Paper short abstract:

In this paper we discuss the academic researcher's role in producing and maintaining social inequalities and power relations when doing research, and how these obstacles can be overcome with applying a participatory approach in the linguistic ethnography of language revitalisation.

Paper long abstract:

Although social inequalities and power relations have always been there on the horizon of the study of language, culture and society, the dilemma that the researcher is part of these relations has rarely been posed. Yet linguists derive their expertise precisely from the fact that they have a different kind of knowledge about language than those who have no linguistic training. In our presentation, we outline the relationship between the participatory approach and linguistic ethnography as one in which the linguistic 'expertise' of linguists and non-linguists can be transformed into shared knowledge, not through the persuasion of non-linguists, but through practices of collective action to produce shared knowledge. Based on ethnographic research on a language revitalisation programme, we argue that while linguistic expertise belongs to all, linguists and non-linguists alike, a kind of knowledge that reflects the social inequalities associated with differences in linguistic expertise can only be achieved by shaping it into the co-creation of knowledge through collective action. The participatory approach is seen as a form of such action