Paper short abstract:

Focusing on Chile’s Intercultural Bilingual Education Programme, we assess why interculturalism remains precariously positioned between state rhetoric for inclusive practices and indigenous demands for cultural and political recognition.

Paper long abstract:

Reforms to education in Chile, regarding indigenous populations, have followed a similar path to other countries in Latin America owing largely to pressure from international organisations such as the World Bank and OECD, and attention brought by global media to indigenous demands for greater autonomy across the continent. The Intercultural Bilingual Education Programme (PEIB), launched in 2000 by the Chilean Ministry of Education promised to offer alternate pedagogies from previous colonising mechanisms of schooling. Interculturalism therefore became at once both a source of hope for indigenous populations working towards greater recognition within the nation-state, and a crucial signifier in state rhetoric for its multicultural project of removing exclusionary practices. In practice however, interculturalism's position between these two spheres remains uneasy, having failed to deliver either. In this conference paper we draw on fieldwork conducted during 2011-2012 to argue that these tensions are due to the restrictive types of diversity and pluralism which Chile's neo-liberal multiculturalism is able to accommodate. Although Mapuche professionals are employed within the education system, there is limited scope for Mapuche-led notions and understandings of alternate pedagogic practices. Interculturalism therefore remains at the margins of legislative reform - in fields outside education - while in the classroom, IBE continues to construct indigenous pupils and their knowledges as Other to the dominant Chilean norm.

Paper short abstract:

This paper questions to what extent the new education law of Ecuador, passed in 2010 attempting to create a unified intercultural education system, is fundamentally addressing the historical epistemological, political and social marginalization of indigenous knowledge and ways of living.

Paper long abstract:

Since 1989, Ecuador has had two parallel public education systems; an intercultural bilingual education system for the indigenous populations, managed by the indigenous movement and a Hispanic education system for the Spanish speaking population, managed by the Ministry of Education. The existence of an independent indigenous education system has represented a unique experience in the region, resulting in a separate curriculum model and pedagogy for the indigenous nationalities. However this has also represented a segregated education system, in which 'intercultural' tends to be considered as unidirectional (Walsh, 2009), i.e. from the indigenous population towards the dominant Spanish speaking population but not the other way around. With the new constitution of 2008, which among other things stated that intercultural education was a right for all, a change to this parallel education system was imminent. In 2009 the President Rafael Correa, declared by decree, the incorporation of the intercultural bilingual education system under the administration of the Ministry of Education. Soon after in 2010 a new law for creating a unified intercultural education system was passed. In this paper I will show that this new law maintains a segregated educational policy and demonstrates a high degree of centralization of power. I shall argue that this policy is likely to promote essentializing of cultural identity by presenting a fixed representation of indigenous 'knowledge'. I conclude by questioning whether this new unified intercultural education system is capable of addressing the historical process of inequality, leading to social transformation, as stated by the new constitution.

Paper short abstract:

This presentation explores current alternative strategies to formal education and legislation with a view to revalorising and revitalising Yucatec Maya in the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico.

Paper long abstract:

As a consequence of growing indigenous mobilisation in Mexico, particularly after the Zapatista uprising in 1994, there have been significant legislative changes concerning indigenous languages and cultures in Mexico. Thus, article 2 of the Mexican Constitution was amended in 2001 to acknowledge the contribution of indigenous peoples to the multicultural composition of that country. In 2003 the Law of Education was reformed to include a paragraph stating that speakers of indigenous languages will have access to compulsory education both in their own language and in Spanish. Also in 2003, the General Law on Linguistic Rights of Indigenous Peoples was approved, becoming the first official legislative text that explicitly addresses the promotion of indigenous languages in Mexico. Two years later the National Institute of Indigenous Languages (INALI) was created in Mexico City with the aim of cataloguing and standardising the indigenous languages of Mexico. All these top down initiatives, which stem from official institutions, may have a positive impact on the public recognition of indigenous languages but they also have enormous limitations for actual language revitalisation on the ground. Against this background, this presentation will look at current efforts to promote Maya in alternative domains of use to formal education such as the Internet, social media, the radio and popular culture. Adopting a microlevel perspective, this presentation will look at grassroots initiatives that focus on local contexts, horizontal linguistic practices, and speakers as the final agents of language management.

Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the rapid loss of Harakmbut language practices and use among the Arakmbut communities of the SE Peruvian Amazon in the context of massive in-migration of non-Harakmbut speaking gold miners and traders over the past 30 years with a consequent ‘shrinkage’ of Arakmbut social spaces.

Paper long abstract:

This paper examines the loss of Harakmbut language practices and use by the Arakmbut of SE Peruvian Amazonia where massive in-migration of non-Harakmbut speaking gold miners and traders over 30 years has 'shrunk' Arakmbut social spaces. It examines changes in use of Harakmbut among different generations and examines how steady massive physical encroachment of non-Arakmbut speaking gold miners and traders has shrunk social spaces for the transmission and performance of Arakmbut knowledge such as forest, garden, village and house. It questions the influence of the Spanish-language primary school, today an institutional fixture in Arakmbut villages managed by a Dominican missionary network. Using ethnographic research, it asks what these changes mean for specialized features of Harakmbut speech and registers and considers how Arakmbut individuals have the potential to develop their linguistic diversity over a lifetime through communication with the invisible spirit world and knowledge gained through productive activities for the benefit of the community. What does this shrinking of space mean for Harakmbut diversity and usage with continued territorial devastation from gold mining and as Arakmbut lives articulate in complex ways with local, national and global societies. What does the rejection of intercultural bilingual schooling as a space for the regeneration of indigenous language mean and are there new spaces that can claimed for the revitalization of Harakmbut language and identity.

Paper short abstract:

This narrative and analysis of the everyday experiences of young indigenous language speakers in central highland Mexico helps inform current debate on education policy and indigenous language maintenance.

Paper long abstract:

'This sociolinguistic paper explores the experiences of young indigenous language speakers in central highland Mexico as a contribution to current debate on education policy and indigenous language maintenance. It moves from the empirical and particular to the theoretical and general, in order to discuss how notions of pluriculturalism and inter-cultural encounter should be understood and processed in discussions of Mexican national life and public policy. Indeed, in a context where most indigenous language speakers still suffer material and political discrimination, it questions the extent to which such terms can be regarded as euphemistic and coercive. The on-going doctoral study centres on a group of older teenagers in a hitherto isolated Totonaco-speaking rural community now undergoing very rapid infrastructural change. The young people have risen through (so-called) bilingual primary and Spanish-monolingual state-run secondary schools to now attend an independent and ideologically-driven high school, set up by local Totonaca Elders as an alternative to state provision, and drawing on Freirean principles of critical pedagogy and socio-political action. Some of the students will go on to study vocational courses at the very newest state-sponsored Universidad Íntercultural, while others migrate to the Spanish-speaking provincial capital to study at more prestigious traditional universities. Through their daily routines, unfolding life-stories, experiences, actions and beliefs, the young people provide a unique perspective on life at the inter-cultural educational chalk face, literally and metaphorically embodying cross-linguistic and cross-cultural consciousness, capacity and change'.

Paper short abstract:

Based on our experience in Mexico and Latin America we are going to talk about how from the academic field we can unravel contradictions about LR ideologies and how we are testing our collaborations as a sociopolitical practice and not only interesting subject to academic research.

Paper long abstract:

Language Revitalization (LR) is a project that has gained an important place in both academic and indigenous political movements. For over two decades in Latin America LR has been developing projects, academic programs and community-based strategies to achieve these languages continue to be used and transmitted by its speakers. However, LR as a topic arises largely from academic groups, and many social organizations and movements have agreed to implement academic support actions in favor of their languages. This academic presence, although it has been an important element to display the importance of linguistic diversity has created some contradictions about how to conceive of LR, which co-participatory methodologies to develop, how to train LR agents, which materials produce and, above all, why revitalize a language and/or a linguistic variety. In this paper, based on our experience in Mexico, and other Latin American experiences we know, we want to talk about how, from the academic/research field, we can unravel these contradictions and how we tried to bring certain changings to our research praxis. Since the exposure of certain language ideologies around the LR, our aim is not to answer the questions set but rather try to show how we have been testing our collaborations and how it has arisen interest in start watching the LR as a sociopolitical practice and not just as a interesting subject for academic research. We believe is not enough to have ideologies in favor of LR but we need the development of long-term revitalization processes.

Paper short abstract:

This paper will survey and critically analyse the recent legislation and related Constitutional reforms around language and education rights for indigenous peoples in the Andean states (Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia), comparing language planning and policy discourses with practices on the ground.

Paper long abstract:

This paper will survey the recent legislation and related Constitutional reforms around language and education rights for indigenous peoples in the Andean states (Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia). It will look at the discourses emerging in the legislative documents and in policy making at ministerial level, comparing these discourses with practices on the ground. In particular, the emergent discourses of decolonization and 'buen vivir', present to varying degrees across the three countries, beg the question whether it is possible to talk of linguistic decolonization, and what such a process might look like. This question will be considered in relation to legislative provisions; institutional structures which might facilitate decolonization of language planning practices; and changes in social attitudes and language use in daily life.

Paper short abstract:

In my paper, based on my PhD. fieldwork results, I will reflect on the understanding of “lo aymara” and will deepin some contradictions between theory, practice and its (un)expected consequences. I will use an Ethnographic perspective.

Paper long abstract:

In aymara language "jiwasanaka" means "we all" in an inclusive way. That is how an aymara teacher explained to me the new educational process in Bolivia: Intra-cultural, inter-cultural, pluri-language education will be implemented in the whole educational system, not only in indigenous rural schools. Based on my Ph.D. fieldwork results, I propose to highlight some issues regarding the new educational law and its implementation in classrooms. I will use an Ethnographic perspective, focusing on two levels: in one hand, the discourses of key persons, responsible for designing and implementing new educational policies and, in the other, the educational practice, using data obtained during my participant observation carried out in two schools in La Paz city. In my argumentation I will reflect on the understanding of "lo aymara" and will deep in some contradictions between theory, practice and its (un)expected consequences.

Paper short abstract:

La presentación analiza las estrategias utilizadas en el Proyecto de Acción Andina de Educación para contribuir al mantenimiento de las lenguas originarias en un contexto multilingüe de acuerdo con la nueva ley de educación y la política lingüística actual de Bolivia.