Language, Power and Art: Towards an Embodied Praxis for Language Reclamation in Language Teacher Education

Abstract

The longstanding history of schools and universities as central sites of linguicide and epistemicide (Ngũgĩ wa Thiongʼo, 2009) underscores the need to foreground Indigenous languages, cultures and ways of knowing as a path towards language reclamation and the decolonization of teacher education. This study draws on the experience of a class I facilitated at a language teacher education program in Oaxaca, Mexico’s linguistically and culturally most diverse state. Embracing theory as praxis and the intersections between critical pedagogies (Boal, 2000; Freire, 2005; hooks, 2014), language reclamation (Leonard, 2012) and decolonizing methodologies (Mignolo & Walsh, 2018; Smith, 2012), this dissertation asks how a critical embodied pedagogy can foster language reclamation, approaching the question from three separate papers. The first paper, “Language,” examines the interrelated processes of remembering, reading, storytelling and revitalizing (Smith, 2012), making a case for broadening our conception of language reclamation beyond language teaching and learning to a process of knowledge production that contests hegemonic policies and linguistic ideologies. The second paper, “Power,” employs found poetry (Furman et al., 2007) to explore questions of identity as it relates to language reclamation in a diverse urban setting. The paper calls for scholars and educators involved in language revitalization/reclamation efforts to attend to the nuanced ways that people inhabit and negotiate identities in different settings and in interaction (Urrieta, 2017), and to think actively into how pedagogical practices can constrain or enable identity positions that encourage the (re)appropriation, (re)creation and (re)invention of indigeneity. Finally, “Art” looks at how performance operates as a mode of embodied analysis and critique, providing a space to critically question, feel and analyze the meanings ascribed to languages and bodies and a platform for struggle and rehearsal where empathetic reflection (Nagar, 2019), hartazgo and joy can generate ideological, implementational and actual spaces for Indigenous languages.