Pursuing an understanding of relationship making within language revitalization: conversations with Indigenous language activists

Abstract

We are born into a universe of pre-existing relationships (kinship, ancestral lineage, social and interpersonal, environmental, economic, political, etc.), in addition to the many relationships made intentionally or inadvertently throughout our lives. Within the context of community-based Native American and Indigenous language acquisition and revitalization (LAR), how does the presence or lack of wellness and holism impact the group members’ abilities to combat community-based internal language endangerment? Pursuing an understanding of Indigenous relationship making in adult language learning groups reveals an interconnected network of relationships amongst mentors, mentees, and peers to maintain and sustain long-term LAR efforts. Through this multivocal experimental ethnography, an autoethonographic narrative is combined with interdisciplinary research and transcultural conversations with long-term Indigenous language activists (champions, warriors, or practitioners). The Indigenous experience across space and time is documented to reveal complexities of LAR life stage knowledge and an analysis of the social efficacy of LAR methodologies for wellness and positive productive social relationships.

This work utilizes Indigenous collaborative research methodologies, poetics, and meaningful visual graphic guides (illustrations) to represent processes of reflection through truth telling, storywork, and meaning making. With over 330 years of combined experience stretched across nearly a century, the Indigenous language activists’ LAR journeys are discussed to unpack significant social experiences in tandem with LAR methodologies. These experiences reveal ongoing community-based issues which complicate LAR social experiences and outcomes. Ongoing internal issues raise questions about how LAR efforts are interconnected with the creation of healthy Indigenous speech communities, self-care, camaraderie, and a multiplicity of issues causing internal language endangerment. The conversations with Indigenous language activists detail the beginnings of their LAR journeys and analyze issues of access to knowledge, gatekeepers (colonized and assimilated minds), kinship dynamics, language prestige, and lateral violence and oppression, to identify methods they have used to move beyond and resolve such issues.

At the center of this work, is seeking to understand how LAR work is relationship work. After decades of Indigenous endangered language research carried out by scholars across the world, there is now a good understanding of the technical methods of language acquisition. However, posing the questions, what is actually being revitalized and for what future, posits a deeper reflection on the definitions and creation of LAR methodologies which prioritize social wellness and teach to the creation of healthy interpersonal positive and productive relationships amongst Indigenous adult language groups.