Enacting Language Reclamation through Performance as Embodied Praxis

Abstract

Along the history of colonialism and domination, runs a parallel history of resistance and creativity that has opened new spaces for Indigenous languages through bottom-up, collaborative, and multidisciplinary projects centered on the arts (Flores Farfán, 2013). This chapter is based on the stories and performances of students in a language teacher education program in Oaxaca, Mexico’s linguistically and culturally most diverse state. Students, many of whom are speakers or have heritage in an Indigenous language, engaged in the co-exploration of linguistic ideologies and language regimes through storytelling and art-making, reflecting on how these ideologies and power structures influence our lives, education, and society. Adapting forum theater (Boal, 2000) to a virtual environment, students created performances based on their own language stories to encourage critical conversations. Performance can be used as an expressive technique and heuristic tool to present, represent, and intervene reality. As such it is a pedagogical intervention but also a platform to (re)create alternative possibilities and spaces for Indigenous languages and cultures. This chapter illustrates and analyzes the work of the class through an ethnodrama, underscoring the value of the arts and performance pedagogies to foster critical ideological awareness, advocacy, and activism for language reclamation.