Becoming Indigenous language speakers and writers in higher education

How do young women experience and shape processes of Indigenous language reclamation?

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Frances Kvietok Duenas

About the project

The aim of this project is to understand how Indigenous women experience becoming speakers and writers of Indigenous languages in university.

In recent decades, Indigenous peoples across the world look to revitalise or reclaim their languages and ways of knowing, often via the educational system. Hence, education on all levels have become important for revitalisation.

Teacher education programs are important sites where new Indigenous language speakers, writers and future language teachers are formed. These programs have a diverse student body, including students who did not learn to speak or write their Indigenous language at home or as a first language, as well as women who increasingly access higher education programs.

These programs offer opportunities as well as tensions students must negotiate as they make sense of individual and collectives experiences of reclamation. This project draws on new speaker, language policy, Southern and decolonial sociolinguistic scholarship in order to contribute to Indigenous language reclamation research and practice.

Project Objectives

Together with Quechua and Aimara co-researchers who study at an intercultural bilingual education teacher education program in Peru, we will combine ethnographic and participatory methodologies informed by Indigenous ways of being and knowing in order to:

  1. Analyze how Indigenous language education is defined and implemented in a higher education intercultural bilingual education program
  2. Understand how Quechua and Aimara women students describe, represent and make sense of what it means to be an Indigenous language speaker and writer
  3. Identify and support ways in which Quechua and Aimara women shape Indigenous language education

Significance

I seek to engage in research that supports women’s desires and participation in Indigenous language reclamation, centering on the experiences of student co-researchers, and offering implications for Indigenous language education and research in other contexts.

The project will also contribute to New Speaker scholarship with findings and perspectives from a non-European context and will consider how multilingualism research can be enriched by the use of participatory and Indigenous methodologies.'

Outputs:

Conferences and seminars attended:

Presentations at conferences with peer-reviewed abstracts:

  • Becoming Indigenous language speakers: comparative perspectives from Sámi and Quechua learners and speakers. With P. Lane and C. Kleeman. MultiLing Closing Conference. University of Oslo. October 18-20, 2023.
  • Becoming Indigenous language speakers in university: comparative perspectives from Sámi, Quechua, and Aimara student teachers. ISB 14. With C. Kleemann and P. Lane. International Symposium on Bilingualism 14. Sydney, Australia, June 26-30, 2023.
  • Indigenous experiences of language revitalization. Critical and decolonial perspectives on binary speaker categorizations. With P. Lane. Invited Colloquia Epistemic justice and languaging: A critique of hegemonic thinking, essentialisms and labelling language’. AAAL Conference. Pittsburgh, USA, March 19-22, 2022.

Invited presentations at conferences:

  • Becoming speakers of Indigenous languages in university. MultiLing Closing Conference. University of Oslo. October 18-20, 2023.
  • Experiencias de reclamación del quechua y del aimara de mujeres universitarias en Perú. Congreso Internacional Transdisciplinario Desafíos en la Diversidad (IV) Lenguas y Variedades en Desplazamiento: Documentación-Revitalización. Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador. September 12-15, 2023.

Presentations at departmental seminars and workshops:

  • Becoming Indigenous language speakers: comparative perspectives from Sámi and Quechua learners and speakers. Multilingualism Research Forum, University of Oslo. With Carola Kleemann and Pia Lane. May 31, 2023.
  • Claiming back the body: Quechua, Aimara, campesina and mestizo women’s experiences of Indigenous language reclamation in higher education. Multilingualism Research and Wellbeing Colloquium. Center for Multilingualism in Society across the Lifespan, University of Oslo. May 4-5, 2023.
  • Youth and Indigenous language speakerhood in the home: generational perspectives on Quechua language socialization and reclamation. Out of Silence Workshop: Reclaiming Indigenous languages. Center for Multilingualism in Society across the Lifespan, University of Oslo. May 18, 2022.

Guest lectures:

  •  “Dentro de la universidad es donde surge un cambio en mi”: university students’ lived experiences of Quechua and Aymara language reclamation. The Arctic University of Norway - Tromsø, November 22, 2023.
  •  “Becoming Quechua and Aimara speakers and writers: co-researching language reclamation experiences with university women students”. Advanced Series in Multilingualism Talk Series. Initiative for Multilingualism Studies. Georgetown University, United States. March 28, 2022.

Scientific publications

In progress:

  • (with C. Kleeman and P. Lane). Becoming Indigenous language speakers in university: comparative perspectives from two Sámi and Quechua student teachers. Journal of Language, Identity and Education.
  • (with M. Hammine). New speaker female perspectives: co-researching language reclamation from Indigenizing methodologies in the Andes and Ryukyus Islands. Gender and Language Journal.
  • Co-editor of edited volume. (with P. Lane) Out of silence. Reclaiming indigenous and minority languages. Multilingual Matters. (Book contract).
  • ‘On claiming youth Quechua speakerhood’. In Pia Lane and Frances Kvietok (Eds). Out of silence. Reclaiming indigenous and minority languages. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. (8,000 words) (completed external review process).

Exploitation activities with academic peers

Workshops:

  • Biographical methods for the study of multilingualism. The Arctic University of Norway - Tromsø, November 23, 2023. 5 hours. (with Pia Lane).
  • Métodos biográficos para el estudio del multilingüismo. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Ecuador. September 18-20, 2023. 6 hours.

Outreach activities

  • On-site exhibit of biographical methods workshop products with all participants of the study, as well as an oral presentation of preliminary project findings (2022). The purpose of both activities was to communicate project activities as well as identify participant-led recommendations to inform Indigenous language education.
  • Presentations at 3 teacher education programs in Perú in 2023.

Non-scientific dissemination and exploitation activities

Images from the project

 

Images

Duration

2021-2023

Published Jan. 26, 2022 9:44 AM - Last modified Mar. 18, 2024 10:12 AM

Participants

  • Frances Kvietok Duenas Universitetet i Oslo
Detailed list of participants