Becoming Indigenous language speakers and writers in higher education

Project Information

BSW

Grant agreement ID: 101026813

DOI

10.3030/101026813

Project closed

EC signature date 5 March 2021

Start date 1 September 2021

End date 19 December 2023

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 202 158,72

EU contribution

€ 202 158,72

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITETET I OSLO
Norway

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - BSW (Becoming Indigenous language speakers and writers in higher education)

Reporting period: 2021-09-01 to 2023-08-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Historically, schooling was used as a tool for the colonization of Indigenous peoples, while now it also plays a role in the revitalization of Indigenous languages and cultures. Education was used by colonizers to impose their language and culture on Indigenous communities, often disregarding local ways of knowing. However, in recent decades, Indigenous communities worldwide have been working to reclaim their languages and ways of knowing, often through the educational system.
One important aspect of these efforts are Indigenous teacher education programs. These programs are working to create Indigenous language speakers, writers, and future teachers who are to be key agents for the maintenance and revitalization of threatened Indigenous languages. For example, both Peru and Norway have established teacher training programs for Indigenous language educators.

Despite their gains, these programs also face challenges. Research in sociolinguistics has shown that minority language education efforts often prioritize standard varieties of languages over regional ones, programs often privilege first-language speakers and not language learners, and classroom teaching practices can sometimes discourage students' language mixing and home language practices.

Indigenous teacher education sites are important for understanding the complex processes and meanings of becoming a minoritized language speaker and writer. These sites are where official language policies and on-the-ground practices intersect, sometimes in conflicting ways. And because despite the difficulties, Indigenous teacher education programs offer hope for the revitalization of Indigenous languages and cultures.

This project aimed to understand how Quechua and Aimara women who did not grow up speaking these languages during their home socialization experience becoming speakers and writers of their Indigenous languages in a teacher education program of a Peruvian university.

The project had the following objectives:
1. Apply the new speaker framework on a non-European context and compare to findings from European contexts
2. Refine the new speaker framework based on perspectives from decolonial theory and Indigenous ways of knowing and methodologies
3. Develop and make use of multimodal language research methods informed by Indigenous research methodologies to inform new speaker and multilingualism research
4. Identify, communicate and disseminate research findings and recommendations for Indigenous language education policy and practice across academic and non-academic audiences in Europe and Peru

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The project successfully achieved its objectives, although there were some changes and delays due to unexpected circumstances, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic made it impossible to conduct ethnographic fieldwork. As a result, some of the original plans had to be modified for the project, and document analysis and speaker-centred biographical methods were employed for research.

The completion of Objectives 1 and 3 played a crucial role in reaching Objective 2. Through the BSW project, we gathered valuable data on the experiences and backgrounds of new female Indigenous language speakers outside of Europe. This was done by conducting biographical research with Quechua and Aimara student teachers at a university in Peru. The findings from their experiences in a non-European context have contributed to a popular science piece and a comparative analysis with Sámi new speakers, in collaboration with other researchers. With regards to Objective 4, throughout the MSCA fellowship, we communicated and disseminated research findings with academic peers in Ecuador, Norway, the United States and Australia, research participants in Peru, higher education teachers in Peru and Norway and the wider public.

Scholarly outputs include five conference presentations, three presentations at seminars and workshops and two guest lectures for academic scholars. The project has produced two manuscripts for research journals and has currently a book contract for an edited volume to be published at Multilingual Matters, as well as a book chapter.

As outreach activities, the project organized an on-site exhibit of biographical methods workshop products with all participants of the study, as well as an oral presentation of preliminary findings. The purpose of both activities was to communicate project activities as well as identify participant-led recommendations to inform Indigenous language education. Additionally, the project findings were shared through presentations at three teacher education programs in Peru in 2023, and informed my activities as external specialist and reviewer of language education policy and curriculum for the Ministry of Education of Peru. These activities allowed me to share the knowledge and insights gained from the project with educators, contributing to the ongoing conversation about Indigenous language and multilingual education.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

This project delves into the experiences of non-European Indigenous language new speakers, particularly focusing on Quechua and Aimara speakers in a higher education context. It highlights how these speakers closely tie their linguistic journey to claiming collective Indigenous identities, negotiating mixed emotional bonds with their languages, and feeling a strong sense of belonging and responsibility to their communities. The study identifies parallels with new speakers of Sámi in Northern Norway, showing similarities in their ideological and embodied experiences despite different language policies and institutional contexts.

The research also shows how becoming an Indigenous language speaker is tied to female participants’ gendered experiences. Growing up as girls, participants identified less opportunities for language learning than their male peers, while they also identified how reclaiming their Indigenous languages in university served as a way to challenge racist and sexist stereotypes. Drawing on feminist and decolonial theory, the study advocates for increased exploration of gendered experiences in language revitalization efforts.
Methodologically, the project emphasized participatory and Indigenizing research approaches, with participants actively involved as co-researchers in different stages of the research design. In addition to using language portraits, it introduced multimodal methods such as bilingual timelines and artifact sharing activities to capture lived experiences of language. The findings suggest that new speaker accounts of language revitalization are shaped by and shape biographic and participatory methodologies in ways that support their multidimensional trajectories of speakerness.

The project has also had an impact on participants, providing an opportunity for co-researchers to participate in designing and implementing the study, as well as identifying implications and dissemination audiences. Furthermore, research participants reported participation in the study provided opportunities to strengthen their language learning journeys. Project findings carry consequences for language revitalization and multilingual education policy, curriculum and practice. To date, project findings have been shared with participants, teacher educators and educational policymakers. Upon publication of project manuscripts, I will continue to disseminate research findings across these communities.

Image taken by the Researcher. Exhibit of biographical methods produced by project participants.