https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9781501511561/html?lang=en

Elizabeth McHugh: On page 25 you talk about how you came to be involved with this project. Had you known about the language ecology in Mexico before you were invited in? Or was there something you really wanted to look into with this situation as opposed to another linguistic ecology, or situation in another region?

Haley De Korne: I knew that Mexico had passed a law in 2003 granting rights to Indigenous language speakers and recognizing Indigenous languages as national languages alongside Spanish. This puts Mexico well ahead of the US and Canada, for example, in terms of official rights and recognition for Indigenous languages. I’ve always been interested in the impact of top-down policies on the ground, and the interplay of bottom-up efforts under different social conditions. In my previous research on Indigenous language education policies in the US and Canada, many of the problems could be blamed on a lack of top-down rights and recognition. I wanted to examine possibilities and constraints in a context where the top-down recognition is in place.

In addition to that, the Isthmus of Tehuantepec was also especially interesting to me as a region because there are multiple Indigenous languages spoken there, plus Spanish and now some English, so it’s a truly multilingual language ecology. Zapotec also has a history of literacy that goes back to 600 BCE and in modern times speakers of Isthmus Zapotec have been actively promoting their language and culture in written and visual modalities for well over a century. In other words, this is a language community where there have been, and continue to be, many forms of language activism. So I was drawn to it as an excellent place to research language activism in practice, and Indigenous language learning in a contemporary multilingual context.    

Elizabeth McHugh: On pages 22-23 you talk about situating yourself as an activist scholar, and especially examining the legacy of exploitative research that activist scholars are attempting to overcome. I wondered if you could touch on that more, in the way that your project and the methodology you chose strayed away from those harmful and exploitative practices of the past?

Haley De Korne: The way in which I work to avoid exploitative research is through collaboration, consultation, and of course reflexivity. With regards to the Isthmus, I first met people who were from there and/ or already working there, and who said that it would be useful to understand more about the kinds of issues that I research, that is the social dynamics of language learning and language reclamation. The methodological framework I have used in this project is ethnographic monitoring, a term first coined by Dell Hymes to refer to the use of ethnography for applied or action research. Ethnographic monitoring essentially combines the ethnography of communication with action research. You begin with participant observation in order to understand contextual dynamics, and the priorities and aspirations of the people in that context to the extent that that’s possible. You stay alert to ways that you might be able to support those priorities and aspirations, and potentially engage in some form of action research to that end with stakeholders or collaborators in that context. In other words, you don’t show up assuming you know what matters to people or what should happen, which action research without ethnography can risk doing. And you don’t just observe and stay disengaged, which ethnography without action research can risk doing. I don’t think it’s possible for researchers to engage in the action research piece in every project or every context, but I think it’s important to stay open to it and to take that step when the opportunity arises.

Consultation or checking in with the people you’re doing research with is also key to understanding if there’s something useful that you can do from your position as a researcher, or not. Sometimes we think we have a great idea about how to do something useful, and the stakeholders or people in the context can point out what we’re missing or what we’ve misunderstood. Sometimes it’s not about what we can do, but what we can support. Trying to use the privilege that we have as researchers to amplify the voices and initiatives of people that we work with can be valuable. 

Last but not least, reflecting on our research as social action, and the impact we may be having as social actors is also important in my view. It’s unfortunately all too easy to misunderstand certain dynamics or to have an impact that is not what we intended, and on-going reflection can help to guard against that, even if none of us can ever be sure that we’re avoiding all harm. There is great guidance available from Indigenous scholars for avoiding exploitative research, such as Linda Tuhiwai Smith’s classic Decolonizing methodologies: Research and Indigenous peoples (1999/ 2021). Understanding what researchers from our disciplines have done in the past is also important for making different choices ourselves. There are of course many ways to do engaged or applied research, and I don’t believe that there is one correct approach.

Elizabeth McHugh: This is a follow up question to that. How would that work if the project wasn’t something where you were invited but one where you sought it out, or where you have to apply for a grant? How would you suggest going about explaining what the goals are then, if you’re not exactly sure in the beginning where you would be stepping in or how you might be helping to amplify their voices? Would you say the goal is language activism, but it has to start with the community first to see what their needs are, and you expect that something will arise?

Haley De Korne: Yes, that’s exactly what I’d do. I would emphasize the importance of contextualization and stakeholder participation to achieve any kind of meaningful social impact, and argue that initial participant observation fieldwork is necessary to lay the groundwork for that. You can also give examples of the kinds of initiatives you anticipate could emerge or would likely be incorporated into the study. You can establish a timeline about when key decisions would be made, even if all of those concrete details can’t be included in the application.

Elizabeth McHugh: You talked about how many people you met during your fieldwork would associate your work with rescuing or saving the language and you say that you avoided describing your work in these terms. How would you describe the difference of what language activism is as opposed to a language maintenance or language revitalization effort?

Haley De Korne: Language maintenance is generally understood as trying to stabilize language transmission between generations and maintain a bilingual (or multilingual) community in a context where one language is under pressure. Language revitalization is usually understood as trying to increase the number of speakers of a language that is already marginalized and perhaps endangered. I define language activism much more broadly, as efforts towards positive social change that relate to language, both through resisting inequalities and through imagining and creating alternative futures. This can mean efforts to support an endangered language, but it can also refer to efforts to encourage inclusive and affirmative language choices within a speech community, efforts to change prejudices towards users of a certain dialect, or initiatives to create a literary culture for a language that has been primarily oral, to give a few examples.

Elizabeth McHugh: You mention in this case that there are different types of activism, such as in primary and secondary education, higher education, community-based education, and in popular culture spaces. Would you say that an activist can take on smaller roles at a time and just work in higher education language activism? Do they automatically have to take into account community level activism as well? Furthermore, do activists always have to encompass the three actions you include in your activism strategies framework– creating, representing, and connecting– in their activism? 

Haley De Korne: Language activists have to work where they are and within the limits of their positionality. For many of us, we can have more impact and work more effectively in certain spaces. So absolutely, yes, I don’t think activists necessarily have to work across multiple spaces at once, although minoritized language speakers are often pressured to do that, for example through the choices they make in their personal, private communication practices, and through taking on roles as teachers or organizers. It’s useful to consider what our social positionality may make possible for us, and what we cannot or should not do because of who we are.

I do think it’s useful to be aware of the work that is being done in other spaces, to the extent that’s possible, and to explore possible synergies. One of the successful strategies I observed in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec was where teachers invited young hip-hop musicians who are producing bilingual music to perform in their schools. The students loved it and were impressed that the local Indigenous language was being used in such a cool way. In several cases I heard students talking about these experiences long after they happened. Because some of the teachers were aware of what the popular culture activists were doing, and because the hip-hop artists were willing to collaborate, they were able to bring a new energy into the classroom and influence the perception of students more effectively than if the teachers had just lectured on the value of Indigenous heritage, or something along those lines.

The strategies of creating, connecting, and representing can often happen simultaneously, and in overlapping ways, but they can also happen separately. One of my main arguments is that all different kinds of strategies can be impactful, depending on the context and timing. I do not want to prescribe any one way of going about language activism, but rather to draw attention to the many strategies that exist. I also argue that it’s useful to have a flexible repertoire of strategies, and to attempt to adapt to the needs of the moment. I’m not aiming to provide a recipe for language activism, but perhaps more of a flexible playbook or a source of inspiration and illustration of the multiple strategies that are possible.