Abstract
In this paper, narrative data from remote communities in Ethiopia reveal in intimate ways how ‘linguistic citizenship’ (Stroud 2001) is claimed and exercised to resist educational decisions which are insensitive to the rhythms of pastoral or rural life. Even where communities are distant from the discourses and resources of the centre, individuals and community spokespersons express powerful views which resonate with contemporary global and local concerns of linguistic diversity, literacy and migration. While conventional representations suggest that such communities lack agency and voice, are require externally delivered aid and to be ‘spoken for’, this article reveals a matrix of articulate positions on language/s, literacy/ies and participation in both primary school and adult education. Amongst the challenges of (re)interpretation for the researcher is a discordant intersection of fluid temporal and spatial positions of researcher and respondent, simultaneously translocal and transnational. Agitated shifts in time and space recast shades and voice for both respondent and researcher. This paper raises questions for research procedures and interpretation of narrative accounts of literacy(ies), linguistics and educational practices on the margins. In particular, the discussion suggests that an understanding of and sensitivity towards the linguistic citizenship of informants as well as the multilayered positions of the researcher, including the researcher’s own linguistic citizenship, offer productive theoretical and methodological approaches to ethnographic research.
Highlights
The intention in this article is to offer an alternative to a mainstream centred view of communities of people who exist on the peripheries in the global south.1 In this case, views of a remote pastoralist community of camel herders in the desert-regions of the Afar depression, and other communitiesShades, voice and mobility further south along the lower reaches of the Great Rift Valley, illustrate that: they have sophisticated understandings of what the centre holds
Narratives included in this paper illustrate that spatial and socio-political proximity to the centre seem to correlate or synchronise with dominant representations and vertical forms of language planning activities
Regional agents and other stakeholders further from the centre appear to have greater latitude to claim positions which reject policy and practices which have been layered over local ecologies
Summary
The intention in this article is to offer an alternative to a mainstream centred view of communities of people who exist on the peripheries in the global south. In this case, views of a remote pastoralist (nomadic) community of camel herders in the desert-regions of the Afar depression, and other communities. Voice and mobility further south along the lower reaches of the Great Rift Valley, illustrate that: they have sophisticated understandings of what the centre holds They have strong views about how they wish to participate with, reinterpret or reject educational decisions of the centre; and most importantly, they express ownership of their own linguistic identities as well as their own constructed identities of the other. If the shift towards English were to become established, this would alter the linguistic ecology of the education system, and this would have an impact on the implementation of the multilingual policy Data collected at this time would be significant for later comparative purposes. The article concludes, drawing attention to linguistic citizenship as an enriching methodological approach which has theoretical implications for ethnographic research It permits respondents’ views to emerge in ways which counter the dominant language regimes of the centre. It is hoped that the discussion here may contribute to critical reflection of research practice and praxis in which the researcher’s own linguistic citizenship cannot be overlooked
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