Dedication: Ofelia García
-
Alexandre Duchêne
This tribute is long overdue. Indeed, Ofelia García stepped down in 2019 as General Editor of the International Journal of the Sociology of Language and no words were written about her considerable contribution to the field in the very journal she led with such generosity, engagement, and professionalism for so many years. Why? Partly because the guiding hand of Ofelia García was still so present in the journal that it felt as if she was still actively involved. And indeed, Ofelia did everything she could to ensure a smooth transition, guiding me as the new General Editor, providing valuable advice and support in the management of our journal. But most importantly, this tribute took so long because it was clear to me that the best way to acknowledge the contribution of Ofelia García to the International Journal of the Sociology of Language was to attach it to something “special”. I have learned from the very first moment I encountered this brilliant mind, that she was not interested in honorific words, she was far more interested in ideas, actions, and propositions. Ofelia has told me so many times that my job is to rethink IJSL, to consider different ways of producing knowledge, to ensure participatory parity, to renew its goals and purposes. There is still a long way to go, for sure. However, I felt this Special Issue, which includes ideas, propositions and potential actions formulated by our new Editorial Board, as well as by the editorial team, was the best possible “thank you” that could be given to Ofelia García. I’m certain Ofelia will read every single essay with attention and curiosity. I can see her nodding in agreement with some statements, being surprised, sometimes suspicious or skeptical of others. She will hopefully value the attempt to open up IJSL and to make it a deliberate place for intellectual and political debate on language and society. This Special Issue as a whole is a tribute to her very own dedication to academia and knowledge production on real-life issues, to political engagement, and to her restless endeavor to try things that could potentially induce social change.
Alexandre Duchêne
© 2021 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Dedication: Ofelia García
- Welcome on board! Prefiguring knowledge production in the sociology of language
- Reviewing and the politics of voice: peoples in the Arab world “name” their struggles “revolutions” and not the “Arab Spring”
- Managing authorship in (socio)linguistic collaborations
- A gendered academy – women’s experiences from higher education in Cameroon
- Education, multilingualism and bilingualism in Botswana
- Digital conferencing in times of crisis
- Discourse analysis for social change: voice, agency and hope
- On the future of IJSL: trans-collaboration and how to overcome the structural constraints on knowledge production, distribution and dissemination
- Gaps in sociolinguistic research in sub-Saharan Africa
- Publishing policy: toward counterbalancing the inequalities in academia
- Language and globalization revisited: Life from the periphery in COVID-19
- Raciolinguistic genealogy as method in the sociology of language
- Genres in new economies of language
- Moments of crisis
- Redrawing the boundary of “speech community”: how and why the historicity and materiality of language and the space/place distinction matter to its reconceptualization
- The past is a future priority
- Discursive practices control in Spanish language
- Whose hearing matters? Context and regimes of perception in sociolinguistics
- Academic knowledge production and prefigurative politics
- Hegemonies and inequalities in academia
- Decolonising sociolinguistics research: methodological turn-around next?
- Desires for “committed” research
- For an international journal in transnational times
- Epistemicide, deficit language ideology, and (de)coloniality in language education policy
- Powered by assemblage: language for multiplicity
- Unequal discursivities and the symbolic capital of Malaysian Indian scholarship
- The politics of language scholarship: there are no truly global concerns
- Southernizing and decolonizing the Sociology of Language: African scholarship matters
- When language policy is not enough
- Rethinking agency in language and society
- Procesos y materialidad en el estudio del lenguaje en sociedad
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Dedication: Ofelia García
- Welcome on board! Prefiguring knowledge production in the sociology of language
- Reviewing and the politics of voice: peoples in the Arab world “name” their struggles “revolutions” and not the “Arab Spring”
- Managing authorship in (socio)linguistic collaborations
- A gendered academy – women’s experiences from higher education in Cameroon
- Education, multilingualism and bilingualism in Botswana
- Digital conferencing in times of crisis
- Discourse analysis for social change: voice, agency and hope
- On the future of IJSL: trans-collaboration and how to overcome the structural constraints on knowledge production, distribution and dissemination
- Gaps in sociolinguistic research in sub-Saharan Africa
- Publishing policy: toward counterbalancing the inequalities in academia
- Language and globalization revisited: Life from the periphery in COVID-19
- Raciolinguistic genealogy as method in the sociology of language
- Genres in new economies of language
- Moments of crisis
- Redrawing the boundary of “speech community”: how and why the historicity and materiality of language and the space/place distinction matter to its reconceptualization
- The past is a future priority
- Discursive practices control in Spanish language
- Whose hearing matters? Context and regimes of perception in sociolinguistics
- Academic knowledge production and prefigurative politics
- Hegemonies and inequalities in academia
- Decolonising sociolinguistics research: methodological turn-around next?
- Desires for “committed” research
- For an international journal in transnational times
- Epistemicide, deficit language ideology, and (de)coloniality in language education policy
- Powered by assemblage: language for multiplicity
- Unequal discursivities and the symbolic capital of Malaysian Indian scholarship
- The politics of language scholarship: there are no truly global concerns
- Southernizing and decolonizing the Sociology of Language: African scholarship matters
- When language policy is not enough
- Rethinking agency in language and society
- Procesos y materialidad en el estudio del lenguaje en sociedad
