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.