Centering Language(s) and Linguistics in a Social-Justice Oriented Humanities
Centering Language(s) and Linguistics in a Social-Justice Oriented Humanities
Justice-seeking scholarship and pedagogy are not monolingual endeavors.
Equipping students to activate their academic experiences in socially engaged careers must include training them to recognize their own linguistic strengths as well as to identify (and resist) harmful linguistic ideologies.
Centering (the power of) language in classrooms allows us to engage students in deeper understanding of diasporic identities, histories, and cultures, as well as the power relations created, re-created, and contested within these.
Based on my own experience of over 10 years of classroom-community collaboration with Zapotec language activists, I explore the potential of bringing Indigenous and threatened language(s) to non-language classrooms, reflecting on: (i) practical considerations as an instructor, (ii) impact on students and (iii) potential for long-term community engagement.
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