Decolonial Voices, Language and Race

Description

Uses a unique, conversational approach to document global interactions between cutting-edge scholars

In the wake of #MeToo, Black Lives Matter, #rhodesmustfall and the Covid-19 pandemic, this groundbreaking book echoes the growing demand for decolonization of the production and dissemination of academic knowledge. Reflecting the dynamic and collaborative nature of online discussion, this conversational book features interviews with globally-renowned scholars working on language and race and the interactive discussion that followed and accompanied these interviews. Participants address issues including decoloniality; the interface of language, development and higher education; race and ethnicity in the justice system; lateral thinking and the intellectual history of linguistics; and race and gender in a biopolitics of knowledge production. Their discussion crosses disciplinary boundaries and is a vital step towards fracturing racialized and gendered epistemic systems and creating a decolonized academia.

Contributors

Acknowledgements

Foreword

Sinfree Makoni, Magda Madany-Saa, Bassey E. Antia, Rafael Lomeu Gomes: Introduction

Chapter 1. Kwesi Kwaa Prah: Language and Decolonization in Institutions of Higher Learning in Africa

Chapter 2. Christopher Hutton: Linguistics, Race and Fascism

Chapter 3. Monica Heller and Bonnie McElhinny: Struggle, Voice, Justice: A Conversation and Some Words of Caution about the Sociolinguistics We Hope For   

Chapter 4. Robbie Shilliam: Black Bodies

Chapter 5. John Baugh: Linguistics for Legal Purposes

Bassey E. Antia: Epilogue: Transcending Metonymic Reason: Foregrounding Southern Coordinates of Sociolinguistic Thought and Rethinking Academic Cultures

Index

Sujets

• Minority Studies
• Ethnic Studies
• Post-Colonialism
• Political Science
• EDUCATION
• Linguistics
• Higher
• Level
• Anti-racism
• Decolonization
• Professional
• North-South divide
• Postgraduate education
• General officer
• Sociolinguistics
• School
• Higher education
• Epistemology
• Colonialism
• General
• Cultural Studies
• BLM
• Research
• Postgraduate
• Discrimination

Informations

• Publié par: Channel View Publications
• Date de parution: 28 juin 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781800413504
• Langue: English

Extrait

Decolonial Voices, Language and Race
GLOBAL FORUM ON SOUTHERN EPISTEMOLOGIES
Series Editors: Sinfree Makoni ( Pennsylvania State University, USA ), Rafael Lomeu Gomes ( University of Oslo, Norway ), Magda Madany-Saá ( Pennsylvania State University, USA ), Bassey E. Antia ( University of the Western Cape, South Africa ) and Chanel Van Der Merwe ( Nelson Mandela University, South Africa )
This book series publishes independent volumes concerned primarily with exploring peripheralized ways of framing and conducting language studies in both the Global South and Global North. We are particularly interested in the 'geopolitics of knowledge' as it pertains to language studies and aim to illustrate how language scholarship in the Global North is partially indebted to diverse traditions of scholarship in the Global South. We are also keen to explore interfaces between language and other areas of human and non-human scholarship. Ultimately, our concern is not only epistemological; it is also political, educational and social. The books are part of the Global Forum, which is open and politically engaged. The Global Forum fosters collegiality and dialogue, using the technologies essential to productivity during the pandemic that have served our collective benefit. In the book series, we experiment with the format of the book, challenging the colonial concept of a single monologic authorial voice by integrating multiple voices, consistent with decoloniality and the democratic and politically engaged nature of our scholarship.
Full details of all the books in this series and of all our other publications can be found on http://www.multilingual-matters.com , or by writing to Multilingual Matters, St Nicholas House, 31–34 High Street, Bristol, BS1 2AW, UK.
GLOBAL FORUM ON SOUTHERN EPISTEMOLOGIES: 1
Decolonial Voices, Language and Race
Edited by
Sinfree Makoni, Magda Madany-Saá, Bassey E. Antia and Rafael Lomeu Gomes
MULTILINGUAL MATTERS
Bristol • Jackson
This volume one is dedicated to Johey Tonny Verfaille.
DOI https://doi.org/10.21832/MAKONI3481
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
Names: Makoni, Sinfree, editor. | Madany-Saá, Magda, editor. | Antia, Bassey Edem, editor. | Gomes, Rafael Lomeu, editor.
Title: Decolonial Voices, Language and Race/Edited by Sinfree Makoni, Magda Madany-Saá, Bassey E. Antia and Rafael Lomeu Gomes.
Description: Bristol; Jackson: Multilingual Matters, [2022] | Series: Global Forum on Southern Epistemologies: 1 | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: "This groundbreaking book echoes the growing demand for decolonization of the production and dissemination of academic knowledge. Reflecting the dynamic nature of online discussion, this conversational book features interviews with scholars working on language and race and the interactive discussion that accompanied these interviews"— Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022003267 (print) | LCCN 2022003268 (ebook) | ISBN 9781800413481 (hardback) | ISBN 9781800413474 (paperback) | ISBN 9781800413504 (epub) | ISBN 9781800413498 (pdf)
Subjects: LCSH: Sociolinguistics. | Decolonization. | Education, Higher—Social aspects. | Racism in higher education. | Developing countries—Intellectual life. | Developing countries—Relations—Developed countries. | Developed countries—Relations—Developing countries.
Classification: LCC P40 .D34 2022 (print) | LCC P40 (ebook) | DDC 306.44—dc23/eng/20220420
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022003267
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022003268
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue entry for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN-13: 978-1-80041-348-1 (hbk)
ISBN-13: 978-1-80041-347-4 (pbk)
Multilingual Matters
UK: St Nicholas House, 31–34 High Street, Bristol, BS1 2AW, UK.
USA: Ingram, Jackson, TN, USA.
Website: www.multilingual-matters.com
Twitter: Multi_Ling_Mat
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/multilingualmatters
Blog: www.channelviewpublications.wordpress.com
Copyright © 2022 Sinfree Makoni, Magda Madany-Saá, Bassey E. Antia and Rafael Lomeu Gomes and the authors of individual chapters.
All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher.
The policy of Multilingual Matters/Channel View Publications is to use papers that are natural, renewable and recyclable products, made from wood grown in sustainable forests. In the manufacturing process of our books, and to further support our policy, preference is given to printers that have FSC and PEFC Chain of Custody certification. The FSC and/or PEFC logos will appear on those books where full certification has been granted to the printer concerned.
Typeset by Nova Techset Private Limited, Bengaluru and Chennai, India.
Printed and bound in the UK by the CPI Books Group Ltd.
Contents
Acknowledgements
Foreword
Introduction
Sinfree Makoni, Magda Madany-Saá, Bassey E. Antia and Rafael Lomeu Gomes
1 Language and Decolonization in Institutions of Higher Learning in Africa
Kwesi Kwaa Prah
2 Linguistics, Race and Fascism
Christopher Hutton
3 Struggle, Voice, Justice: A Conversation and Some Words of Caution about the Sociolinguistics We Hope For
Monica Heller and Bonnie McElhinny
4 Black Bodies
Robbie Shilliam
5 Linguistics for Legal Purposes
John Baugh
Epilogue: Transcending Metonymic Reason: Foregrounding Southern Coordinates of Sociolinguistic Thought and Rethinking Academic Cultures
Bassey E. Antia
Index
Acknowledgements
I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the many people who have worked with me in various capacities in the African Studies Global Virtual Forum. First, thank you to those who were engaged in the early reading group, which provided the basis for the Forum’s formation: Sibusiso Ndlangamandhla, Anna Kaiper-Marquez, Desmond Odugu, Rafael Lomeu Gomes, Alastair Pennycook and Magdalena Madany-Saá. Some of these individuals – along with Bassey Antia, Kim Hansen, Chanel van der Merwe and Visnja Milojicic – continue to play an active role in shaping the nature of the Forum. I would also like to express my gratitude to Cristine Severo and Ashraf Abdelhay for consistently advertising the Forum through their listserv, Literacy and Applied Linguistics in Africa.
I would like to thank all the guest speakers who graciously agreed to share their knowledge with us in the Forum. Without their engagement, it would not have been possible to have the Forum and, subsequently, the book series. My thanks go especially to those speakers whose work is included in this volume: Kwesi Kwaa Prah, Christopher Hutton, Monica Heller and Bonnie McElhinny, Robbie Shilliam and John Baugh. I thank all the Forum’s global participants who took the time to listen together and contribute to the conversation. Rafael Lomeu Gomes would like to thank Zahir Athari for assisting with the transcription of Heller and McElhinny’s session. Thanks, too, to our publishers, Multilingual Matters, for their vision and faith in us.
I thank Johey Tonny Verfaille, the events organizer for the Program of African Studies, who is the Forum’s administrative linchpin. Her efficient dedication has been the force behind her informative emails, her creative flyers and her unfailing responses to members’ queries. I would like to thank Anisa Caine for the numerous enriching conversations that I had with her before and after each session, and also for designing the book’s cover. Our editorial team, composed of Alastair Pennycook, John Joseph, Jason Litzenberg, Oyeronke Oyewumi, Busi Makoni and Jane Gordon, are deserving of thanks for generously giving their time and invaluable feedback.
I’m grateful to Busi Makoni for the multiple roles she has played in this Forum as interlocutor and dependable supporter.
Finally, my thanks to Clarence Lang, the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts, Penn State University, who provided the funding to transcribe the material.
With my deep gratitude
Sinfree Makoni
Foreword
Reflecting on changes to academic life over the last decade, shortly before his death in early 2021, Jan Blommaert (2020) bemoaned the ‘academic industrial culture’ that had developed during his career. He was saddened by the individualisation of academic work, the incessant performance measurement, the emphasis on competition, which was pushing colleagues to stressful extremes and to invest in work at the expense of other aspects of life, a celebrity culture of rock-star plenary speakers (he had, to his chagrin, allowed himself to become one, as he admitted), while underpaid, casualised academics used whatever resources they had to attend conferences and get a foot on the slippery academic ladder. As Connell (2019) similarly notes, growing distrust between dwindling staff and autocratic managers, the increase in internal regulation of teaching and workloads, the commodification of research findings, the casualisation of labour, and the hunt for short-term gain by the enterprise university have all undermined an older culture of collegiality and the knowledge common.
This new culture, Blommaert continued, ‘took away and delegitimized a previous culture, one of collegial dialogue, collaboration, slowness, time to think, to reflect and to doubt, periods of invisibility and absence from public stages – because one was doing some serious bit of research, for instance’. And yet, it is worth reminding ourselves that this perhaps rather rosy-eyed view of an academic past when we talked and collaborated, and took our time to reflect, was never an inclusive collegiality. The collaboration was still only between those who could join the club. If in the current era of expensive international conferences, underpaid and underfunded casual academics must borrow money to join