Browsing by Author "Heugh, Kathleen"

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    Diversities, affinities and diasporas: a southern lens and methodology for understanding multilingualisms
    (Taylor & Francis, 2018) Heugh, Kathleen; Stroud, Christopher
    We frame multilingualisms through a growing interest in a linguistics and sociology of the �south� and acknowledge earlier contributions of linguists in Africa, the Am�ricas and Asia who have engaged with human mobility, linguistic contact and consequential ecologies that alter over time and space. Recently, conversations of multilingualism have drifted in two directions. Southern conversations have become intertwined with �decolonial theory�, and with �southern� theory, thinking and epistemologies. In these, �southern� is regarded as a metaphor for marginality, coloniality and entanglements of the geopolitical north and south. Northern debates that receive traction appear to focus on recent �re-awakenings� in Europe and North America that mis-remember southern experiences of linguistic diversity. We provide a contextual backdrop for articles in this issue that illustrate intelligences of multilingualisms and the linguistic citizenship of southern people. In these, southern multilingualisms are revealed as phenomena, rather than as a phenomenon defined usually in English. The intention is to suggest a third direction of mutual advantage in rethinking the social imaginary in relation to communality, entanglements and interconnectivities of both South and North.
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    Shades,voice and mobility: Afar pastoralist and Rift Valley com- munities (re)interpreting literacy and linguistic practices
    (University of the Western Cape, 2014) Heugh, Kathleen
    In this paper, narrative data from remote communities in Ethiopia reveal in intimateways how �linguistic citizenship� (Stroud 2001) is claimed and exercised to resisteducational decisions which are insensitive to the rhythms of pastoral or rural life. Even where communities are distant from the discourses and resources of the centre, individuals and community spokespersons express powerful views which resonate with contemporary global and local concerns of linguistic diversity, literacy and migration. While conventional representations suggest that such communities lack agency and voice, are require externally delivered aid and to be �spoken for�, this article reveals a matrix of articulate positions on language/s, literacy/ies and participation in both primary school and adult education. Amongst the challenges of (re)interpretation for the researcher is a discordant intersection of fluid temporal and spatial positions of researcher and respondent, simultaneously translocal and transnational. Agitated shifts in time and space recast shades and voice for both respondent and researcher. This paper raises questions for research procedures and interpretation of narrative accounts of literacy(ies), linguistics and educational practices on the margins. In particular, the discussion suggests that an understanding of and sensitivity towards the linguistic citizenship of informants as well as the multilayered positions of the researcher, including the researcher�s own linguistic citizenship, offer productive theoretical and methodological approaches to ethnographic research.
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    Spaces of exception: southern multilingualisms as resource and risk
    (Taylor & Francis, 2018) Heugh, Kathleen; Stroud, Christopher; Scarino, Angela
    In this paper we draw attention to people who journey from one temporal and spatial setting towards another in the �South�, who aspire to a reconfigured sense of belonging, prosperity and wellbeing, and their multilinguality and multilingualisms. Through three vignettes of journeys we illustrate how in changing of place that linguistic diversities are encountered and mediated. During moments of North�South and South�South entanglement and exception we argue that multilingualisms re-ecologise along horizontal axes of conviviality, and / or re-index along vertical axes of exclusion. We suggest that �rooting� and �rerouting� multilingualisms are not only multidimensional, but they are also multifaceted as people who choose or are obliged to experience displacement, undertake journeys of anticipation of replacement into regulated or unregulated situations. Multilingualisms in the memories, dreams, complex selves, materiality and complicities of coping have yet to receive sufficient attention from linguists. We attempt to capture these aspects and suggest that southern multilingualisms have much to offer and entice northern multilingualisms. We illustrate how closely integrated are multilingual repertoires with mobilities and temporalities of dislocation and change; with loss, nostalgia and the anticipation of new beginnings; and with multi-scaled complicities between individuals as they re-calibrate lives in turbulent and changing circumstances.