Language Activism

Joshua A. Fishman Award winner 2018

While top-down policies and declarations have yet to establish equal status and opportunities for speakers of all languages in practice, activists and advocates at local levels are playing an increasingly significant role in the creation of new social imaginaries and practices in multilingual contexts. This volume describes how social actors across multiple domains contribute to the elusive goal of linguistic equality or justice through their language activism practices. Through an ethnographic account of Indigenous Isthmus Zapotec language activism in Oaxaca, Mexico, this study illuminates the (sometimes conflicting) imaginaries of what positive social change is and how it should be achieved, and the repertoire of strategies through which these imaginaries are being pursued. Ethnographic and action research conducted from 2013-2018 in the multilingual Isthmus of Tehuantepec brings to light the experiences of educators, students, writers, scholars and diverse cultural activists whose aspirations and strategies of social change are significant in shaping the future language ecology. Their repertoire of strategies may inform and encourage language activists, scholars, and educators working for change in other contexts of linguistic diversity and inequality.　

"Integrity in her work as researcher and activist is also evident in her analysis of activism for the Isthmus Zapotec language community, as well as her thorough discussion of the embeddedness of hierarchical, essentialist, and colonial social imaginaries about language in the Isthmus and beyond. This rich text demonstrating De Korne's thorough research should be of great value to activists, linguists, educators, policymakers, and students of multiple disciplines." Samuel D. Meyer in: Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jola.12356.

"A través de l’anàlisi etnogràfica d’un cas concret, l’autora [...] elabora una arquitectura conceptual generalitzable a altres contextos. En aquest sentit, a més d’acomplir un objectiu acadèmic, es posa al servei d’activistes i professionals que treballen en altres àrees i sobre altres comunitats i llengües minoritzades."

["Through ethnographic analysis of a specific case, the author […] elaborates a conceptual architecture that is generalizable to other contexts. In this sense, in addition to fulfilling an academic objective, the book is placed at the service of activists and professionals who work in other areas and on other communities and minoritized languages."]

Joan-Albert Argenter Giralt in: Revista de Llengua i Dret, Journal of Language and Law