Methodological choices and personal responsibility of researchers
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Hiram L. Smith
Abstract
Drawing on more than a decade of my own field research in the Creolophone Afro-Hispanic village of San Basilio de Palenque Colombia, this chapter addresses the methodological choices and personal responsibility that confront researchers when they work in marginalized speech communities. Since our work as linguists involves more than just studying language, but always has social and political implications, I emphasize the impact that our presence, decisionmaking, and reporting may have on a community while we are there and long after we are gone. The primary goals of this paper are to raise awareness about what is going on in Palenque today, especially those situations that are not always discussed in the literature, and to give researchers, especially graduate students and first timers, a sense of how to navigate pitfalls and not be oblivious to the concerns of the community or naïve about our role in it as researchers. I discuss three principles that should govern how we engage our fieldwork: keeping our finger on the pulse of the community, letting the community speak for itself, and being conscious of how we report back on the community to the outside world. I also address the need for innovative, interdisciplinary, and inclusive research programs and policies that involve the community at all levels.
Abstract
Drawing on more than a decade of my own field research in the Creolophone Afro-Hispanic village of San Basilio de Palenque Colombia, this chapter addresses the methodological choices and personal responsibility that confront researchers when they work in marginalized speech communities. Since our work as linguists involves more than just studying language, but always has social and political implications, I emphasize the impact that our presence, decisionmaking, and reporting may have on a community while we are there and long after we are gone. The primary goals of this paper are to raise awareness about what is going on in Palenque today, especially those situations that are not always discussed in the literature, and to give researchers, especially graduate students and first timers, a sense of how to navigate pitfalls and not be oblivious to the concerns of the community or naïve about our role in it as researchers. I discuss three principles that should govern how we engage our fieldwork: keeping our finger on the pulse of the community, letting the community speak for itself, and being conscious of how we report back on the community to the outside world. I also address the need for innovative, interdisciplinary, and inclusive research programs and policies that involve the community at all levels.
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Contents V
- Afro-Hispanic linguistics. Challenges, misrepresentations, and assumptions 1
- An overview of recent research on the sociolinguistic role of Luso-Africans, ladino Africans, and criollos of African descent in the early colonial Spanish Americas 17
- Methodological choices and personal responsibility of researchers 133
- Afro-Puerto Rican Spanish declarative intonation 163
- San Andrean Spanish stylistic variation in academia 195
- Subject pronoun expression in Equatoguinean Spanish 225
- Issues of Spanish language maintenance among the Equatorial Guinean community in Houston 253
- Towards a social justice framework for marginalized linguistic communities 273
- Index 287
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Contents V
- Afro-Hispanic linguistics. Challenges, misrepresentations, and assumptions 1
- An overview of recent research on the sociolinguistic role of Luso-Africans, ladino Africans, and criollos of African descent in the early colonial Spanish Americas 17
- Methodological choices and personal responsibility of researchers 133
- Afro-Puerto Rican Spanish declarative intonation 163
- San Andrean Spanish stylistic variation in academia 195
- Subject pronoun expression in Equatoguinean Spanish 225
- Issues of Spanish language maintenance among the Equatorial Guinean community in Houston 253
- Towards a social justice framework for marginalized linguistic communities 273
- Index 287
