Re-emplacing Place in the “Global Here and Now”—Critical Ethnographic Case Studies of Native American Language Planning and Policy

Abstract

In Native American communities, the “global here and now” (Appadurai, 2001) is linked to twin movements for standardization and English supremacy, resulting in the decline of Indigenous languages and persistent educational disparities. This article takes up Appadurai's call to democratize research on globalization, juxtaposing theories that emphasize mobility, the distribution of sociolinguistic resources, and transnational connectivities with an Indigenous epistemological stance stressing continuity and place. Drawing on ethnographic data from Hopi, Navajo, and Yup'ik cases, the article then inspects the processes by which these language practices are being re-emplaced in new concrete and mobile spaces by Indigenous practitioner-intellectuals. The article concludes by problematizing the tensions between globalizing/standardizing discourses and Indigenous senses of place, returning to Appadurai's call for collaborative research on globalization that contributes to new, liberatory language pedagogies.