, a tradition where teaching has been linked to concepts such as freedom and transgression, hope and love. To keep this archive alive and to learn from it is part of our larger intellectual project. (p. 244)  Note: I am most grateful to the person shown for their permission to use the image at the start of my commentary. Bibliography Purtschert, P. and Fischer-Tiné, H. (2015) Colonial Switzerland: Rethinking Colonialism from the Margins. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Tobin, K. (2009) Tuning into Others’ voices: Radical listening, learning from difference, and escaping oppression. Cultural Studies of Science Education 4, 505–511.

15 Commentary: Mobile Gazing. On Ethical Viability and Epistemological Sustainability Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta

In perfect rhythm, the art-form becomes like the stars which in their seeming stillness are never still, like a motionless flame that is nothing by movement. Rabindranath Tagore, 2003: 661

The editors of this volume, Ana Deumert and Sinfree Makoni, bring together reflections and writings that set out to ‘trouble’ naturalizations embedded in the language sciences/studies (broadly conceptualized). They argue in the Introduction (Chapter 1) that troubling the mainstream enables making visible: [T]hose forms of knowledge that have been erased, oppressed, silenced, exploited, and buried […this work] is not merely an academic exercise …It is also always a political intervention that seeks to give us new words and concepts that challenge the status quo of a world that remains patriarchal-colonial-capitalist in its orientation. (p. 6)

As part of efforts to reduce recreating new monolithic ways of writing that replace contemporary central publishing circuit naturalizations, one can ask: what if we could operationalize salient dimensions of decolonization more radically in our own writings? Some contributions in this volume indeed are illustrative of how scholarly writings can challenge taken-for-grated hegemonies regarding what it means to do social science and humanities. Chapters 4 and 10, for instance, can raise questions regarding copyright-coloniality, i.e. who gets credit as the author/s of a contribution: the interviewed scholars Ellen Cushman and Lynn Mario de Souza, the editors who shift hats and become interviewers, all parties involved? Going beyond taken-for-granted copyright hegemonies, the 262

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interviewed and interviewers are the authors, and we may also consider the inspirational sources they credit as (co)authors-of-sorts. The task I engage with in this reflective chapter takes seriously this key decolonial troubling agenda – a path the editors of this volume have traversed in other contexts as well. For instance, they illustrate such efforts through the Global Forum seminars that Sinfree Makoni convenes, including creative analog-digital publications that are the outcome of the seminars themselves. Such a creative, troubling stance has marked some of my writings whenever and wherever I was open-eyed (and bold) enough during the last decade or so. In this commentary chapter, I deflect from – as I have done in recent central publication circuit publications – our naturalized referencing habits, vocabulary and script choices, etc. Instead of presenting key decolonial (southern, postcolonial, anticolonial, etc.) references inside the text, I gather some in a list of ‘inspirational references’ (References A) that have and that continue to shape my thinking and writing trajectories both within and outside academics. Furthermore, I present some of my own writings separately (References B) that a curious reader could find useful to engage with in areas related to communication, culture, diversity and learning on the one hand, and the multi/inter/transdisciplinary reflections presented here on the other hand. Drawing inspiration from the declaration on research assessment (DORA) principles2 that have started shaping the ‘craft of the research community’ across disciplinary domains, in particular in how we view our publications more recently, I restrict these two lists to eight items each. It is neither ethically viable nor epistemologically sustainable – for many reasons – to continue to reference others (or oneself) from a naïve purportedly neutral position. Here, one needs to ask how and why we reference what we reference, how students are socialized into referencing habits, including how it is that some scholars, including areas of scholarship, get away with reinventing the wheel, getting credit for ideas that simultaneously further silences the work of peripheralized scholars, epistemologies, cosmologies, etc. Making visible such scholarly habits lies at the core of a decolonial project. The chapters in this volume inspire such a stance. Indeed, asking why we write for whom, the way we write to publish, using what media and medium, are key concerns that receive little attention in the mainstream scholarship, despite the contemporary academic publishing crisis wherein more and more is published of less and less relevance for the human condition across the planet. Carrying on with scholarly habits as academic writing and publishing routines within universalizing onto-epistemological silos, despite the increasing visibility accorded to critiques regarding the fallacy of enlightenment and modernity, is neither ethically viable nor epistemologically sustainable. Herein lies the urgent need for shifting our ingrained purportedly neutral habits of holding onto naturalized imaginaries and instead shifting our gaze to ontologies, epistemologies and cosmologies

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that have long been expunged or at best included in a tokenistic manner. Many chapter authors in this volume engage in what can be called a RE-searching ethos: re-envisionings, re-thinkings, re-assessings, i.e. a RE-stance… to contribute to, rather than to re-place, the mainstream hegemonies within the language sciences/studies domains. Inspired by his penchant for life in the majority spaces of our planet, i.e. water, Alastair Pennycook offers, in Chapter  5, excursions into arenas that few in our academic explorations could venture into without an experientiallybased scaffolding.

Box 1. Mobile gazing across timespaces above land-water from the skies. A sunset and sunrise across the planet. Aligned with this volume’s salient message in a move from southern theory to decolonizing sociolinguistics, I make relevant multiple signages, or multiple human ways/waves-of-being-with-sign-constructions. Box 1 builds on two pictures I took five hours apart onboard an Airbus cross-continental flight in mid-2022. While travelling on an almost empty aircraft raised concerns regarding the carbon footprint of my trip, I could effortlessly access the ‘setting sun’ from the plane windows facing ‘west’ as we left Scandinavian territories (conceptualized as the ‘northern’ parts of the planet, including the ‘north’ of Europe) and later access the ‘rising sun’ from windows facing ‘east’ as we approached the water/landmass of south Asia (conceptualized as southern territories located in the tropics, albeit in the ‘northern’ hemisphere). Experiencing the setting and rising sun from over 10,000 meters above the land/water surface of the planet from inside a moving aircraft is entangled with our planet’s rotation around the sun. These rotations and mobilities of humans inside an aircraft travelling across a spherical planet that is itself on a journey around its star that is in motion in a larger terrestrial system, draws attention to and de-naturalizes the many vocabularies we live by. The rising–setting sun, east–west, north–south and other vocabularies that circulate are

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naturalized ways/waves-of-thinking that can be troubled through the anti/de/postcolonial and southern scholarship.

Box 2. Mobile gazing collectively from outer space. Earthrise. The east–west or north–south binaries central to scholarly (and popular) imaginaries have been troubled by many. These dichotomies require renewed shaking up from their seemingly solid entrenchments in scholarly and popular thinking. Connecting to the onto-episto-­ methodological stance I am raising here, the rising and setting of the sun (as depicted in Box  1), or the moon and also the earth (Box  2), can be understood metaphorically as enabling a much needed ‘going beyond’ agenda aka a third position. This metaphorical trio – sunrise–moonrise– earthrise – also enables reimagining timespaces from global-centric positionalities enabling a multi/pluriversal episto-methodological turn that has salience for scholarly understandings regarding language ontologies in our engagements in the language sciences/studies. These deliberations point to ethical dimensions of taking on board a mobile gaze for a sustainable scholarship in the language sciences/studies. On Timespaces and the Here and Now

Learning to re-notice trends and patterns both around us and in the historical and contemporary landscapes of our academic domains, lies at the crux of what research attempts to accomplish. Re-noticings by humans in outer space would go on to create one of the most iconic images of the 20th century – earthrise (Box 2). Earthrise constituted an interesting illustration of humans ‘gazing’ at their home planet from

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space. While this was available to them on their earlier orbits of the moon, it required a shift in gaze directionality, in addition to collaborative efforts, to enable a re-noticing. Such re-noticings are analytically– methodologically steered (implicitly or explicitly) and partial, rather than neutral or complete. Going beyond the more commonly accessible and naturalized phenomenon of sunrises/sunsets and moonrises/­ moonsets from the planet (or onboard an aircraft)3 – earthrise was critically enabled through a mobility away from our given positionalities on the planet, i.e. through space explorations, specific human–technical interfaces and collaborations of astronauts who exclaimed in disbelief at what they were seeing from their spacecraft in December 1968. Should they even try to document this (fantastic) phenomenon that was not on their strict protocol, exclaimed one! The collaboratively taken pictures of the earth, from spaces beyond our planet and enabled with the moon as a prop, would change the way humans saw themselves, including their place, in the wider known universe. In parallel fashion, it is through such movements away from the givens, the ‘truths’ of our academic domains and in reflexive, creative, unexpected collaborative stances, including joint seeings, that the decolonial movement can offer ethically viable sustainable meanings. Bringing together senior and junior scholars with different alignments in a volume constitutes an important exploration of what decoloniality can mean and needs to be in the multiple domains of the language sciences/ studies. In addition to historical framings, it is the contemporary spaces of the here and now with regard to the human condition that Chapters 3, 6 and 8 – authored by Pia Lane, Nana Aba Appiah Amfo and Dorothy Pokua Agyepong, and Alan Carneiro and Daniel Silva – explore and offer glimpses of a going beyond agenda. On Positionalities

Representing a third position, the earthrise metaphor highlights the radical need for mobile gazing as a critical dimension regarding who is being focused upon and not least by whom. This constitutes a key dimension regarding scholarly positionalities. Going beyond the physical national territories – of place of birth or citizenship or current employment – to pinpoint a scholar on the planetary land surface, for eternity, it is the mobile human condition that I point to here. The volume editors provide us with positionality commentaries in the Introduction. Ana Deumert and Sinfree Makoni were born in what is territorially called the north and the south, respectively, and are currently employed as senior scholars in nation-states that are territorially marked as the opposite. The fallacy of these terms notwithstanding, the key point is that mobility has and continues to shape their lives and academic trajectories. Important as physical mobility is, mobility frames their – and potentially the

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majority of scholars alive today’s – gaze and its potentially multidirectionality through the fact of digitalization. We live and work in digital– analog entanglements. Upfronting scholars’ positionalities encourages readers to engage with the authors reflections through a mobile gaze from peripheries and in-between spaces. Such positionalities relate to the entanglements of historically framed privileges/marginalities, rather than scholars’ characteristics or where they were born, hold citizenship or work. In other words, scholars’ mobility-marked positionalities go beyond their physical situatedness in the present or past. While this always entails a movement (as illustrated through Boxes  1 and 2), the learning to see is not something that takes place naturally. This is enabled/disabled in terms of a collaborative enterprise – not least in institutions of learning like K-124 and higher education, including the latter’s multiple tasks of education, research and cooperation with societal sectors. A collective scholarly trajectory needs, I have argued, to be envisaged as a globalcentric science that explicitly recognizes a south in the north and a north in the south. The how to accomplish this dimension continues to be in need of troubling, not least because the vast majority of scholars have been socialized into mainstream ways of hegemonic thinking irrespective of where they were born, have grown up, studied and are employed. Positionality needs further complexifying through the need to focus on the privileged. Scholars privileged through historical or material or territorial markers need to be tasked with greater responsibilities to contribute to global-centric multiversal scholarship. This goes beyond dichotomized thinking wherein mainstream hegemonic (north-centric) ways need to be replaced by alternative or hitherto marginalized (southcentric) thinking. We need to ask how ethically viable and epistemologically sustainable it is for peripheralized scholars to be required to story their positionalities, while hegemonically positioned scholars continue to imagine their neutrality. To illustrate from experiences from one of my multiple scholarly domains of engagement, deaf scholars are called out to position themselves as humans without hearing, hearing scholars who sign are questioned about their neutrality during fieldwork while hearing non-signing scholars are afforded naturalized neutral privileges, when researching a deaf-hearing existence, including signed languaging settings. The static naturalizations of such colonially framed praxis in the scientific endeavour needs to be made visible and troubled. There exist two types of (often interlinked) complicities in scholarly work: a ‘deliberate complicity’ marked by ‘lazy work’ or erasures and intellectual plagiarism for a scholar’s (or a groups) own gains, and a ‘naïve complicity’ that builds on re-erasing knowledge through the acceptance of universalizing (perhaps unreflective) hegemonies. Both complicities involve engaging with problematic vocabularies that result in looping and the ensuing reinforcement of hegemonic naming

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practices. The language sciences/studies are a good illustration of both where mathematical vocabularies (first/second language, bilingualism, etc.), relational terms (my, yours, their, etc.), gendered concepts (mother tongue, home language), geographical names (home language, foreign, nation-state monolingualism, etc.) and other ideologies mark how subareas ‘thingify’ language itself and wherein scholars within different subfields seldom communicate with one another. There often exist traces of these complicities in frontline central circulating scholarly contexts wherein epistemological advancements and complexifications drag along with them sluggish ontologies, much like the mobilities of waters – rivers and glaciers – whose fundament moves rocks and other material residues on long winding trajectories. On Episto-Methodological Framings

While it is not a new revelation that the social sciences and humanities are premised on the centrality of (western) European thinking and conceptual framings (both in theories of modernity and multiple modernity), this fact needs rearticulations repeatedly. Remembering this fallacy fundamentally troubles the acceptance of the emergence and dissemination of ideas that collate towards modernity in and from the territories of western Europe across time. Contesting its value-neutral agendas lies at the core of decolonial language sciences/studies that many chapters in this volume contribute towards. Studying the complexities of human existence calls attention to, and into play, the need for systematic ways of making sense of everyday life. Doing such ‘naturalistic inquiry’ has troubled earlier (rather stubborn) paradigms of researching human conduct that were (and in large measure continue to be) marked by beliefs in the possibilities of controlling variables and thereby providing more stringent results. Naturalistic inquiry calls for taking in its stride the entanglements of epistemology, analysis and methodology. Thus, studying the wilderness of everyday life from decolonial mobile gazing stances draws attention to methodological work as ways/waves-of-seeing, not just of looking. In contemporary times this traverses not only geopolitical spaces but also the permeability of the analog–digital. Where one’s mobile situatedness and gazing is and has been always shapes what we can see and what we see is always partial. From such episto-methodological points of departure, various turns— since the linguistic turn, highlight the need for an ING-turn that focuses on the performative, the doing of research. This points to the e­ ntanglements of methods, data creation, analysis work, writING, ­publishING, etc. Thus, it is people’s languagING, culturING, identitING, ways/waves-ofbeing-with-words that need attention in the research enterprise, rather than the thingyness of language, culture and identity that continue to occupy centrestage in the language sciences/studies.

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Knowledge-making-work or knowledgING in the social sciences and humanities is conceptually framed and builds on vagueness and noncoherence. Far from viewing the human condition as knowable, clear or definite, its multiplicities, complexities and indeterminateness are in continuous need of remembering in the epistemological enterprise. Thus, engaging with unpredictability, perspectival and multi/pluriversal views calls for going beyond entrenched ideas regarding both objectivity and subjectivity in fieldwork and in data creation. Troubling naturalizations of mainstream universal knowledge-making-work calls for, as some have suggested, a disciplined ‘lack of clarity’ if one is to do justice to the complex heterogeneity of human conduct, including that of writing research. Here, languagING itself constitutes a mobile trajectory resistant to singular universalizing clear mappings of research narratives. The reflections offered in this volume can be seen in this light. On Languaging

The episto-methodological dimensions of what has been curtailed across timespaces, and to which this volume’s contributions are aligned towards, are centrally related to the language sciences/studies specifically. Demarcations within this domain have themselves contributed to a mess of sorts. The genealogies of sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, educational linguistics, linguistic anthropology, etc., and other demarcations within these, are in need of engagement from a mobile gazing stance to rescue them from, and contribute to decolonizing of the very labels we currently take for granted. Peoples’ performative agency in the deployment of meaning-making resources is increasingly recognized as being at odds with how the scholarship in the mainstream language sciences/studies routinely conceptualizes this thing we call language, including its taken for grantedness regarding boundaries between named languages, named modalities, embodiment, tool deployment, etc. Calling for the need to interrogate what key concepts one’s own scholarship reimposes (and at the cost of other locally situated vocabularies) opens for nodal multiversal frontlines. While languaging or communication orders mundane human experiences, experiences order all human languaging, including scholarly languaging. In the contemporary multi/inter/transdisciplinary scholarship, a decolonizing of the language sciences/studies is curtailed by monolingual writing habits and publishing traditions where one-English-at-a-time is praxis and where the ‘normal’ human condition of multilingual/­ multimodal/multi-tool deployment is very often reduced to English-only transcripts. The many ways/waves-of-being with meaning constructions continue to be peripheralized in the digital–analogue existence despite what digitalization enables.

270  From Southern Theory to Decolonizing Sociolinguistics

On Ethical Sustainable Standpoints

Many chapters in this volume grew from presentations in 2018 at the 22nd edition of the sociolinguistics symposium in Auckland, New Zealand. Some were elicited and others – like the two conversational chapters – were conceptualized later. As a dimension of slow-reflective science, these ways/waves of writing/publishing, inclusive of multiple signages, are in line with the 2012 DORA principles and the 2022 Agreement of Reforming Research Assessment by the European Research Association and Science Europe. Doing science sustainably calls for key measures where a rethinking from creative troubling stances is called for. Some of these have already been addressed above. My reflections are both aligned with and go beyond the contributions in this volume. In other places, I have offered these going beyond non-mainstream ideas in terms of a second wave of southern perspectives (SWaSP) framing. The five central SWaSP themes that have been assembled here include timespaces, positionality, episto-methodologies, languaging and ethics. The contributions offered in this volume raise tenets of relevance to SWaSP in various ways – some more explicitly than others. Positionality, as the editors emphatically highlight, is an important offering in scholarly writings. These are always storied – whether explicitly or implicitly in terms of demographical statements, snippets of personal/private rememberings outside of or within academia. While this is being experienced as a trend (and calls for stopping commentaries have been made), I endorse the editors’ call for more reflective positionings. Here, other troubling queries can be posed: Do primarily minoritized/ othered scholars continue to be expected to upfront their positionalities in scholarly decolonizing efforts? Where are (white, male, heterosexual) privileged positionalities presented in scholarly writings? While it may have become trendy to mark scholarly mobilities across nation-states and continents, the gains far outweigh the risks of romanticizing in personal histories. We are perhaps at a point in time where the tables can be potentially turned around in the language sciences/studies (and beyond): rather than relegating southern peripheralized scholars to explorations of southern geographies and issues, there exists an ethical value in inviting their gaze on the mainstream, not least when they are situated/located in northern geographies. There also exists an ethical value in their gaze on the mainstream when they are situated/located in southern geographies. The offerings in this volume contribute to making visible the following types of conundrums. Is it ethically viable and epistemologically sustainable: • that cultural workers like poets, theatre artists, painters, etc., more eloquently and more clearly appear to address the contemporary

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challenges that humankind faces, compared to academic workers like scholars and teachers in higher education, in K-12 education? to continue to pay respect to traditionally acknowledged gurus and forerunners in academic domains5 when we have been alerted to misdoings and grave flaws in their writings and/or darker dimensions of their positionalities?6 to continue to pay homage to acknowledged scholars, epistemologies, cosmologies and methodologies when we have been alerted to previous and continuing erasures of alternatives that have flourished and that exist outside the mainstream? that academicians publish more and more while what gets published has less and less relevance to the contemporary challenges that humanity faces? that scholars from northern territories jump onto neologism bandwagons with the result that southern scholars are expected to toe the line, if they are to become part of central publishing circuits? Education in all its different forms and channels has its ultimate purpose in the evolving of a luminous sphere of human mind from the nebula that has been rushing round ages to find in itself an eternal centre of unity. We individuals, however small our power may be and whatever corner of the world we may belong to, have the claim upon us to add to the light of the consciousness that comprehends all humanity. Rabindranath Tagore, 2003: 1837

Notes (1) Tagore, R. (2003) Crisis in Civilisation & Other Essays. New Delhi: Rupa & Company. (2) Declaration of research assessment principles, adopted by scholars and editors at the end of the 2012 Annual Meeting of the American Society of Cell Biology in California. See also IRSA, Initiative for Responsible Scientific Assessment. (3) For at least visually abled humans. (4) K-12 refers to Kindergarten and Grade 1 to upper-secondary/high school. (5) As illustrations, John Gumperz and Dell Hymes in linguistics and anthropology, Martin Heidegger in philosophy. (6) For instance, sexism, Nazism, erasures of local scholars/informants, i.e. plagiarism. (7) Tagore, R. (2003) Crisis in Civilisation & Other Essays. New Delhi: Rupa & Company.

References A. Eight key inspirational references Ahmed, S. (2021) Complaint! Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Bhambra, G. (2007) Rethinking Modernity: Postcolonialism and the Sociological Imagination. New York: Palgrave MacMillan.

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Connell, R. (2019) The Good University. What Universities Actually Do and Why It’s Time for Change. London: Zed Books. Heller, H. and McElhinny, B. (2017) Language, Capitalism, Colonialism: Toward a Critical History. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Hutton, C. (1999) Linguistics and the Third Reich. Mother-Tongue Fascism, Race and the Science of Language. London: Routledge. Kumashiro, K. (2002) Troubling Education. Queer Activism and Antioppressive Pedagogy. New York: RoutledgeFalmer. Law, J. (2007) After Method. Mess in Social Science Research. London: Routledge. Santos, B. de Sousa (2018) The End of the Cognitive Empire: The Coming of Age of Epistemologies of The South. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

B. Eight complexifying references, Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta 2022. Editorial introduction: Contemporary issues of languaging, participation and waysof-being. Bandung Journal of the Global South 9, 1–20. 2022. RE-. Vocabularies we live by in the language and educational sciences. In C. Severo, S. Makoni, A. Abdelhay and A. Kaiper (eds) The Languaging of Higher Education in the Global South. Decolonizing the Language of Scholarship and Pedagogy (pp. 61–84). New York: Routledge. 2022. On naming traditions. Losing sight of communicative and democratic agendas when language is loose inside and outside institutional-scapes. In A. Kaiper, L. Mokwena and S. Makoni (eds) Handbook of Language and Southern Theory (pp. 371–383). New York: Routledge. 2019. Learning languaging matters. Contributions to a turn-on-turn reflexivity. In S. Bagga-Gupta, A. Golden, L. Holm, H.P. Laursen and A. Pitkänen-Huhta (eds) Reconceptualizing Connections Between Language, Literacy and Learning (pp. 103–125). Rotterdam: Springer. 2017. Center-staging language and identity research from Earthrise perspectives. Contextualizing performances in open spaces. In S. Bagga-Gupta, A.L. Hansen and J. Feilberg (eds) Identity Revisited and Reimagined. Empirical and Theoretical Contributions on Embodied Communication Across Time and Space (pp. 65–100). Rotterdam: Springer. SBG & Alan Carneiro (2021) Commentary: Nodal frontlines and multisidedness. Contemporary multilingual scholarship and beyond. Special Issue: Advances in the Studies of Semiotic Repertoires. International Journal of Multilingualism 18, 320–335. SBG & Giulia Messina Dahlberg (2021) On studying peoples’ participation across contemporary timespaces: Disentangling analytical engagement. Special Issue: Transmethodology: Research Beyond Proceduralism. Outlines. Critical Practice Studies 22, 49–88. SBG & Machun Kamei (2022) Lines, liminality and lim. Disrupting the nature of things, beings and becomings. Special issue. Bandung Journal of the Global South 9, 249–278.

Index

Canonicity 174 Capitalism 5, 61, 64, 84, 186-187, 241243, 244, 246 Chomskyan trees 75 Climate catastrophe 2, 133, 243 Coalitions 172, 250 Cognition 71, 73, 78 Collective work/wealth 60-61, 64, 65, 69 Colonial-capitalist-patriarchal order 5, 6, 241, 244, 246 Coloniality 3-8, 21, 22, 32-33, 74, 81, 83, 85, 112, 129, 134-141, 143, 184-186, 199, 205, 208, 212, 214, 240, 243, 262 Complex communication 250 Complexity 19, 72, 74-76, 172, 210, 225, 243, 250 Complicity 84, 181-185, 187, 212, 230, 242, 267, 268 Conspiracy theories 21, 34 Convivial research 81 Conviviality 140, 190 Copyright-coloniality 262 Cosmology 130, 143, 185, 263, 271 Cosmopolitics 188-190 Covid-19 2, 60, 106 Critical race theory 59, 60 Critical theory 57, 59, 60, 61, 69 Curriculum 11, 66, 154, 239, 242 Cuttlefish 72, 72, 77-79

Absences 39, 42, 51, 79, 80, 205 Abyssal thinking 229 Academic writing 6-8, 175, 231-234, 262264, 270-271 Activism 3, 4, 11, 13, 27, 49, 56-57, 111, 116-118, 241, 245 Affect 134, 138, 141, 207, 210, 213, 247 African Studies Global Forum 6, 243, 247, 263 Alterity 74, 85, 130, 131, 134, 136, 141, 143 Analytical parody 229-230 Ancestors 6, 82, 83,170, 243-246 Animals 72, 78 Anthropocene 9, 127-129, 132-133, 134, 138, 141-143 Anthropophagy 127-134, 141 Anti-capitalist 63, 84, 186 Anti-colonial 111, 206, 209 Anti-racist 84, 195-196, 213 Appropriation 5, 85, 117, 120, 121, 209, 212, 241 Assemblage 31, 77, 246 Assimilation 41-42, 180-181, 184, 190, 250 Banyan tree 76 Belonging 20, 41, 44, 51, 53, 117, 209, 214, 248 Black pain 207-208 Blues epistemology 247 Body 12, 47, 49, 72, 77-79, 112, 140141, 201, 203-208, 210, 212, 215, 221, 223, 245, 249, 255 Brazilian modernism 129, 131 Brazilian Portuguese 80, 117, 136, 183-185

Dance 8, 10, 96, 98, 141, 202, 207, 208, 210, 212, 246-248 Decolonial critique 112 Decolonial imagination 4, 85 273

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Decolonial (socio)linguistics 83, 84, 85, 199, 221 Decoloniality 34, 35, 57, 58, 60-64, 69, 143, 181, 184, 187, 188, 192-194, 196, 221, 266 Decolonization is not a metaphor 240 Decolonization of research methodologies 59, 81 Decolonizing higher education 117, 239 Delinking 4, 60, 62, 63, 74, 221 Digital Archive of Indigenous Language Persistence 61 Disciplinarity 2, 56, 242 Disobedience 3, 4, 10, 201, 213, 231 Discomfort 190, 212, 213, 255 Domain theory 90, 91, 92, 100, 104 Douglas Fir Group 73-75 Earthrise 265, 266 Ecology of knowledge 80, 82, 85, 90, 104 Emancipatory scripts 116 Emergences 39, 49, 53 Emotions 13, 40, 53, 79, 243 Endangered languages 113, 220 Endocannibalism 130 Enlightenment epistemologies 82 Enregisterment 19, 25, 31 Epistemic extractivism 5, 235 Epistemic justice 5, 8, 122 Epistemicide 45 Epistemologies 9, 12, 31, 32, 62, 80, 81, 82, 84, 85, 90, 100, 104, 127, 134, 141, 181, 183, 207, 263, 271 Episto-methodologies 270 Erasure 5, 31, 34, 45, 51, 207, 232, 262, 267, 271 Essentialism 21, 34, 189, 195, 196 Ethics 14, 66, 68, 175, 213, 244, 249, 262, 263, 266, 267, 270 Ethics of survival 128 Ethno-media 116-118, 122 Eurocentrism 5, 6, 32, 33, 62, 81, 90, 100, 104, 106, 128, 136, 182, 187, 194 European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages 49 Exocannibalism 130

Faithful witnessing 241, 250 Fixed multilingualism 148, 164 Flexible multilingualism 96, 148, 162, 164 Flip the script 256 Food 22, 63, 132, 248, 249 Fugitive scholarship 69, 241 Global North 44, 73, 80-81, 106, 127, 147, 181, 187, 191 Global South 2-4, 9, 10, 45, 73, 75, 85, 115, 116, 127, 134, 147-149, 150, 153, 157, 158, 160-165, 188, 244 Global-centric 265, 267 Globalization 75, 132, 133, 135, 157, 180 Healing 6, 53, 208, 245, 248, 249 Hope 6, 21, 56, 57, 61, 68, 99, 105, 118, 129, 134, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 147, 158, 210, 231, 232, 244, 247 Humour as a methodology 10, 219, 220, 221, 229, 233 Hybridity 18, 27, 127, 128, 181, 186, 187, 190, 196 Ideology 19, 24, 25, 26, 27, 34, 41, 47, 69, 74, 83, 109, 113, 114, 134, 136, 137, 140, 142, 205, 220, 222, 243, 268 Imperialism 4, 64, 113 Incompleteness 6, 66, 67, 173, 190, 197, 246 Indigenous languages 7, 53, 82, 109, 112, 117, 122, 150, 175, 209 Indigenous movement 111, 112 Indigenous peoples 49, 64, 82, 109, 111115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 123, 130, 135, 138, 182, 183 Indigenous thought-world 77 Indisciplinary applied linguistics 134, 138 ING- turn 268 Intercultural translation 90, 104, 196, 234 Interdiscursivity 221, 225 International Decade of Indigenous Languages 109, 119 Intertextuality 221, 225, 227, 228, 229 Knowledge production 4, 45, 81, 111, 112, 116, 120, 135, 139, 235, 239

Index 

Knowledge transmission 114, 121, 239 Knowledge-making 57, 63, 119, 142, 269 Land 3, 41, 45, 61-62, 64, 76, 77, 78, 82, 112, 118, 120-122, 133, 182-183, 186, 208, 240, 421, 266 Language choices 44, 48, 91-92, 97, 159, 164, 263 Language competence 20, 46, 76, 157 Language documentation 61, 82, 112, 220 Language ecology 35, 79 Language learning 53, 71, 72, 73, 75, 79, 81, 83, 84, 85 Language ontologies 9, 35, 72-73, 76, 84, 202, 206, 213, 249, 265 Language policy 27, 41, 51, 92, 95, 105, 110, 115-116, 119, 122,148-164, 220 Language shift 8, 39, 40, 42, 43, 44, 45, 47, 48, 49, 51 Languaging (see also translanguaging) 267-270 Lazy reason (razão indolente) 82 Linguistic citizenship 199-202, 205-206, 209-215 Listening 14, 69, 83, 211, 245, 250, 255256 Literacy 35, 51, 58, 62, 77, 122, 156, 158, 163, 165, 173-175, 182 Littoral 75-77, 79, 85 Locality 74, 159, 162 Locus of enunciation 11, 18, 172, 174, 175, 177, 179, 184, 186, 191-196, 206, 209 Love 10, 13, 14, 31, 62, 63, 139, 143, 199, 200, 202, 210-215, 224, 241, 244, 245, 246, 249 Mangrove 72, 75-77, 79, 85 Marxism 20, 29, 59, 61, 63, 130, 187, 192 Materiality 62, 76, 209, 212, 215, 240 Memory 4, 14, 45, 47, 77, 121, 122, 139, 208, 249 Mestizage 138, 220 Metapragmatic 9, 21, 24, 31, 32, 137 Mobile gazing (also ‘mobile gaze’) 262, 264-269 Mobility 19, 75, 96, 98, 148, 178, 180, 235, 264, 266, 267

275

Monolingualism 7, 19, 41, 43, 46, 68, 72, 73, 80, 136, 137, 147, 156, 171, 173, 178, 179, 180, 184, 191, 233, 268, 269 Monological narratives 235 Mother languages 154, 158, 159, 160, 162, 164, 165 Mother tongue 35, 41, 42, 46, 48, 50, 156, 162, 172, 181, 190, 268 Multilingualism 7-8, 14, 27, 35, 39, 40, 41, 43, 46, 66, 72-75, 79-81, 83, 84, 90-92, 94, 96, 99-100, 104-105, 134, 136, 147148, 155, 158-164, 171-173, 181, 186, 191, 197, 200, 220, 224, 239, 269 Multiplicity 76, 90, 100, 104, 248, 250, 269 Multiversal 267, 269 Music 8, 138-139, 163, 223, 231, 246-249 Nationalism 21, 26, 27, 28, 41 Nation-state 18, 20, 40-41, 44, 45, 201, 266, 268, 270 Native speaker 72-74, 83, 190, 234 Neoliberalism 18, 63, 64, 75, 84, 132, 143, 240, 244 Neologism bandwagon 271 Non-analysis 231 Non-linear reading 8 Non-translation 233, 234 Normativity 83,172, 174, 196, 213, 214 Norwegian Truth and Reconciliation Commission 50 Norwegianization 41, 46, 51 Onto-epistemologies 244, 246, 247, 263, 248 Ontology 9, 72-74, 76, 78, 84-85, 122, 132-135, 138, 141, 202, 206, 210, 213, 213, 249, 263, 265, 268 Oppression 1, 18, 21, 27, 29, 33, 41, 53, 60, 132, 206, 240, 244, 247, 248, 250 Orientalism 186, 246 Ownership 45, 64, 65, 73, 76, 182, 192 Parody 227-233 Partition of India (1947/48) 22 Pedagogy 59, 66, 113, 193, 239, 240, 241, 242, 244, 245, 250 Phenomenology 3, 110

276  From Southern Theory to Decolonizing Sociolinguistics

Plurality 14, 73, 110, 112, 180, 186, 202, 205, 213, 215, 233 Plurilingual 180, 191 Pluriversality 4, 9, 60, 61, 66, 67, 69, 242 Politics of decoloniality 32, 61 Politics of knowledge 79, 83, 111, 120, 221 Polydirectionality 76, 79 Positionality 3, 8, 10-11, 14, 32, 33, 111, 112, 115, 116, 119, 120, 122, 134, 192, 195-196, 220, 230, 233, 265267, 270, 271 Postcoloniality 4, 180 Praxis 3, 81, 221, 241, 244, 246, 267, 269 Precolonial 18, 31, 33, 34, 209 Psycholinguistics 71, 176 Purification 18-20, 22, 24, 27, 31, 34 Queer 3, 187, 196, 233, 234, 256 Race 10, 25, 84, 109, 111, 116, 214, 221 Racialization 26, 83, 183, 199, 203-205, 209 Raciolinguistic ideologies 25, 83 Racism 2, 10, 25, 45, 75, 84, 176, 177, 180, 194, 242, 243 Reciprocity 5, 10, 57, 65, 69, 114, 210, 266 Reclamation 39, 40, 49-53, 220 Resistance 5, 21, 45, 49, 76, 116, 117, 122, 208, 221, 228, 247 Resources (linguistic and/or semiotic) 72, 73, 74, 76, 150, 222, 269 Responsibility 114, 120, 129, 159, 161, 245, 256 Revitalization 21-22, 34, 49, 51, 109, 111, 113 Rhizomes 75-76, 77, 78, 79, 201, 209 Seascape epistemology 77, 82 Second language acquisition/development 9, 53, 71, 72, 73 Secularism 27, 28 Serendipity 180, 191 Settler colonialism 4, 13, 62, 183-186 Silencing/silenced 5, 39, 40, 42, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 52, 114, 205, 206, 211, 212, 248, 262

Situatedness 11, 172, 174, 179, 182, 187, 196, 267, 269 Slavery 183, 184, 240 Slow emergencies 2, 8, 243 Social justice 2, 8, 75, 83, 84, 247 Solidarity 5, 6, 13, 21, 94, 131, 138, 142, 183 Southern theory 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 11, 21, 33, 34, 39, 40, 45, 53, 56, 58, 59, 169, 173, 174, 181, 186, 187, 196, 197, 239, 243, 244, 246, 248, 255, 256, 257, 264 Struggle 3, 4, 5, 26, 34, 49, 53, 64, 67, 69, 85, 135, 139, 142, 152, 158, 199, 207, 215, 242, 244, 248 Subjectivity 20, 78, 112, 120, 199, 203, 216, 256, 269 Subjugation 45, 214 Suffering 2, 45, 53, 177, 184, 186, 187, 194 Suffocation 177-180, 186 Super-diversity 178, 179, 180, 184, 186, 190 Surveillance 83 Survival 128, 129, 132, 133, 134, 135, 140, 141, 142, 143 Sustainability 63, 74, 241, 263, 265, 266, 267, 270 Synergy 180, 191, 206, 210 Tactics 21, 42, 57, 142, 202 Temporality 2, 8, 11, 68, 122, 128, 209, 227, 240, 250 Terracentric 77 Thingification 19, 20 Translanguaging 19-22, 24, 25, 34, 137, 192 Translation 7, 61, 67, 68, 90, 104, 120, 135, 138, 158, 160, 164, 190, 196, 212, 232, 234, 250 Trouble 1-2, 8, 66, 143, 177, 180, 247, 262, 268 Uncreative writing 256 Universality 33, 73, 81, 182, 187, 193, 200, 222, 223, 241, 242, 263, 269 Unsettling 60, 195, 201, 205, 213, 215

Index 

Vertebratocentrism 79 Violence 4, 5, 34, 45, 128, 133, 134, 141, 183, 201, 207, 210, 213 Voice 7, 22, 39, 51, 61, 62, 81, 82, 113, 115, 116, 117, 122, 175, 201-202, 205, 206, 210-215, 225, 232-234, 245, 249, 250 Vulnerability 139, 141, 202, 205, 212, 213, 215, 234, 245, 247

Warrior cannibalism 127, 130, 131 Waves of knowing 77, 79 Ways/waves-of-seeing 268 White privilege 83, 194, 207 White supremacy 83 Witnessing 133, 241, 250

277