Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui (2012) unequivocally criticizes the colonial structure of knowledge production and the specific ideas and individuals that come to be valorized within such an unequal and disempowering structure. She describes the academic practices that engender the profound depoliticization of “indigenous” ideas. These academic practices include: the proliferation of “neologisms” (Cusicanqui, 2012, p. 102) and “language (that) entangles and paralyzes their objects of study” (Cusicanqui, 2012, p. 102), the creation of “a new academic canon, using a world of references and counterreferences that establish hierarchies and adopt new gurus” (Cusicanqui, 2012, p. 102) and the (re)production of “the arboreal structure of internal-external colonialism” (Cusicanqui, 2012,p. 101) with its “centers and subcenters, nodes and subnodes, which connect certain universities, disciplinary trends and academic fashions of the North with their counterparts in the South” (Cusicanqui, 2012,p. 101) through intertwined networks of guest lectureships, visiting professorships, scholarships, conferences, symposia and the like. These practices enable the circulation, valorization and reproduction of particular ideas, i.e. “a fashionable, depoliticized, and comfortable multiculturalism” (Cusicanqui, 2012,p. 104), in academic fields that seem intent on reproducing themselves by “changing everything so that everything remains the same” (Cusicanqui, 2012, p. 101). In this regard, Cusicanqui (2012) seems most critical of those who “strike(s) postmodern and even postcolonial poses” (p. 97) and who, through “cooptation and mimesis (and) the selective incorporation of ideas” (Cusicanqui, 2012, p. 104) produce decontextualized, depoliticized but academically fashionable work that may further academic ambitions but are ultimately disconnected from, irrelevant to and even exploitative of “the people with whom these academics believe they are in dialogue” (Cusicanqui, 2012, p. 102). She is unsparing in her depictions of the academics whose specific ideas in relation to multiculturalism “neutralize(s) the practices of decolonization by enthroning within the academy a limited and illusory discussion regarding modernity and decolonization” (Cusicanqui, 2012,p. 104). She names them – Walter Mignolo (who she is especially
Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui(2012)毫不含糊地批评了知识生产的殖民结构，以及在这种不平等和剥夺权力的结构中得到珍视的特定思想和个人。她描述了导致“本土”思想深刻去政治化的学术实践。这些学术实践包括:“新词”(Cusicanqui, 2012，第102页)和“使其研究对象纠缠和瘫痪的语言”(Cusicanqui, 2012，第102页)的扩散，“使用一个建立等级制度并采用新大师的参考和反参考世界的新学术经典”的创造(Cusicanqui, 2012，第102页)和“内部-外部殖民主义的树状结构”(Cusicanqui, 2012，第102页)的(再)生产”(Cusicanqui, 2012，第102页)。101)，其“中心和子中心，节点和子节点，将北方的某些大学，学科趋势和学术时尚与南方的同行联系起来”(Cusicanqui, 2012,p. 101)。101)通过由客座讲师、客座教授、奖学金、会议、专题讨论会等组成的错综复杂的网络。这些实践使特定思想的流通、增值和再生产成为可能，即“一种时尚的、非政治化的、舒适的多元文化主义”(Cusicanqui, 2012,p。104)，在学术领域，似乎意图通过“改变一切，使一切保持不变”来复制自己(Cusicanqui, 2012, p. 101)。在这方面，库西坎基(2012)似乎最批评那些“打击后现代甚至后殖民姿态”的人(第97页)，以及那些通过“合作和模仿(和)有选择地结合思想”(库西坎基，2012年，第104页)产生非语境化、非政治化但学术时髦的作品的人(库西坎基，2012年，第104页)，这些作品可能会进一步推动学术抱负，但最终与之脱节。与“这些学者认为他们正在与之对话的人”无关甚至剥削(Cusicanqui, 2012, p. 102)。她毫不含糊地描述了一些学者，他们在多元文化主义方面的具体想法“通过在学术界内对现代性和非殖民化进行有限而虚幻的讨论，来中和非殖民化的实践”(Cusicanqui, 2012,p. 518)。104)。她给他们起了名字——沃尔特·米格诺洛(她是谁?
{"title":"Dismantling the colonial structure of knowledge production","authors":"Beatriz P. Lorente","doi":"10.1075/LCS.00012.LOR","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/LCS.00012.LOR","url":null,"abstract":"Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui (2012) unequivocally criticizes the colonial structure of knowledge production and the specific ideas and individuals that come to be valorized within such an unequal and disempowering structure. She describes the academic practices that engender the profound depoliticization of “indigenous” ideas. These academic practices include: the proliferation of “neologisms” (Cusicanqui, 2012, p. 102) and “language (that) entangles and paralyzes their objects of study” (Cusicanqui, 2012, p. 102), the creation of “a new academic canon, using a world of references and counterreferences that establish hierarchies and adopt new gurus” (Cusicanqui, 2012, p. 102) and the (re)production of “the arboreal structure of internal-external colonialism” (Cusicanqui, 2012,p. 101) with its “centers and subcenters, nodes and subnodes, which connect certain universities, disciplinary trends and academic fashions of the North with their counterparts in the South” (Cusicanqui, 2012,p. 101) through intertwined networks of guest lectureships, visiting professorships, scholarships, conferences, symposia and the like. These practices enable the circulation, valorization and reproduction of particular ideas, i.e. “a fashionable, depoliticized, and comfortable multiculturalism” (Cusicanqui, 2012,p. 104), in academic fields that seem intent on reproducing themselves by “changing everything so that everything remains the same” (Cusicanqui, 2012, p. 101). In this regard, Cusicanqui (2012) seems most critical of those who “strike(s) postmodern and even postcolonial poses” (p. 97) and who, through “cooptation and mimesis (and) the selective incorporation of ideas” (Cusicanqui, 2012, p. 104) produce decontextualized, depoliticized but academically fashionable work that may further academic ambitions but are ultimately disconnected from, irrelevant to and even exploitative of “the people with whom these academics believe they are in dialogue” (Cusicanqui, 2012, p. 102). She is unsparing in her depictions of the academics whose specific ideas in relation to multiculturalism “neutralize(s) the practices of decolonization by enthroning within the academy a limited and illusory discussion regarding modernity and decolonization” (Cusicanqui, 2012,p. 104). She names them – Walter Mignolo (who she is especially","PeriodicalId":252896,"journal":{"name":"Language, Culture and Society","volume":"48 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-04-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129419252","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
I have read the article by Cusicanqui, who is a feminist sociologist, historian, and subaltern theorist who draws upon anarchist theory in combination with indigenous Quecha and Aarymara cosmologisms in her analytical work. Because Cusicanqui focused on Bolivia, the article provided me with an opportunity to view African Global Southern sociolinguistics through the experiences of a different site in the Global South and to compare, philosophically, sociolinguistic practices in two sites of the Global South, Bolivia and Africa. In a series of articles (see Severo & Makoni, 2014; Makoni & Severo, 2015, 2017), Severo and I compared Brazil and an African nation, Angola, and were able to illustrate, at least to our satisfaction, that, even though both Brazil and Angola shared Portuguese colonial experiences, their current political linguistic dispensations were radically different, underscoring the importance of not viewing the Global South as a homogeneous entity. The diversities within the Global South, for example, in Africa, also are likely to have an impact on knowledge production and circulation. For example, at international conferences, one is more likely to meet scholars from South Africa than from other African countries because it is easier to secure funding and visas for travel by South African scholars than it is for African scholars in other regions of Africa. Scholarship on Africa is, therefore, strongly skewed toward South Africa. The Global North also should be construed as a hierarchized space. This is not to deny the analytical value of the Global North/Global South distinction but, rather, to draw attention to the importance of diversity within each entity (Mignolo & Walsh 2018). Methodologically, it may, therefore, be inadequate to simply state that we are dealing with either the Global North or the Global South. It is more appropriate to emphasize the sociological, economic, and historical configurations of the sites in which the analysis is situated. Our social location has a bearing on our knowledge production and the research we conduct and the answers we are amenable to accept. I perceive myself
{"title":"Conflicting reactions to chi’ixnakax utxiwa","authors":"S. Makoni","doi":"10.1075/LCS.00011.MAK","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/LCS.00011.MAK","url":null,"abstract":"I have read the article by Cusicanqui, who is a feminist sociologist, historian, and subaltern theorist who draws upon anarchist theory in combination with indigenous Quecha and Aarymara cosmologisms in her analytical work. Because Cusicanqui focused on Bolivia, the article provided me with an opportunity to view African Global Southern sociolinguistics through the experiences of a different site in the Global South and to compare, philosophically, sociolinguistic practices in two sites of the Global South, Bolivia and Africa. In a series of articles (see Severo & Makoni, 2014; Makoni & Severo, 2015, 2017), Severo and I compared Brazil and an African nation, Angola, and were able to illustrate, at least to our satisfaction, that, even though both Brazil and Angola shared Portuguese colonial experiences, their current political linguistic dispensations were radically different, underscoring the importance of not viewing the Global South as a homogeneous entity. The diversities within the Global South, for example, in Africa, also are likely to have an impact on knowledge production and circulation. For example, at international conferences, one is more likely to meet scholars from South Africa than from other African countries because it is easier to secure funding and visas for travel by South African scholars than it is for African scholars in other regions of Africa. Scholarship on Africa is, therefore, strongly skewed toward South Africa. The Global North also should be construed as a hierarchized space. This is not to deny the analytical value of the Global North/Global South distinction but, rather, to draw attention to the importance of diversity within each entity (Mignolo & Walsh 2018). Methodologically, it may, therefore, be inadequate to simply state that we are dealing with either the Global North or the Global South. It is more appropriate to emphasize the sociological, economic, and historical configurations of the sites in which the analysis is situated. Our social location has a bearing on our knowledge production and the research we conduct and the answers we are amenable to accept. I perceive myself","PeriodicalId":252896,"journal":{"name":"Language, Culture and Society","volume":"51 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-04-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121586282","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In this article I address the fact that influential strands in socio- and applied linguistics advocate heteroglossic policies in education and other monolingually organised domains without extending this heteroglossia to public debate about language policy. Often this occurs by presenting linguistic diversity to relevant stakeholders as natural and real, or as the only option on account of its proven effectiveness. I argue that this strategy removes options from the debate by framing it as a scientific rather than political one, that it confronts stakeholders with academic pressure and blame, and that this may diminish scholars’ impact on policy making. Using examples from research on translanguaging, repertoires, and linguistic citizenship, I will suggest that scholars may be more effective in contexts of value conflict when their knowledge serves to expand rather than reduce the range of alternatives for stakeholders. Focusing on education I will then explore how we may reclaim language policy from an evidence-based discourse and address matters of value besides matters of fact.
{"title":"Authority and morality in advocating heteroglossia","authors":"J. Jaspers","doi":"10.1075/LCS.00005.JAS","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/LCS.00005.JAS","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000In this article I address the fact that influential strands in socio- and applied linguistics advocate heteroglossic policies in education and other monolingually organised domains without extending this heteroglossia to public debate about language policy. Often this occurs by presenting linguistic diversity to relevant stakeholders as natural and real, or as the only option on account of its proven effectiveness. I argue that this strategy removes options from the debate by framing it as a scientific rather than political one, that it confronts stakeholders with academic pressure and blame, and that this may diminish scholars’ impact on policy making. Using examples from research on translanguaging, repertoires, and linguistic citizenship, I will suggest that scholars may be more effective in contexts of value conflict when their knowledge serves to expand rather than reduce the range of alternatives for stakeholders. Focusing on education I will then explore how we may reclaim language policy from an evidence-based discourse and address matters of value besides matters of fact.","PeriodicalId":252896,"journal":{"name":"Language, Culture and Society","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-04-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130232154","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
We write this editorial at a time when inequality has become a major concern for a variety of social actors and institutions in a range of social domains. Far from being new, contemporary public debates about what is often framed as “the widening of the gap between the poor and the rich” seem to us more like an instantiation of larger dynamics of differentiation and unequal distribution of wealth that are deeply rooted in historical processes. But the scale and intensity in which these are perceived today make it (even more) difficult to ignore, and scholarly work engaging with these issues in the social sciences and humanities via greater focus on political economy can attest to this. Indeed, the intensification of this line of work in the language disciplines has shed important light on the daily situated (re)making of such dynamics and processes as well as on the lived experiences that come with them. Yet, heightened attention to these aspects has also paved the way for new theoretical, epistemological and teleological questions to emerge: How do we channel current anxieties to produce research that does not merely aim to document what we think we know is happening but instead to challenge our very assumptions of how language gets entrenched with regimes of power, difference and change? What set of conceptual frameworks and analytical perspectives are there for us to capture the reification of structures of inequality without preventing us from imagining radical forms of hope and alternative futures? These are some of the preoccupations that drive our attention to the intersections of language, culture and society. As a team heavily committed to the idea of setting up a new journal, we have from the start worked with boldness as a key principle guiding our vision for the language disciplines. Fully aware of the controversies around the notion of ‘culture’, we propose to address it as a terrain of struggle, one in which disciplinary knowledge about social structure, practice and meaning is seen as highly contested. In so doing, we draw on anthropological traditions that have called for a closer examination of the very historical conditions under which such disciplinary knowledge has been produced, circulated and taken up across space and time. This sensitivity, we are reminded, requires tracing back the ways in which the kind of conceptual work underpinning our research may have enabled specific historical projects of colonization and thus provided the
{"title":"Language, culture and society","authors":"","doi":"10.1075/lcs.00001.edi","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/lcs.00001.edi","url":null,"abstract":"We write this editorial at a time when inequality has become a major concern for a variety of social actors and institutions in a range of social domains. Far from being new, contemporary public debates about what is often framed as “the widening of the gap between the poor and the rich” seem to us more like an instantiation of larger dynamics of differentiation and unequal distribution of wealth that are deeply rooted in historical processes. But the scale and intensity in which these are perceived today make it (even more) difficult to ignore, and scholarly work engaging with these issues in the social sciences and humanities via greater focus on political economy can attest to this. Indeed, the intensification of this line of work in the language disciplines has shed important light on the daily situated (re)making of such dynamics and processes as well as on the lived experiences that come with them. Yet, heightened attention to these aspects has also paved the way for new theoretical, epistemological and teleological questions to emerge: How do we channel current anxieties to produce research that does not merely aim to document what we think we know is happening but instead to challenge our very assumptions of how language gets entrenched with regimes of power, difference and change? What set of conceptual frameworks and analytical perspectives are there for us to capture the reification of structures of inequality without preventing us from imagining radical forms of hope and alternative futures? These are some of the preoccupations that drive our attention to the intersections of language, culture and society. As a team heavily committed to the idea of setting up a new journal, we have from the start worked with boldness as a key principle guiding our vision for the language disciplines. Fully aware of the controversies around the notion of ‘culture’, we propose to address it as a terrain of struggle, one in which disciplinary knowledge about social structure, practice and meaning is seen as highly contested. In so doing, we draw on anthropological traditions that have called for a closer examination of the very historical conditions under which such disciplinary knowledge has been produced, circulated and taken up across space and time. This sensitivity, we are reminded, requires tracing back the ways in which the kind of conceptual work underpinning our research may have enabled specific historical projects of colonization and thus provided the","PeriodicalId":252896,"journal":{"name":"Language, Culture and Society","volume":"16 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-04-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114818945","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The category Aryan and the paradigm of ideas associated with it remains highly controversial in contemporary India, and the history, status, and impact of this concept are contested at many levels. This paper starts with the assumption that the genesis of this concept lies in Western linguistic theorizing, and analyzes in outline the reception and impact of Aryan Invasion Theory and the postulation of an Aryan-Dravidian divide. Radical Hindu nationalists reject all aspects of the colonial scholarship of India; other Indian scholars see Western scholarship as authoritative to the extent that it falls within the framework of secular modernity. The argument made here is that the entire Aryan paradigm rests on a faulty set of academic presumptions and that its impact has been more long lasting and destructive than even the application of race theory to the understanding of India. In this sense the paper accepts the criticisms made by radical Hindu nationalists of colonial linguistics, and this raises further complex issues about knowledge production and application, scholarly expertise and authority.
{"title":"Lost in the hall of mirrors","authors":"C. Hutton","doi":"10.1075/LCS.00002.HUT","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/LCS.00002.HUT","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The category Aryan and the paradigm of ideas associated with it remains highly controversial in contemporary India, and the history, status, and impact of this concept are contested at many levels. This paper starts with the assumption that the genesis of this concept lies in Western linguistic theorizing, and analyzes in outline the reception and impact of Aryan Invasion Theory and the postulation of an Aryan-Dravidian divide. Radical Hindu nationalists reject all aspects of the colonial scholarship of India; other Indian scholars see Western scholarship as authoritative to the extent that it falls within the framework of secular modernity. The argument made here is that the entire Aryan paradigm rests on a faulty set of academic presumptions and that its impact has been more long lasting and destructive than even the application of race theory to the understanding of India. In this sense the paper accepts the criticisms made by radical Hindu nationalists of colonial linguistics, and this raises further complex issues about knowledge production and application, scholarly expertise and authority.","PeriodicalId":252896,"journal":{"name":"Language, Culture and Society","volume":"110 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-04-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127989115","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Based on a long-term ethnography of Sub-Saharan African migrants in Cape Town, South Africa, this article examines how language as ideology and practice shapes the rules of guesting and hosting and helps (re)configure the on-going positionalities of both the nation-state-defined-host and the foreigner-guest, making murky the distinction between the two. The key notion of hospitality developed here is examined as practices rather than as identities. I argue that this theoretical shift makes it possible to unsettle the host and guest positions by not positing them a priori or conceptualizing them as immutable. It likewise makes it possible to deconstruct the categories imposed by the State and by which scholars and policy makers alike abide, such as the dichotomy between migrants and locals. At a broader level, the paper draws attention to the Occidentalism that has plagued academia, particularly in the work done on migration. I show how the South African case challenges many scholarly assumptions on language and migration overwhelmingly based on the examination of South-to-North migrations, which do not adequately represent worldwide migrations.
{"title":"Language and (in)hospitality","authors":"Cécile B. Vigouroux","doi":"10.1075/LCS.00003.VIG","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/LCS.00003.VIG","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Based on a long-term ethnography of Sub-Saharan African migrants in Cape Town, South Africa, this article examines how language as ideology and practice shapes the rules of guesting and hosting and helps (re)configure the on-going positionalities of both the nation-state-defined-host and the foreigner-guest, making murky the distinction between the two. The key notion of hospitality developed here is examined as practices rather than as identities. I argue that this theoretical shift makes it possible to unsettle the host and guest positions by not positing them a priori or conceptualizing them as immutable. It likewise makes it possible to deconstruct the categories imposed by the State and by which scholars and policy makers alike abide, such as the dichotomy between migrants and locals. At a broader level, the paper draws attention to the Occidentalism that has plagued academia, particularly in the work done on migration. I show how the South African case challenges many scholarly assumptions on language and migration overwhelmingly based on the examination of South-to-North migrations, which do not adequately represent worldwide migrations.","PeriodicalId":252896,"journal":{"name":"Language, Culture and Society","volume":"133 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-04-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127297224","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Silvia Cusicanqui provides an incisive critique of the ironic appropriation of radical scholarly thinking grounded in local political concerns by ‘first world’ centers of theoretical production and their subsequent reification. Underlying her argument is a sense of deep disquiet and trenchant critique of theoretical sophistry that renders critique apolitical and irrelevant. In this brief response I begin by critiquing the notion of hybridity – because it resonates with a postmodernist wave in current language scholarship – which was once a key concern in postcolonial theory; the futility of trying to find an analytical position outside the legacies of modernity and the enlightenment; and a reflection on the implications of both these positions to critical language studies. By critical language studies I particularly mean those branches of socio-linguistics that engage with a range of sociopolitical concerns such as power, ideology and gender. I first encountered and experienced a sense of disquiet about the theorization of hybridity in the 1990s as a young undergraduate. In the 1990s, the big name in postcolonial studies was Homi Bhabha and his framework of hybridity (Bhabha, 1990, 2004). As a young scholar attempting to come to terms with the complexities of ethno-nationalism in Sri Lanka, the paradigm of hybridity seemed to offer exciting theoretical and political possibilities. However, when I began to apply hybridity, even at the level of textual analysis, I found myself struggling. How could hybridity, for instance, critically respond to the politics of the Tamil minority in Sri Lanka whose struggle for selfhood was built upon a notion of cultural and historical self-hood which could be conceptually undermined through an anti-essentialist argument informed by hybridity? Or how could the postmodern relativity that informed hybridity (Bhabha, 1990, 2004; Young, 1990, 2001) respond to the arguments marshalled by majoritarian Sinhala nationalists that if all frameworks of knowledge are relative, why could not there be a nativist or indigenous framework through which Sri Lanka could be understood – which by default means a Sinhala majoritarian worldview? Hybridity and the dominant discourse of postcolonial studies (Ashcroft, 2002; Bhabha, 1990, 2004; Young, 1990,
{"title":"On hybridity, the politics of knowledge production and critical language studies","authors":"H. Rambukwella","doi":"10.1075/LCS.00008.RAM","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/LCS.00008.RAM","url":null,"abstract":"Silvia Cusicanqui provides an incisive critique of the ironic appropriation of radical scholarly thinking grounded in local political concerns by ‘first world’ centers of theoretical production and their subsequent reification. Underlying her argument is a sense of deep disquiet and trenchant critique of theoretical sophistry that renders critique apolitical and irrelevant. In this brief response I begin by critiquing the notion of hybridity – because it resonates with a postmodernist wave in current language scholarship – which was once a key concern in postcolonial theory; the futility of trying to find an analytical position outside the legacies of modernity and the enlightenment; and a reflection on the implications of both these positions to critical language studies. By critical language studies I particularly mean those branches of socio-linguistics that engage with a range of sociopolitical concerns such as power, ideology and gender. I first encountered and experienced a sense of disquiet about the theorization of hybridity in the 1990s as a young undergraduate. In the 1990s, the big name in postcolonial studies was Homi Bhabha and his framework of hybridity (Bhabha, 1990, 2004). As a young scholar attempting to come to terms with the complexities of ethno-nationalism in Sri Lanka, the paradigm of hybridity seemed to offer exciting theoretical and political possibilities. However, when I began to apply hybridity, even at the level of textual analysis, I found myself struggling. How could hybridity, for instance, critically respond to the politics of the Tamil minority in Sri Lanka whose struggle for selfhood was built upon a notion of cultural and historical self-hood which could be conceptually undermined through an anti-essentialist argument informed by hybridity? Or how could the postmodern relativity that informed hybridity (Bhabha, 1990, 2004; Young, 1990, 2001) respond to the arguments marshalled by majoritarian Sinhala nationalists that if all frameworks of knowledge are relative, why could not there be a nativist or indigenous framework through which Sri Lanka could be understood – which by default means a Sinhala majoritarian worldview? Hybridity and the dominant discourse of postcolonial studies (Ashcroft, 2002; Bhabha, 1990, 2004; Young, 1990,","PeriodicalId":252896,"journal":{"name":"Language, Culture and Society","volume":"6 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"117340565","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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