<div dir="ltr">
<div class="gmail-indexCard gmail-articleIndexCard gmail-collapsed" id="gmail-bookDetail">
<div class="gmail-indexSummary gmail-bookSummary gmail-summary" id="gmail-bookContent">
<div class="gmail-title">
<span class="gmail-titlePart">
“We Work as Bilinguals”: Socioeconomic Changes
and Language Policy for Indigenous Languages in El Impenetrable
</span>
<span class="gmail-availabilityIcon gmail-locked" title="Restricted access"> </span>
</div>
<h2 class="gmail-authorsList">
Virginia Unamuno and Juan Eduardo Bonnin
</h2>
<div class="gmail-sourceTitle">
<a href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190458898">
The Oxford Handbook of Language Policy and Planning
</a>
</div>
<h2 class="editorsList">
Edited by James W. Tollefson and Miguel Pérez-Milans
</h2>
<div class="gmail-bibliography gmail-articleContent">
<div class="gmail-metaBlock">
<dl class="gmail-metadata gmail-metadataPrintPublicationDate">
<dt class="gmail-metadataLabel">Print Publication Date:</dt>
<dd class="gmail-metadataValue">Jul 2018</dd>
</dl>
<dl class="gmail-metadata gmail-metadataSubject">
<dt class="gmail-metadataLabel">Subject:</dt>
<dd class="gmail-metadataValue">Linguistics, Sociolinguistics</dd>
</dl>
<dl class="gmail-metadata gmail-metadataPrintPublicationOnlineDate">
<dt class="gmail-metadataLabel">Online Publication Date:</dt>
<dd class="gmail-metadataValue">May 2018</dd>
</dl>
<dl class="gmail-metadata gmail-metadataDOI">
<dt class="gmail-metadataLabel">DOI:</dt>
<dd class="gmail-metadataValue">10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.013.29</dd>
</dl>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="gmail-topControls">
<div class="gmail-pageLinks gmail-stickyMenu gmail-c-Actions" id="gmail-pageLinks">
<ul class="gmail-actions gmail-c-Actions_list">
<li class="gmail-print gmail-c-Action gmail-first">
<a class="gmail-ico-print gmail-c-IconButton gmail-c-IconButton-print" rel="nofollow" title="Print" href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29?print">
<span>Print</span>
</a>
</li>
<li title="Save" class="gmail-save gmail-tagged gmail-c-Action">
<a class="gmail-ico-save gmail-c-IconButton gmail-c-IconButton-save" title="Save" href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/signup">
<span>Save</span>
</a>
</li>
<li class="gmail-cite gmail-c-Action">
<a rel="nofollow" class="gmail-ico-cite gmail-c-IconButton gmail-c-IconButton-format-quote" title="Cite" href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/cite/$002f10.1093$002foxfordhb$002f9780190458898.001.0001$002foxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29/9780190458898?nojs=true">
<span>Cite</span>
</a></li>
<li class="email">
<a title="Email" href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/oso/viewentry:email/$201cWe$0020Work$0020as$0020Bilinguals$201d:$0020Socioeconomic$0020Changes$0020and$0020Language$0020Policy$0020for$0020Indigenous$0020Languages$0020in$0020El$0020Impenetrable$0020-$0020Oxford$0020Handbooks/http:$002f$002fwww.oxfordhandbooks.com$002fview$002f10.1093$002foxfordhb$002f9780190458898.001.0001$002foxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29$003fp$003demailA8iWqPt6bVil6$0026d$003d$002f10.1093$002foxfordhb$002f9780190458898.001.0001$002foxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29?t:ac=10.1093$002foxfordhb$002f9780190458898.001.0001$002foxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29&nojs=true"><span>Email</span></a>
</li>
<li class="gmail-share gmail-c-Action gmail-last">
<a title="Share" href="http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=250&pub=ra-4f4bd8682d1a0473" class="gmail-addthis_button gmail-ico-share gmail-c-IconButton gmail-c-IconButton-share">
<span>
Share
</span>
<img style="border: 0px none;" alt="Share" src="http://s7.addthis.com/static/btn/sm-share-en.gif" width="83" height="16">
</a>
</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
<div class="gmail-column-one expandContractBox gmail-closed gmail-stickyMenu" id="gmail-columnOne">
<div class="gmail-multi-auth gmail-auth" id="gmail-login">
<div class="gmail-libraryModule" id="gmail-libraryModule">
<div id="gmail-libraryHeader" class="gmail-">
<h4 id="gmail-libraryModuleExpandLink">
<span class="gmail-company-title"> </span>
<div class="gmail-library-module-tools">
</div>
</h4>
</div>
<div class="gmail-authControls">
<a id="gmail-signInExpand" href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29">
Sign in
</a>
</div>
</div>
<div class="gmail-component gmail-component-content-item gmail-component-login-box">
</div>
</div>
<div id="gmail-leftColumn">
<div class="gmail-module expanded" id="gmail-inThisEntryModule">
<h2 class="gmail-moduleToggle gmail-moduleLabel">In This Article</h2>
<ul class="gmail-toc"><span class="gmail-smallCaps"></span><li class="gmail-sections"><a href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29#oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-div1-99">Language Policies, Ethnography, and Discourse Analysis</a></li><li class="gmail-sections"><a href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29#oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-div1-100">The Bilinguals in Chaco: Between National Legislation and Local Roadblocks</a></li><li class="gmail-sections"><a href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29#oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-div1-101">Bilinguals as State Agents: The Ideology of Access</a></li><li class="gmail-sections"><a href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29#oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-div1-102">Bilinguals as Local Actors: Education and Health Care in El Impenetrable</a><ul><li class="gmail-div2"><a href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29#oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-div2-70">The Wichi Health-Care Workers</a></li><li class="gmail-div2"><a href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29#oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-div2-71">The Wichi Educators</a></li></ul></li><li class="gmail-sections"><a href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29#oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-div1-103">Conclusions</a></li><li class="gmail-bibliography"><a href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29#oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibliography-19">References
</a></li><li class="gmail-notes"><a href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29#notes">Notes</a></li></ul>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="gmail-mainBase" id="gmail-mainContent">
<div id="gmail-readPanel">
<div>
<div class="gmail-component gmail-component-content-item gmail-component-smart-nav">
</div>
<p></p>
<div id="gmail-goToPage" class="gmail-module">
<form class="gmail-search-form gmail-locus-search-form" action="/oso/viewentry.gotopage.form/$002f10.1093$002foxfordhb$002f9780190458898.001.0001$002foxfordhb-9780190458898/$002f10.1093$002foxfordhb$002f9780190458898.001.0001$002foxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29" method="post" id="gmail-form" name="form">
<label id="gmail-pageNumber-label" for="pageNumber" class="gmail-search-label gmail-locus-label">Go to page:</label>
<input class="gmail-inputSm gmail-form-control gmail-search-field gmail-locus-field" id="gmail-pageNumber" name="pageNumber" type="text">
</form></div></div></div></div>
<ul class="extendedToolsModule gmail-stickyMenu">
<li class="gmail-pdfdownload">
<a rel="nofollow" class="gmail-downloadPdfLightBox" href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/oxford/downloaddoclightbox/$002f10.1093$002foxfordhb$002f9780190458898.001.0001$002foxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29/$201cWe$0020Work$0020as$0020Bilinguals$201dSocioeconomic$0020Changes$0020and$0020Language$0020Policy$0020for$0020Indigenous$0020Languages$0020in$0020El$0020Impenetrable?nojs=true">View PDF</a>
</li>
</ul>
<p></p>
<div class="entryContent">
<div id="gmail-contentRoot"><div id="gmail-abstractAndKeywords"><h2 class="gmail-abstractMinus">Abstract and Keywords</h2><div class="gmail-abstract"><p>This
chapter examines the social impact of language policy and planning
(LPP) in the daily life of Wichi communities in Argentina. The analysis
shows how languages and bilingualism, categorized as a specific resource
to access public positions in deprived regions in Argentina, define a
disputed territory and shape social conflicts among groups. The chapter
focuses on the Argentinean region known as El Impenetrable, where new
language policies are transforming health and educational institutions
traditionally managed by non-indigenous people. The presence of new
actors in public institutions, assessed with relation to language
competences, and the setting of a new political agenda can be explained
from local and global processes where public decisions are rooted.
Ethnographic sociolinguistics and discourse analysis are combined in a
methodological approach to LPP that takes into account the interplay of
different voices in relation to local and social transformations
regarding indigenous language uses and values.</p></div><p class="gmail-keywords">
Keywords: <a href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/search?f_0=keyword&q_0=bilingualism">bilingualism</a>, <a href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/search?f_0=keyword&q_0=discourse analysis">discourse analysis</a>, <a href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/search?f_0=keyword&q_0=indigenous language">indigenous language</a>, <a href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/search?f_0=keyword&q_0=language planning">language planning</a>, <a href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/search?f_0=keyword&q_0=language policy">language policy</a>, <a href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/search?f_0=keyword&q_0=sociolinguistics">sociolinguistics</a>, <a href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/search?f_0=keyword&q_0=ethnography">ethnography</a>, <a href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/search?f_0=keyword&q_0=Wichi">Wichi</a>, <a href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/search?f_0=keyword&q_0=Argentina">Argentina</a></p></div>
<div id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-div1-98" class="gmail-div1">
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2019"><span class="gmail-sc">To</span> be bilingual is not the same as being <i>a</i> bilingual. The former treats <i>bilingual</i>
as an adjective: a descriptive term depicting some property of an
entity. In contrast, the latter defines a category of beings: <i>a bilingual</i>
is someone who is defined by his or her bilingualism. The definition of
a speaker by her or his (multi)linguistic competences is not new; there
is a globally valued order of languages that defines different “orders
of indexicality” (<a id="gmail-ref_oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1138" href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29#oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1138">Blommaert, 2010</a>,
p. 37), stratified axiological systems within which communicative
competences are evaluated. Dominant languages in Western
societies—English and Spanish in Latin-America—are a valuable linguistic
capital that can be used by global speakers to achieve global goals,
such as studying abroad or publishing academic papers. These speakers
are bilingual, but they are not <i>the bilinguals</i>.</p>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2020">We observe this folk
grammatical re-categorization that uses an adjective as a noun, in a
rather specific phenomenon: the emergence of a new state-based job
category that, unusually, requires Spanish–indigenous language
bilingualism. Indeed, in <a name="p380" class="gmail-pageNumber"><span id="gmail-pageid_380" class="gmail-pageNumber">
(p. 380)
</span></a>Chaco Province, Argentina, after several decades of
invisibilization and social repression of indigenous languages,
Moqoit-Spanish, Qom-Spanish, and Wichi-Spanish bilingualism are now
required to access qualified jobs in the public educational and
health-care system. Although it might be regarded as a successful
outcome of many years of indigenous peoples’ struggle, there is a more
complex political process that situates bilinguals as an in-between
class of social actors, whose Spanish–indigenous language bilingualism
qualifies them for state positions in a particular way.</p>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2021">From this perspective,
bilinguals in Chaco respond to a twofold problem that is characteristic
of the formulation of national public policies within the context of
regional integration processes. On one hand, the state interacts with
international and multilateral organizations, thus “relinquishing some
sovereignty and economic autonomy, in order to join a supranational
regional group for prosperity and security purposes” (<a id="gmail-ref_oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1163" href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29#oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1163">Wright, 2004</a>,
p. 182). On the other hand, the state also interacts with local
actors—landowners and natives—to reduce social conflict: within a
process of progressive reappropriation of the land as a means of
subsistence for native populations, their social and economic demands
are partially appeased with new government-provided jobs (<a id="gmail-ref_oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1158" href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29#oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1158">Unamuno, 2014</a>).
The bilingual can be seen as a figure who works simultaneously at both
levels. At the supranational level, this seems to respond to diplomatic
commitments acquired in organizations such as the <i>Unión de las Naciones del Sur</i>
(UNASUR) or the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO) by somehow
integrating so-called native people into educational and health
institutions. At the local level, it helps to free roadblocks and
decrease belligerence by indigenous organizations toward landowners in
exchange for well-paid government-provided jobs (<a id="gmail-ref_oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1158" href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29#oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1158">Unamuno, 2014</a>).</p>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2022">As subjects <i>in-between</i>,
the social and political meaning of the bilinguals is not homogeneous.
On the contrary, different linguistic ideologies frame diverse
conditions of understanding and encouraging the role of these new,
emergent social actors. To the modern nation-state, the bilingual is a
key actor in the <i>access</i> of minority populations to universally defined human rights. The ideology of access attributes to bilinguals the role of <i>translators</i>
on the basis of two principles: (1) every minority should subordinate
its particular identity to state-defined, Western universalistic
policies (therefore adapting to dominant languages); and (2) language is
a transparent code that objectively conveys information that can be
completely translated from one code to another. To the communities, on
the contrary, both principles are contested on the basis of an ideology
of <i>identity</i>, which refuses to abandon their own worldview, based on a heteroglossic conception of language—not only bilingualism.</p>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2023">In what follows, we will
present how we understand the role of the bilinguals in this
contradictory position. First, we will explain the theoretical and
methodological assumptions of our research. We understand language
policies as a multidimensional political set of actions that, just like
the bilinguals, exists between institutions and practices. Our approach
to language policy and planning (LPP) therefore draws on ethnography,
discourse analysis, and studies of interaction, combined in a <a name="p381" class="gmail-pageNumber"><span id="gmail-pageid_381" class="gmail-pageNumber">
(p. 381)
</span></a>comprehensive approach to data. Second, we will present
a case study of indigenous teachers and health workers at El
Impenetrable, Chaco, in the Argentinean context. This context will be
observed first through the analysis of institutional discourses
regarding language in health care and education, in order to better
describe the <i>ideology of access</i> from the perspective of the
Argentinean nation-state. Next, we will analyze ethnographic data to
observe how this institutional ideology interacts with actual practices
conducted at the local level by indigenous health workers and educators.
The <i>ideology of identity</i>, materialized in daily practices and
discourses, will (to a greater or lesser extent) silently confront the
state view of language among indigenous actors in health care and
education. The conflict between both ideologies is, up to a certain
point, characteristic of the struggle between modern, state-oriented
language policies and grassroots activism, including language as a part
of a wider repertoire of political action. Following on this, we will
conclude with an account of the further implications for LPP research.</p>
</div>
<div id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-div1-99" class="gmail-div1"><h1><p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2024">Language Policies, Ethnography, and Discourse Analysis</p></h1>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2025">Language planning and
policies are usually related to practices, attitudes, and ideologies
regarding the politics of language, or <i>glottopolitics</i>. As noted by <a id="gmail-ref_oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1143" href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29#oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1143">Guespin and Marcellesi (1986, p. 14)</a>,
“toute planification linguistique, dans une société de classes, est
nécessairement la politique linguistique d’une classe sociale dominante”
[language planning, at any given society of classes, is necessarily the
linguistic policy of a dominant social class]. From this perspective,
language policies are necessarily actions that (a) are meaningful and,
as a result, can (and probably should) be discursively analyzed; and (b)
are aimed at speakers rather than languages, affecting their social and
economic realities. We therefore adopt a twofold perspective on
language policies, which includes both discourse analysis of
institutional texts and ethnographic analysis of language practices.</p>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2026">Language policies in
Argentina have traditionally been studied through historical and
discourse analysis of public texts, such as legal norms and political
speeches (cf. <a id="gmail-ref_oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1135" href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29#oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1135">Arnoux & Bein, 2010</a>; <a id="gmail-ref_oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1136" href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29#oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1136">Arnoux & Nothstein, 2014</a>).
Very little research seeks to explain language policies by taking into
consideration political actions at different social levels or scales.
However, the public field is a space of dispute in which historically
confronted groups struggle to access, control, and transform goods and
institutions. Land, education, health, and justice are political objects
that different actors from different positions (and with different
interests) seek to appropriate. In the context of these processes,
languages play a key role. It is therefore hard to <a name="p382" class="gmail-pageNumber"><span id="gmail-pageid_382" class="gmail-pageNumber">
(p. 382)
</span></a>explain language policies without considering what is at stake in their symbolic and material dimensions.</p>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2027">Rather than considering
language policies as the result of deliberate actions by state actors,
undertaken to influence the use and/or transmission of language, we are
interested in looking at the processes in which language is effectively
intertwined with everyday political action (Tollefson, <a id="gmail-ref_oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1156" href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29#oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1156">1991</a>, <a id="gmail-ref_oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1157" href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29#oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1157">2008</a>).
Our research seeks to understand complex multilateral processes in
which language is a politically disputed capital, closely related to
others such as educational degrees or professional qualifications.
Instead of assuming that public agencies make decisions that other
actors enforce, we are interested in the ways in which multiple
decisions converge or diverge in the symbolic struggle to build and/or
influence the public sphere regarding language-related issues.</p>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2028">These processes are complex
research objects because, although contemporary, they require historical
comprehension, and because, despite their strong interactional basis,
their description requires simultaneous attention to different levels
and degrees of context (<a id="gmail-ref_oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1159" href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29#oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1159">Unamuno, 2015</a>). Ethnographic sociolinguistics offers a series of meaningful tools for this kind of research (Heller, <a id="gmail-ref_oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1144" href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29#oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1144">2001</a>, <a id="gmail-ref_oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1145" href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29#oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1145">2011</a>; <a id="gmail-ref_oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1146" href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29#oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1146">Hornberger, 1995</a>; <a id="gmail-ref_oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1140" href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29#oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1140">Codo, Patiño & Unamuno, 2012</a>),
especially regarding methods of multiple contextualizations in the
process of reconstructing the meaning of the analyzed phenomena (<a id="gmail-ref_oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1148" href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29#oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1148">Johnson & Ricento, 2013</a>).</p>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2029">Ethnographic fieldwork and
knowledge of a community help explain the actual effects of normative
legal discourses. In Argentina, many public policies on languages,
including their legal status (such as that of “official language”), do
not lead to any political action over their use or transmission.
Instead, they usually lead to innocuous symbolic recognition that does
not necessarily have any transformative effect on the hegemony of
Spanish.</p>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2030">The combination of discourse
analysis and ethnography enables understanding of widespread
institutional ideologies, as well as the actual agency of the mostly
indigenous social actors who, through grassroots political activism and
discourse struggle, can force emergent regulations or normative
applications. We shall now turn to our research setting.</p>
</div>
<div id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-div1-100" class="gmail-div1"><h1><p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2031">The Bilinguals in Chaco: Between National Legislation and Local Roadblocks</p></h1>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2032">Chaco is a province in
northeastern Argentina, inhabited by three indigenous nations—Qom,
Moqoit, and Wichi—as well as descendants of eastern European immigrants.
It was a pioneer province in the legal recognition of indigenous rights
<a name="p383" class="gmail-pageNumber"><span id="gmail-pageid_383" class="gmail-pageNumber">
(p. 383)
</span></a>in general, and language rights in particular. The Law of the Chaco Aboriginal (Ley de las comunidades indígenas; <a id="gmail-ref_oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1153" href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29#oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1153">Provincia de Chaco, 1987</a>)
is recognized, even today, as being very progressive on the subject of
native people’s rights. We gathered data for this chapter through our
fieldwork, which has been ongoing since 2009. Our research focuses on
the region of El Impenetrable, specifically on the communities that live
by the Teuco River. We have accompanied these communities in different
projects, especially regarding teacher training and the introduction of
the Wichi language and culture in public schools.</p>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2033">It is worth noting two events
in the recent linguistic history of these communities. One is the
creation in 2007 of a branch of the Center for Research and Training for
Indigenous Modality (Centro de Investigación y Formación para la
Modalidad Aborigen), which provides teacher training and awards an
official degree equivalent to that of any non-indigenous teacher. The
other is the appointment in September 2009 of the first Wichi nurse in
an executive position at the local hospital. Both events are meaningful
milestones according to Wichi and non-Wichi local accounts, representing
an about-face in interethnic relationships. In this new process, Wichi
people have gradually gained access to previously unreachable state
positions in the fields of education and health care. Thus, from 2009 to
2016, there has been an unusual increase in the number of Wichi
teachers from only four to sixty-two, of whom 85% hold teaching
positions in the public system. In a similar vein, from 2011 to 2016,
225 health-care workers joined the public health-care system, 63 of whom
were Wichi.</p>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2034">Another series of events have
taken place since the beginning of our research regarding language
policy at different levels and dimensions. At the provincial level, in
2010, the Chaco Parliament enacted the law that makes Qom, Moqoit, and
Wichi co-official languages. In 2013, after a long period of pressure
from indigenous movements led by bilingual teachers, a Bill on
Indigenous Intercultural Bilingual Community-Managed Public Education
(Ley de Educación Pública de Gestión Comunitaria Bilingüe Intercultural
Indígena) was proposed, and the law was enacted on August 13, 2014 (<a id="gmail-ref_oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1154" href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29#oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1154">Provincia de Chaco, 2014</a>). It enables indigenous communities to run schools, at which up to 50% of the appointed staff can be indigenous.</p>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2035">In the field of health care,
it should be noted that in December 2007 a health emergency was declared
in the Province of Chaco as a result of the death by malnutrition of
more than twenty-two indigenous persons. Faced with this situation,
various indigenous demonstrations took place in the province, with
activists cutting off roads and occupying hospitals and health-care
facilities. Chaco Aboriginal Institute, on behalf of indigenous
communities, requested the intervention of the Ombudsman’s Office, which
filed a criminal complaint at the Supreme Court of Justice, causing the
national and provincial governments to take immediate concrete action
regarding indigenous health care. In this context of political pressure,
the Aboriginal Health Council was created to advise the government of
Chaco on health issues in indigenous contexts, creating new positions
for bilingual nurses and new training programs for bilingual
intercultural health workers.</p>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2036"><a name="p384" class="gmail-pageNumber"><span id="gmail-pageid_384" class="gmail-pageNumber">
(p. 384)
</span></a>As noted earlier, the bilinguals are subjects
in-between. On the one hand, top-down, transnational indigenous
movements project commitments, languages, and symbols from countries
with more visible native activism (especially Bolivia, Peru, and
Ecuador) onto others with more invisibilized native activism (like
Argentina) through supranational organizations. On the other hand,
bottom-up, daily struggles and protests result not only in community
subsistence, but also in the revaluation of previously undervalued
capital, such as native cultures and languages. These two different
orders will be dealt with, in turn, in the following two sections.</p>
</div>
<div id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-div1-101" class="gmail-div1"><h1><p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2037">Bilinguals as State Agents: The Ideology of Access</p></h1>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2038">Health care and education are
two basic human rights that are public, free, and universal in
Argentina. Although the former is not explicitly included in the 1994
National Constitution, it is included in <a id="gmail-ref_oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1160" href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29#oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1160">the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)</a> and <a id="gmail-ref_oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1161" href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29#oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1161">the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1976)</a>, which Argentina ratified in 1986 (<a id="gmail-ref_oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1142" href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29#oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1142">Giovanella et al., 2012</a>,
p. 26). In other words, health care appears as a human right through
international instruments and commitments that the country has ratified.
This helps explain the relevance of international organizations and
their agendas in the formulation of health policies in Argentina.</p>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2039">On the other hand, the
Argentinean Constitution explicitly recognizes the right to
“intercultural bilingual education” (hereafter IBE; art. 75). The
amendment, introduced in 1994, resulted from pressure by international
multilateral agreements, specifically Argentina’s ratification of the
International Labour Organization’s Indigenous and Tribal People’s
Convention of 1989 (ILO Convention 169), which explicitly includes IBE.
Similarly, Argentina signed political commitments with UNESCO and UNICEF
regarding the teaching of mother tongues and the protection of
language-cultural diversity. However, formal recognition of IBE did not
necessarily lead to actions regulating bilingual and intercultural
teaching.</p>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2040">Although there is a long tradition of IBE and explicit reflection on language and education in Argentina (<a id="gmail-ref_oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1149" href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29#oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1149">López & Küper, 1999</a>; <a id="gmail-ref_oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1150" href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29#oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1150">López & Sichra, 2008</a>),
no comparable importance is attributed to language in the field of
health-care theory and practice. Something similar occurs with
multilateral organizations such as the United Nations and the ILO, which
tend to include indigenous languages explicitly when referring to
education, but not when referring to health care. <a id="gmail-ref_oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1162" href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29#oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1162">The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007)</a> recognizes the right of indigenous people to “<i>their traditional medicines</i>
and to maintain their health practices, including the conservation of
their vital medicinal plants, animals and minerals” (art. 24; our <a name="p385" class="gmail-pageNumber"><span id="gmail-pageid_385" class="gmail-pageNumber">
(p. 385)
</span></a>emphasis). Knowledge of health and the body seems to be
related to material objects and practices, and not to language, which
is explicitly included when discussing education: “[i]ndigenous peoples
have the right to establish and control <i>their educational systems and institutions</i> providing education in <i>their own languages</i>, in a manner appropriate to their cultural methods of teaching and learning” (art. 14; our emphasis).</p>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2041">The promotion of indigenous
knowledge and practices in health care and education, despite
differences regarding language, is complemented by universalistic
discourse on <i>access</i> to state policies: “Indigenous individuals, particularly children, have the right to <i>all levels and forms of education</i> of the State without discrimination.” (art. 14; our emphasis); “Indigenous individuals also have the right to <i>access</i>, without discrimination, <i>all social and health services</i>”
(art. 24; our emphasis). The tension between indigenous medicine and
education (“their”) and universally defined policies proposed by the UN
text (“all”) poses a challenge to national states. The strategies used
to face this challenge may often be understood as what we call the <i>ideology of access.</i></p>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2042">The ideology of access, even
when recognizing particular cultures and their values, has two
principles, both based in the ideology of the modern nation-state, which
links territory, identity, citizenship, and language (<a id="gmail-ref_oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1137" href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29#oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1137">Blommaert, 2009</a>). Its first feature is a <i>subordination of particular identities to state-defined, Western universalistic policies</i>.
Under this principle, minorities are seen as excluded from policies
because of their particularities; the state’s duty is, therefore, to
help them access universal rights, a corpus of Western knowledge and
institutions that is fixed and static. Language may thus appear as a
barrier to access: “[t]he main barrier [to health-care services] is the
lack of geographic, cultural and economic accessibility [ . . . ].
Indigenous people receive substandard care at healthcare centers, due
either to discrimination in the system or to communication difficulties
because they speak different languages” (<a id="gmail-ref_oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1151" href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29#oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1151">Ministerio de Salud de la Nación, 2012</a>, p. 10; our translation).<a id="gmail-ref_oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-note-1" href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29#oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-note-1"><sup>1</sup></a>
Indigenous languages are not perceived as useful tools for health-care
workers to access indigenous people, but rather as an obstacle faced by
indigenous people, preventing them from accessing proper health care.</p>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2043">The main legal framework on
IBE proposes language diversity as a basis for dialogue, rather than as
an obstacle: “IBE promotes a mutually enriching dialogue of knowledge
and values between indigenous peoples and populations that are
ethnically, linguistically and culturally different, and encourages
recognition and respect towards those differences” (Education Act
26.206, art. 52; our translation).<a id="gmail-ref_oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-note-2" href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29#oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-note-2"><sup>2</sup></a>
However, the normative ruling of the act replicates the conception of
indigenous bi/monolingualism as a handicap. Thus, in the National Plan
of Mandatory Education for years 2012–2016, language diversity is
perceived as a feature of a population that has “special needs,” almost
as a disability: “as of 2016, all jurisdictions implement institutional
formats for children with specific educational needs (rurality,
deprivation of liberty of their mothers, interculturality and
bilingualism, parents or students with disabilities, in hospital or in
domiciliary care)” (Consejo Ferderal de Educación, 2012, p. 5; our
translation).<a id="gmail-ref_oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-note-3" href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29#oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-note-3"><sup>3</sup></a> As in the case of health care, bilingualism is perceived <a name="p386" class="gmail-pageNumber"><span id="gmail-pageid_386" class="gmail-pageNumber">
(p. 386)
</span></a>not as a competence of indigenous children that can be
improved by the educational system but, on the contrary, as an obstacle
that should be overcome in order for them to access Western,
state-defined education.</p>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2044">The second feature of the ideology of access is a <i>monoglossic view on language as a transparent code</i>
that allows information to be conveyed from one person to another. From
this perspective, the issue of indigenous languages is regarded as a
problem of indigenous bi/monolingual speakers who cannot access
education or health offered by the Western, Spanish-monolingual state.
This linguistic ideology sustains a reductive and conservative
conception of interculturality: “communication between cultures or
intercultural communication is basically understood as an exchange of
information through language” (<a id="gmail-ref_oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1151" href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29#oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1151">Ministerio de Salud, 2012</a>, p. 50; our translation).<a id="gmail-ref_oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-note-4" href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29#oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-note-4"><sup>4</sup></a>
The definition of “intercultural communication” is based on a
simplistic monoglossic view of language and culture whereby “exchange of
information through language” assumes that <i>culture</i> equals <i>information</i> and that <i>communication</i>
is, thus, an exchange of information that has language as a neutral
medium, a code that can be perfectly translated into another. In the
field of education, bilingualism and interculturality are not seen as
the property of a specific educational policy or content, but rather as a
contextual feature. IBE is thus intended to “extend and improve
conditions and forms of access” at “kindergartens in intercultural and
bilingual contexts,” for “students in contexts of interculturality and
bilingualism” (<a id="gmail-ref_oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1141" href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29#oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1141">Consejo Federal de Educación, 2012</a>, p. 17; our translation).<a id="gmail-ref_oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-note-5" href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29#oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-note-5"><sup>5</sup></a></p>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2045">To sum up, the ideology of
access is a modern ideology that seeks universalistic inclusion of all
citizens, helping them overcome their barriers or handicaps, such as
language diversity, as a form of defending the equality of people born
in different contextual conditions. This ideology is based on a
monoglossic conception of language as a neutral code and thus leads to a
strategy that aims to facilitate access to that code. Hence, the
bilingual, from this point of view, is an interpreter capable of
translating Western knowledge on education and health to the
disadvantaged bi/monolingual indigenous population.</p>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2046">Nevertheless, at the local level of everyday language policymaking, the bilinguals’ practices seem to be framed in the <i>ideology of identity</i>,
in which ideas about language do not separate language and culture; at
the same time, this ideology is based in a deeply heteroglossic view of
language and communication. This is the hypothesis that we will explore
next.</p>
</div>
<div id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-div1-102" class="gmail-div1"><h1><p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2047">Bilinguals as Local Actors: Education and Health Care in El Impenetrable</p></h1>
<div id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-div2-69" class="gmail-div2">
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2048">Many Wichi bilinguals have been hired for local state positions, despite social and ideological conflicts with the local white<a id="gmail-ref_oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-note-6" href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29#oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-note-6"><sup>6</sup></a> population. Under these conditions, the <a name="p387" class="gmail-pageNumber"><span id="gmail-pageid_387" class="gmail-pageNumber">
(p. 387)
</span></a>revalorization of their linguistic capital played a key
role in response to inclusive national laws regarding health and
education. Indigenous bilingualism thus appears as a resource intended
to ensure the access of the monolingual Wichi native population to
general or common knowledge about the world. The ideology of access thus
led to new institutional roles and dynamics that noticeably sought to
appoint indigenous people to work as translators/interpreters. In what
follows, we will observe, both at health-care and educational
institutions, the tension between white authorities, who represent the
state ideology of access, and indigenous bilinguals, who propose an
alternative view of diversity and language.</p>
</div>
<div id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-div2-70" class="gmail-div2">
<h2 id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-titleGroup-175">The Wichi Health-Care Workers</h2>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2050">The fieldwork vignette in Box <a id="gmail-ref_oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-boxedMatter-1" href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29#oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-boxedMatter-1">19.1</a> describes this process at the local hospital.</p>
<div id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-boxedMatter-1" class="gmail-sidebar"><div class="gmail-title">
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2156"><span class="enumerator">Box 19.1</span> “At the Hospital”: Field Notes, September 2013</p></div><div>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2157">Dr. Nunez [pediatrician at
the Hospital] explains that she has worked with bilingual health workers
for a long time. “At the hospital there are now two people working with
us. They translate when patients do not understand us. Women and
children come here and sometimes they do not understand what they have
to do. Flor and Marta explain to them in Wichi or ask them questions.” I
ask her for permission to observe consultations. She does not seem to
like the idea very much, but agrees to it when Flor recognizes and
greets me. Dr. Nuñez is sitting behind a desk next to Flor. On the left
are a table and chair facing the desk. I stand there. A young Wichi
woman in her twenties enters with a child in her arms. She hands the
doctor a paper without saying a word. The doctor reads the paper and
writes an order for powdered milk. Before returning the paper, she says
she will weigh the child. Flor stands up and explains in Wichi what to
do, asking the mother to put the baby on the scales. Flor announces the
weight in Spanish to the doctor, who writes it down. She then hands the
young mother the prescription for the milk and tells her to go to the
hospital pharmacy. The woman leaves the room.</p>
</div></div><p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2051"></p>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2052">In the field notes, we can
trace back to 2013 an initial intuition regarding the role of bilinguals
as conceived by the state ideology of access—and its institutional
agent, Dr. Nuñez. The role attributed to indigenous health workers—in
this case, Flor—is that of interpreter or language assistant,
subordinated to the white physician. Although Flor is not a physician,
she has received formal training as a health-care worker. She belongs to
the SASOI, the Service for Indigenous People’s Orientation and Health
Care (Servicio de Atención para la Salud y Orientación Indígena), a
recently created office at public hospitals in Chaco that is entirely
composed of bilinguals. We can observe in this vignette the two basic
principles of the ideology of access. First, language appears as a
handicap of indigenous people that prevents them from accessing Western
health care. The physician therefore requires a translator in order to
be understood by patients, not to understand them. Second, language
appears as a transparent code that conveys information from one person
to <a name="p388" class="gmail-pageNumber"><span id="gmail-pageid_388" class="gmail-pageNumber">
(p. 388)
</span></a>another. Flor herself—or her medical knowledge—does not
appear to be relevant; the patient’s mother remains silent throughout
the whole process during which Dr. Nuñez gathers medical information
without much actual interaction.</p>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2053">How do these bilinguals see their work? Do they share the ideology of access of Dr. Nuñez and official discourse? Box <a id="gmail-ref_oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-boxedMatter-2" href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29#oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-boxedMatter-2">19.2</a> provides some insights on these questions, as part of an interview granted by the local SASOI officer.</p>
<div id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-boxedMatter-2" class="gmail-sidebar"><div class="gmail-title">
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2158"><span class="enumerator">Box 19.2</span> Interview with Antonio, Local SASOI Officer (Participants: A: Antonio; R: Researcher)</p></div><div>
<div id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-div1-202" class="gmail-div1">
<p></p><div class="gmail-tableGroup gmail-tdata" id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-tableGroup-10">
<table class="gmail-" id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-table-10">
<tbody>
<tr class="gmail-">
<td class="gmail-" valign="top" align="left">
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2090"></p><blockquote class="gmail-dialogueType">
<p>A Eso es una lucha constante de nosotros, porque vos verás que el que
viene de arriba, le interesa mucho nuestro idioma porque quieren saber
cómo eran nosotros, ¿no? Porque a través del idioma se entiende mucho lo
que el . . . en la comunidad, lo que es el wichi, el aborigen, el
originario como dicen (. . .) muchos de nuestros ancianos, de nuestros
antepasados, no pudieron tener acceso a buena salud, a entender, a
explicarle al doctor, al que viene de arriba lo que le pasaba. ¿Por qué?
Por culpa de nuestro idioma, por muchas cosas que decimos en nuestro
idioma. Lo traducimos en castellano y no es lo mismo, no. A veces yo
digo, mirá, yo digo al doctor: “me duele . . . me duele . . . la panza.”
Claro que el doctor le va a dar cosas de la panza, y no era la panza,
sino acá (se señala la zona de la panza). Y explicándole bien al doctor,
bueno, puede ser estómago, porque nosotros decimos “la panza,” toda la
panza.</p>
<p>R Ajá.</p>
<p>A Y no era la panza, puede ser el hígado, la vesícula, o el estómago.</p>
<p>R Ajá.</p></blockquote><p></p></td>
<td class="gmail-" valign="top" align="left">
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2096"></p><blockquote class="gmail-dialogueType">
<p>A That is a constant struggle of ours, because you see that the
people at the top are very interested in our language because they want
to know what we were like, right? Because through the language you
understand a lot that the . . . in the community, what is the Wichi, the
aboriginal, the originary as they say [. . .] many of our old folks, of
our ancestors, couldn’t have access to good health, to understand, to
explain to the doctor, to the one at the top what was wrong with them.
Why? Because of our language, because of many things we say in our
language. We translate into Spanish and it’s not the same, no. Sometimes
I say, look, I say to the doctor: “there’s pain . . . there’s pain . . .
in my belly.” Of course the doctor will give me things for the belly,
and it wasn’t the belly, but here (indicating the region of the belly).
And, by explaining well, the doctor, well, it may be the stomach,
because we say “the belly,” the whole belly.</p>
<p>R Mhm.</p>
<p>A And it wasn’t the belly, it could be the liver, the gall bladder, or the stomach.</p>
<p>R Mhm.</p></blockquote><p></p></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</div><p></p>
</div>
</div></div><p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2054"></p>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2055">In the interview excerpt, the
health-care worker adopts an opposition between “us” (indigenous) and
“them” (white people), introducing the issue of language as identity,
rather than just a code: when explaining the interest of white people
(mainly academics) in the Wichi language, he states that “through
language you understand <a name="p389" class="gmail-pageNumber"><span id="gmail-pageid_389" class="gmail-pageNumber">
(p. 389)
</span></a>what the community, the Wichi, the aboriginal, the
native people are.” If language is not just a code that can be
translated into another, but the very substance of “the community, the
Wichi,” it embodies a worldview that cannot be transposed from Wichi to
Spanish: “we translate it into Spanish and it is not the same.” This
folk version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is quite the opposite of the
one adopted by the Ministry of Health, which defined “intercultural
communication” as simply “exchanging information through language.”</p>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2056">To Wichi health workers,
language is not a monoglossic, transparent code homogeneously
distributed among a given population. On the contrary, we can observe in
their speech a reflection on both bilingual and monolingual medical
practices, characterized as situations of intercultural communication.</p>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2058">In Box <a id="gmail-ref_oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-boxedMatter-3" href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29#oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-boxedMatter-3">19.3</a>, this <i>cuento</i>
(a story that might or might not have really happened) presents two
characters: an inexperienced young physician, “newly graduated, from the
city [ . . . ] with all his knowledge,” and a <i>criollo</i> couple and their little child, who live in “a little village” (<i>un pueblito</i>). The opposition here is not between <i>criollos</i> or white people and Wichis (on this difference, see <a id="gmail-ref_oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1158" href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29#oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1158">Unamuno, 2014</a>), but between <i>criollos</i>
from a small town and an inexperienced but competent white city
physician. Both participants are defined by their wording of the pain
suffered by the little boy who could not yet speak. In terms of <a id="gmail-ref_oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1134" href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29#oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1134">Agha (2005</a>, p. 39), Antonio’s story introduces two distinct <i>social voices</i>,
which can be defined as discursive figures that permit characterization
in a metadiscourse of social types or personal attributes through
characteristic lects or styles. In this case, the <i>criollos</i> are indexed by the “voice of the lifeworld” (<a id="gmail-ref_oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1152" href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29#oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1152">Mishler, 1984</a>):
“problems in the stomach,” “malaria,” and “belly pain.” The physician,
on the other hand, rejects the parents’ lay diagnosis (“he says no”) and
offers, instead, the “voice of medicine” (<a id="gmail-ref_oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1152" href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29#oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1152">Mishler, 1984</a>; see <a id="gmail-ref_oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1139" href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29#oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1139">Bonnin, 2014</a>, p. 159 ff.): “it’s a gastroenteritis, it’s nothing, it’s gastroenteritis.” The <i>criolla</i>
woman does not understand (“what can it possibly be, she asks herself”)
or ask the physician for clarification. This is a typical sign of
physician-patient asymmetry (due to their structurally different social
roles), but does not necessarily refer to social distance between them
(on this difference, see <a id="gmail-ref_oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1139" href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29#oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1139">Bonnin, 2014</a>, pp. 151–152). As the <i>criolla</i>
woman cannot understand the technical term used by the physician, she
arrives at a comic interpretation, mistaking “gastroenteritis” for “<i>gato enterito</i>” (whole cat).</p>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2059">This humoristic story
provides a heteroglossic view of language that is not present at all in
national or international institutional discourses: language barriers to
health-care access are not just an inter-linguistic problem. Rather, in
this example they are an inter-lect one, as the <i>criollo</i> couple
cannot understand medical discourse. Thus, speakers of the same language
may not understand each other because they embody different voices: the
physician does not acknowledge the <i>criolla</i>’s account of her child’s pain, and the <i>criolla</i>
mishears the technical term used by the physician. This folk
sociolinguistic hypothesis is opposed to the hypothesis of PAHO–Ministry
of Health, which noted “difficulties in communication due to speaking
different languages,” addressing language contact as an obstacle to
access.<a name="p390" class="gmail-pageNumber"><span id="gmail-pageid_390" class="gmail-pageNumber">
(p. 390)
</span></a></p>
<div id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-boxedMatter-3" class="gmail-sidebar"><div class="gmail-title">
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2159"><span class="enumerator">Box 19.3</span> Interview with Antonio, Local SASOI Officer (Participants: A: Antonio; R1: Researcher 1; R2: Researcher 2)</p></div><div>
<div id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-div1-203" class="gmail-div1">
<p></p><div class="gmail-tableGroup gmail-tdata" id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-tableGroup-11">
<table class="gmail-" id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-table-11">
<tbody>
<tr class="gmail-">
<td class="gmail-" valign="top" align="left">
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2100"></p><blockquote class="gmail-dialogueType">
<p>A Aunque no lo creas, pero hay criollos también que, ¿no? criollos
que no . . . tampoco no entienden su castilla. No sé si el castilla del
blanco es . . .</p>
<p>R1 Es distinto. Mhm.</p>
<p>A Tiene su interpretación, es distinto, no?</p>
<p>R1 Sí, es otra . . . otro dialecto digamos; aquí la gente criolla
habla un dialecto del castellano muy cerrado y a veces muy diferente. [ .
. . ]</p>
<p>A Sí, tengo un cuento de eso [ . . . ] resulta que había en un
pueblito, era un doctor recién recibido, de la ciudad. Eh, está con
todas las pilas, con todo su (choca las manos) su saber, (ríe) entonces
viene al campo y viene una parejita de criollos, le llevaron a su hijito
con problemas de estómago, de malaria, dicen ellos, de barriga, dolor
de barriga. Entonces el doctor lo revisa bien, dice: “no, tu hijo tiene
gastroenteritis, no es nada; gastroenteritis tiene.” La criolla lo mira,
“qué será, gastroenteritis,” no sabe si entendió o escuchó mal.
Entonces va al chico, lleva el chico y le preguntan “¿qué pasó?” “No,”
dice, “dice el doctor que no tiene nada el chico, dice que un gato
enterito tiene en la panza.”</p></blockquote><p></p></td>
<td class="gmail-" valign="top" align="left">
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2107"></p><blockquote class="gmail-dialogueType">
<p>A Even though you may not believe it, there are criollos too who
don’t . . . criollos who either don’t understand their Castilian
[Spanish]. I don’t know if the Castilian of whites is . . .</p>
<p>R1 It’s different. Mhm.</p>
<p>A It has its interpretation, it’s different, right?</p>
<p>R1 Yes, it’s another . . . another dialect, let’s say; here criollo
people speak a Castilian dialect that is very closed and sometimes very
different. [ . . . ]</p>
<p>A Yes, I have a story about that [ . . . ] there was in a small
village, it was a newly graduated doctor, from the city. Uh, he is full
of energy, full of his (claps his hands) his knowledge, (laughs) then he
comes to the countryside and a young criollo couple come, they brought
their little son with problems in the stomach, with malaria, they say,
with pain in the belly. Then the doctor checks him thoroughly, says:
“no, your son has gastroenteritis, it’s nothing; he has
gastroenteritis.” The criolla woman looks at him, “What can
gastroenteritis possibly be?” She doesn’t know if she understood or
heard wrong. Then she goes to the child, takes the child, and somebody
asks “What happened?” “No,” she says, “the doctor says the child has
nothing, he says that he has a whole cat [gato enterito in Spanish] in
his belly.”</p></blockquote><p></p></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</div><p></p>
</div>
</div></div><p></p>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2060">This theoretical view of
language also extends to speakers: if medical interaction requires
inter-lect communication, if languages are not neutral codes and
therefore cannot be perfectly translated into one another, then
indigenous health workers are not simply interpreters who translate
Wichi and Spanish in a single direction. Rather, they have a specific
knowledge of health and the body that is relevant to the process of
health-care communication.<a name="p391" class="gmail-pageNumber"><span id="gmail-pageid_391" class="gmail-pageNumber">
(p. 391)
</span></a></p>
</div>
<div id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-div2-71" class="gmail-div2">
<h2 id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-titleGroup-176">The Wichi Educators</h2>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2062">As in the field of health
care, Wichi educators’ ideas about language and knowledge differ from
institutional ideas. The latter are embodied in the presence of
bilingual assistants in classrooms who are intended to act as
translators of non-indigenous teachers during their classes. These
native teaching assistants, or NTAs (Auxiliares Docentes Aborígenes),
have been appointed in Chaco Province since the 1990s and are the most
common educational initiative in indigenous contexts.</p>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2063">In Box <a id="gmail-ref_oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-boxedMatter-4" href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29#oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-boxedMatter-4">19.4</a>,
the interview with a local school principal shows the institutional
role attributed by white authorities to NTAs in the classroom.</p>
<div id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-boxedMatter-4" class="gmail-sidebar"><div class="gmail-title">
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2160"><span class="enumerator">Box 19.4</span> Interview with the Principal of 2256 School, September 2014 (Participants: SP: School Principal; R2: Researcher 2)</p></div><div>
<div id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-div1-204" class="gmail-div1">
<p></p><div class="gmail-tableGroup gmail-tdata" id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-tableGroup-12">
<table class="gmail-" id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-table-12">
<tbody>
<tr class="gmail-">
<td class="gmail-" valign="top" align="left">
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2114"></p><blockquote class="gmail-dialogueType">
<p>R2 ¿En qué grado están los auxiliares de los maestros?</p>
<p>SP Están en primero y segundo.</p>
<p>R2 Los ADAs están en primero y segundo y los maestros también.</p>
<p>SP También, pero están por una necesidad . . . que más se necesita de
un maestro bilingüe o de un ADA es en primer grado o segundo grado
porque son los chicos que recién ingresan a la escuela primera; ya
tercero o cuarto ya hablan bien, para mí hablan bien</p></blockquote><p></p></td>
<td class="gmail-" valign="top" align="left">
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2119"></p><blockquote class="gmail-dialogueType">
<p>R2 In what grades do teaching assistants work?</p>
<p>SP They’re in first and second.</p>
<p>R2 The NTAs are in first and second and the teachers are as well.</p>
<p>SP As well, but they’re there in response to a need . . . that a
bilingual teacher or an NTA are most needed in first or second grade
because they are the children who are just starting school; by third or
fourth they can speak well, in my opinion they speak well.</p></blockquote><p></p></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</div><p></p>
</div>
</div></div><p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2064"></p>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2065">In this interview we observe,
again, an institutional white authority who embodies the principles of
the ideology of access. In first place, she describes the work of NTAs
as “facilitators” who help monolingual Wichi children through their
first years of schooling, until they are able to “speak [Spanish] well.”
As in the case of health-care workers, their role is not to adapt the
school to indigenous students but, on the contrary, to allow indigenous
people to overcome what appears to be their linguistic disability.
Second, as in the case of indigenous health workers, NTAs have formal
training as educators; their role should not be, therefore, to “assist”
Wichi-speaking students but, rather, to teach classes to all students,
both Wichi and white. Although they are supposed to work symmetrically
in pairs with white teachers, forming a <i>pareja pedagógica</i> (pedagogical pair), they are often relegated to a secondary role as translators. We can observe this in Box <a id="gmail-ref_oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-boxedMatter-5" href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29#oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-boxedMatter-5">19.5</a>.</p>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2067">In this example, Etelvina, an
NTA, works together with Nora, the non-Wichi teacher. The roles,
however, are not symmetrically distributed. Far from it: Nora <a name="p392" class="gmail-pageNumber"><span id="gmail-pageid_392" class="gmail-pageNumber">
(p. 392)
</span></a>leads the class and proposes a painting task, and
during the class, Etelvina provides linguistic assistance to Nora,
monitoring the attention of Wichi children and offering supplementary
explanations to ensure understanding and participation in the
Spanish-driven activity. Again, the role of the NTA is not to bring
white teachers closer to their students’ language and culture but,
instead, to enable indigenous pupils to participate in the class.</p>
<div id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-boxedMatter-5" class="gmail-sidebar"><div class="gmail-title">
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2161"><span class="enumerator">Box 19.5</span> Etelvina and Nora’s Classroom, Kindergarten (Participants: E: Etelvina, NTA; N: Nora, Classroom Teacher; CH: Children, Pupils)</p></div><div>
<div id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-div1-205" class="gmail-div1">
<p></p><div class="gmail-tableGroup gmail-tdata" id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-tableGroup-13">
<table class="gmail-" id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-table-13">
<tbody>
<tr class="gmail-">
<td class="gmail-" valign="top" align="left">
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2124"></p><blockquote class="gmail-dialogueType">
<p>N ¿Cómo se llamaba esto?</p>
<p>E ¿HAP LEY?</p>
<p>CH Tiza, tiza</p>
<p>N ¿Y de color era esta tiza?</p>
<p>E ¿EP HONTE T’OJH? (a un niño) ¿YAJH WUYTSAMEJ EP HONTE T’OJH?</p>
<p>CH Rosada.</p>
<p>N Rosada. Hoy vamos a trabajar ¿con?</p>
<p>CH Tiza.</p>
<p>E Con tiza; NAHONA TIZA.</p>
<p>N Con una tiza mojada.</p>
<p>E (a una niña que mira para otro lado) ¿Lucía?</p>
<p>N En agua.</p>
<p>E TISEÑHAT TOYHONA INOT, TITSEWFNHU INOT</p></blockquote><p></p></td>
<td class="gmail-" valign="top" align="left">
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2140"></p><blockquote class="gmail-dialogueType">
<p>N What was this called?</p>
<p>E HAP LEY?</p>
<p>CH Chalk, chalk.</p>
<p>N And what color was this chalk?</p>
<p>E EP HONTE T’OJH? (to one child) YAJH WUYTSAMEJ EP HONTE T’OJH?</p>
<p>CH Pink.</p>
<p>N Pink. Today we’re going to work with?</p>
<p>CH Chalk</p>
<p>E With chalk; NAHONA TIZA.</p>
<p>N With a wet chalk.</p>
<p>E (to a girl who is looking the other way) Lucía?</p>
<p>N In water.</p>
<p>E TISEÑHAT TOYHONA INOT (.)TITSEWFNHU INOT</p></blockquote><p></p></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</div><p></p>
</div>
</div></div><p></p>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2068">Over the past decade, however, the structure of the <i>pareja pedagógica</i>
has been progressively displaced by another type of teaching
organization, placing intercultural bilingual teachers solely in charge
of the class. This new classroom organization is resisted by white
institutions and their authorities. This resistance is visible at
different levels. At schools, we have just seen that indigenous teachers
are forced to accept an auxiliary role as interpreters or linguistic
assistants of white teachers. In other spheres of public discussion,
teaching unions do not recognize the professional competences of these
new teachers in public education because indigenous teachers become
competitors for jobs previously reserved to white workers (<a id="gmail-ref_oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1158" href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29#oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1158">Unamuno, 2014</a>).
Nevertheless, the right to have their own classes is one of the
strongest political vindications of indigenous movements in Chaco.<a name="p393" class="gmail-pageNumber"><span id="gmail-pageid_393" class="gmail-pageNumber">
(p. 393)
</span></a></p>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2069">As we have documented in
recent years, bilinguals have gradually gained positions in schools and
have built up an effective pressure group at the provincial level to
establish themselves as partners in the design and implementation of
educational policies. Their view on the traditional roles attributed to
Wichi teachers at schools is rather critical. As in the case of health
care, they do not see themselves as linguistic assistants or
interpreters. On the contrary, bilingual intercultural teachers demand a
different relationship between education and languages regarding at
least three aspects: (1) inclusion of the whole class (both Wichi and
non-Wichi children) in the activities conducted in the Wichi language,
in the understanding that bilingual education is an educational policy
and not simply an aid to indigenous people; (2) inclusion of Wichi
cultural contents that are not in the mandatory curriculum; and (3)
teaching of Spanish as second language to many children who are
monolingual, or almost monolingual, in indigenous languages.</p>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2070">The demands of Wichi teachers
are new ways of bringing bilingualism into the classroom, including new
contents they teach together with the Western curriculum. Outside the
classrooms, these teachers have mobilized to oppose the limited
traditional role attributed to them at schools. The vignette in Box <a id="gmail-ref_oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-boxedMatter-6" href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29#oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-boxedMatter-6">19.6</a>, excerpted from fieldwork notes, illustrates this statement.</p>
<div id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-boxedMatter-6" class="gmail-sidebar"><div class="gmail-title">
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2162"><span class="enumerator">Box 19.6</span> “At a Teachers’ Meeting”: Field Notes, September 2014</p></div><div>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2163">Today we spent the whole
morning at the Meeting of Wichi Teachers [ . . . ] After the speeches by
Etelvina and Lucrecia, an interesting discussion arose: Lisandro
supported an initiative of other teachers at his school who refused to
translate the principal’s speeches and patriotic songs. He also said
that they could make a translated list of anniversaries to be used by
all teachers. The rest agreed that they were also tired of translating.
One of them, Joaquin, suggested preparing a collective document
specifying the bilinguals’ teaching duties and stating that translating
is not one of them. “They should hire an interpreter” said Pablo,
laughing.</p>
</div></div><p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2071"></p>
</div>
</div>
<div id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-div1-103" class="gmail-div1"><h1><p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2072">Conclusions</p></h1>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2073">In this chapter we have
documented the emergence of bilinguals as an outcome of a recent
phenomenon in Argentina: the valorization of Spanish-Wichi bilingualism
as a professional qualification to apply for state positions in the
field of public health care and education. This phenomenon responds
simultaneously to different discourses. At the national and regional
level, legislation (re)produces an ideology of access that seeks to
guarantee the inclusion of native people in Western medicine <a name="p394" class="gmail-pageNumber"><span id="gmail-pageid_394" class="gmail-pageNumber">
(p. 394)
</span></a>and schooling. From this perspective, indigenous
languages are a cultural barrier that prevents natives from accessing
proper (Western) health care and education. The bilinguals are thus seen
as interpreters whose main role is to facilitate this unidirectional
access from particular deprived contexts to universal rights.</p>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2074">At the local level, however,
bilinguals sustain a political discourse of identity, which rejects the
monoglossic view of language as a neutral code and, instead, considers
language and knowledge as two inseparable dimensions of their own
identities. By casting off the ideology of access, indigenous health and
education workers aim to transform the very same institutions that
originally appointed them.</p>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2075">By doing so, the bilinguals
address some core ideological meanings of the modern nation-state, as
they reject both the identification of language and citizenship and a
monoglossic conception of language. This active rejection is apparent in
their explicit conceptions of language as an inseparable part of
identity and also in their medical and educational practices, in which
they dispute the subordinated role assigned to Wichi language and
knowledge.</p>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2076">Analysis shows the actual
production of language policies at different levels, which are contested
and reinterpreted—practically and theoretically—from the margins, by
the same indigenous people who are supposed to implement them passively.
The use of ethnographically informed discourse analysis seems to be
useful to reveal tensions between two ideologies: the institutional,
which we call the ideology of access, and the indigenous, which we call
the ideology of identity.</p>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2077">The case analysis presented
herein discusses the role of local actors in the definition of language
policies and their sense and performativity. Bilinguals’ everyday
actions and opinions, as they constitute the meaningful dimension of
systematic actions regarding languages, are a veritable language policy
that is designed, planned, and implemented by its own beneficiaries.</p>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2078">The actual scope of these
alternative policies is not apparent. On the one hand, it could be
argued that they will not have much effect on other native communities,
as they are not encoded or materialized in laws and legal regulations.
On the other hand, however, we observed that Wichis actually defy and
confront laws and legal dispositions, engaging in grassroots activism by
blocking roads or taking over state institutions, such as the local
hospital. Through these political practices, Wichi people actually
produce language policies on indigenous languages, sometimes regulating
de facto ambiguous laws, sometimes creating new legal and juridical
categories with (or without) special legal dispositions.</p>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2079">This process involves
forceful action in the public space, and is not a top-down effect of
international commitments. Moreover, it is framed by ideologies that
provide symbolic support for policies, whether state- or
indigenous-made, embodied in daily practices and discourses. Thus, it is
at the crossroad of practices, discourses, and political action that
language policies are actually made by the bilinguals in <i>El Chaco</i>. It is through daily interaction at hospitals and schools, and not through the <a name="p395" class="gmail-pageNumber"><span id="gmail-pageid_395" class="gmail-pageNumber">
(p. 395)
</span></a>legal discourse of the state, that we can best understand how politically powerful language policies might become.</p>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2080">In a wider sense, we think it
is necessary to reconsider the central place that research gives to the
role of the state as a LPP agent. We underline in this chapter the
importance of including the study of the political actions of other
actors regarding languages, in order to construct a deeper understanding
of the complex relationships between agency and transformation of the
sociolinguistic field. The consideration of the interplay between
different actors and political actions allows us to denaturalize the
repertoire of policy actions of the state, and place them in the frame
of the ideological conditions in which they occur and of the interests
to which they respond. In this sense, the ideology of access, described
in public texts and in daily practices of state institutions, is linked
to the state’s role in the reproduction of the status quo. Its actions
toward the recognition of cultural rights unlinked to economic rights
are functional to this reproduction. Thus, grassroots activism—including
language, but not limited to it—needs to be careful of its own success.</p>
</div>
<div id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-section-64" class="gmail-div1"><h1><p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2081">Acknowledgments</p></h1>
<div id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-div1-104" class="gmail-div1">
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2082">This work is part of the
project PICT-2013-2283 funded by the National Agency for Scientific and
Technological Promotion. We want to thank Camilo Ballena and Lucía
Romero for their collaboration with the transcripts. Also, we would like
to thank the editors of this <i>Handbook</i>, who have helped us to
improve this chapter in many ways. In particular, we would like to thank
Wichi health workers and teachers for their interest in and support of
our work. Thank you.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-section-65" class="gmail-div1">
<div class="gmail-bibliographyGroup"><a name="oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibliographyGroup-19"></a>
<div class="gmail-bibliography"><a name="oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibliography-19"></a>
<div id="gmail-References" class="gmail-bibTitle"><h2>
References</h2></div>
<div class="gmail-bibList">
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1134">Agha, A. (2005). Voice, footing, enregisterment. <i>Journal of Linguistic Anthropology</i> 15(1), 38–59.<span class="gmail-findthisresourcehead">Find this resource:</span></p>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1135">Arnoux, E., & Bein, R. (2010). <i>La regulación política de las prácticas lingüísticas</i> [The political regulation of language practices]. Buenos Aires: Eudeba.<span class="gmail-findthisresourcehead">Find this resource:</span></p>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1136">Arnoux, E., & Nothstein, S. (Eds.). (2014). <i>Temas de glotopolítica: Integración regional sudamericana y panhispanismo</i> [Issues on glotopolitics: South American and Panhispanic regional integration]. Buenos Aires: Biblos.<span class="gmail-findthisresourcehead">Find this resource:</span></p>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1137">Blommaert, J. (2009). Language, asylum, and the national order. <i>Current Anthropology</i> 50(4), 415–441.<span class="gmail-findthisresourcehead">Find this resource:</span></p>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1138">Blommaert, J. (2010). <i>The sociolinguistics of globalization</i>. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.<span class="gmail-findthisresourcehead">Find this resource:</span></p>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1139">Bonnin, J. E. (2014).
To speak with the other’s voice: Reducing asymmetry and social distance
in mental health care admission interviews. <i>Journal of Multicultural Discourses</i> 9(2), 149–171.<span class="gmail-findthisresourcehead">Find this resource:</span></p>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1140">Codo, E., Patiño, A.,
& Unamuno, V. (2012). Hacer sociolingüística con perspectiva
etnográfica: Retos y dilemas [Doing sociolinguistics with ethnographic
perspective: Challenges and dilemmas]. <i>Spanish in Context</i> 9(2), 157–190.<span class="gmail-findthisresourcehead">Find this resource:</span></p>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1141">Consejo Federal de Educación. (2012). <i>Resolución CFE No. 188/12: Plan nacional de educación obligatoria y formación docente 2012–2016</i>
[Resolution CFE N° 188/12: National Plan of Mandatory Education and
Teacher’s Training]. Buenos Aires: Ministerio de Educación de la Nación.<span class="gmail-findthisresourcehead">Find this resource:</span></p>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1142">Giovanella, L., Feo, O., & Faria, M. (2012). <i>Sistema de salud en Sudamérica: Desafíos para la universalidad, la integralidad y la equidad</i> [Health system in South America: Challenges or universality, integrality and equity]. Río de Janeiro: ISAGS.<span class="gmail-findthisresourcehead">Find this resource:</span></p>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1143">Guespin, L., & Marcellesi, J. B. (1986). Pour la glottopolitique. <i>Langages</i> 21(83), 5–31.<span class="gmail-findthisresourcehead">Find this resource:</span></p>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1144">Heller, M. (2001).
Undoing the macro/micro dichotomy: Ideology and categorisation in a
linguistic minority school. In N. Coupland, S. Sarangi, & C. N.
Candlin (Eds.), <i>Sociolinguistics and social theory</i> (pp. 212–234). London: Longman.<span class="gmail-findthisresourcehead">Find this resource:</span></p>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1145">Heller, M. (2011). Critical ethnographic sociolinguistics. In M. Heller (Ed.), <i>Paths to postnationalism: A critical ethnography of language and identity</i> (pp. 31–50). Oxford: Oxford University Press.<span class="gmail-findthisresourcehead">Find this resource:</span></p>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1146">Hornberger, N. (1995). Ethnography in linguistic perspective: Understanding school processes. <i>Language and Education</i> 9(4), 233–248.<span class="gmail-findthisresourcehead">Find this resource:</span></p>
<p title="Convention No. 169" id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1147"><a name="p397" class="gmail-pageNumber"><span id="gmail-pageid_397" class="gmail-pageNumber">
(p. 397)
</span></a>International Labour Organization. (1989). Convention No. 169. <i>Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention</i>. Retrieved from <a href="http://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=NORMLEXPUB:12100:0::NO::P12100_INSTRUMENT_ID:312314" target="_blank" class="externalLink">http://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=NORMLEXPUB:12100:0::NO::P12100_INSTRUMENT_ID:312314</a></p>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1148">Johnson, D. C., &
Ricento, T. (2013). Conceptual and theoretical perspectives in language
planning and policy: Situating the ethnography of language policy. <i>International Journal of the Sociology of Language</i> 219, 7–21.<span class="gmail-findthisresourcehead">Find this resource:</span></p>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1149">López, L. E., &
Küper, W. (1999). La educación intercultural bilingüe en América Latina:
Balance y perspectivas [Bilingual intercultural education in Latin
America: Balance and perspectives]. <i>Revista Iberoamericana de Educación</i> 20, 17–85.<span class="gmail-findthisresourcehead">Find this resource:</span></p>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1150">López, L. E., &
Sichra, I. (2008). Intercultural bilingual education among indigenous
peoples in Latin America. In J. Cummins & N. Hornberger (Eds), <i>Bilingual education</i> (2nd edition; pp. 295–310). New York: Springer.<span class="gmail-findthisresourcehead">Find this resource:</span></p>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1151">Ministerio de Salud de la Nación. (2012). <i>Interculturalidad y salud: Capacitación en servicio para trabajadores de la salud en el primer nivel de atención</i> [Interculturality and health care: Training at workplace for primary healthcare agents]. Buenos Aires: Ministerio de Salud.<span class="gmail-findthisresourcehead">Find this resource:</span></p>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1152">Mishler, E. G. (1984). <i>The discourse of medicine: Dialectics of medical interviews</i>. Norwood: Alex Publishing.<span class="gmail-findthisresourcehead">Find this resource:</span></p>
<p title="Ley 3258 de las comunidad de indígenas" id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1153">Provincia de Chaco, Poder Legislativo. (1987). <i>Ley 3258 de las comunidad de indígenas</i> [Law 3258 of indigenous communities]. Retrieved from <a href="http://www2.legislaturachaco.gov.ar:8000/legisdev/ResumenDocumento.aspx?docId=L.3258&tipo=Ley" target="_blank" class="externalLink">http://www2.legislaturachaco.gov.ar:8000/legisdev/ResumenDocumento.aspx?docId=L.3258&tipo=Ley</a>.</p>
<p title="Ley 7446 de educación pública de gestión comunitaria bilingüe intercultural indígena" id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1154">Provincia de Chaco, Poder Legislativo. (2014). <i>Ley 7446 de educación pública de gestión comunitaria bilingüe intercultural indígena</i> [Bill on Indigenous Intercultural Bilingual Community-Managed Public Education]. Retrieved from <a href="http://www2.legislaturachaco.gov.ar:8000/legisdev/ResumenDocumento.aspx?docId=L.7446&tipo=Ley" target="_blank" class="externalLink">http://www2.legislaturachaco.gov.ar:8000/legisdev/ResumenDocumento.aspx?docId=L.7446&tipo=Ley</a></p>
<p title="Ley 26206 de educación nacional" id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1155">República Argentina, Poder Legislativo. (2006). <i>Ley 26206 de educación nacional</i> [Act of National Education]. Retrieved from <a href="http://www.me.gov.ar/doc_pdf/ley_de_educ_nac.pdf" target="_blank" class="externalLink">http://www.me.gov.ar/doc_pdf/ley_de_educ_nac.pdf</a></p>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1156">Tollefson, J. W. (1991). <i>Planning language, planning inequality: Language policy in the community.</i> London: Longman.<span class="gmail-findthisresourcehead">Find this resource:</span></p>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1157">Tollefson, J. W. (2008). Language planning in education. In N. H. Hornberger (Ed.), <i>Encyclopedia of language and education</i> (pp. 3–14). New York: Springer.<span class="gmail-findthisresourcehead">Find this resource:</span></p>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1158">Unamuno, V. (2014). Language dispute and social change in new multilingual institutions in Chaco, Argentina. <i>International Journal of Multilingualism</i> 11(4), 409–429.<span class="gmail-findthisresourcehead">Find this resource:</span></p>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1159">Unamuno, V. (2015). Los
hacedores de la EIB: Un acercamiento a las políticas lingüístico
educativas desde las aulas bilingües del Chaco [The BIE makers: A close
up to linguistic and educational policies at bilingual classrooms at
Chaco]. <i>Archivos Analíticos de Políticas Educativas</i> 23(101), 1–35.<span class="gmail-findthisresourcehead">Find this resource:</span></p>
<p title="Universal declaration of human rights" id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1160">United Nations. (1948). <i>Universal declaration of human rights</i>. Retrieved from <a href="http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/index.html" target="_blank" class="externalLink">http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/index.html</a></p>
<p title="International covenant on economic, social and cultural rights" id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1161">United Nations. (1976). <i>International covenant on economic, social and cultural rights</i>. Retrieved from <a href="https://treaties.un.org/Pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=IND&mtdsg_no=IV-3&=4&clang=_en" target="_blank" class="externalLink">https://treaties.un.org/Pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=IND&mtdsg_no=IV-3&=4&clang=_en</a></p>
<p title="United Nations declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples" id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1162">United Nations. (2007). <i>United Nations declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples</i>. Retrieved from <a href="http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/documents/DRIPS_en.pdf" target="_blank" class="externalLink">http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/documents/DRIPS_en.pdf</a></p>
<p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-bibItem-1163">Wright, S. (2004). <i>Language policy and language planning. From nationalism to globalisation</i>. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.<span class="gmail-findthisresourcehead">Find this resource:</span></p></div>
</div>
</div>
</div><div id="gmail-notes"><h2>Notes:</h2><div id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-note-1" class="gmail-note"><p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2084">
(<a class="gmail-backref" href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29#ref_oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-note-1">1.</a>)
“Accesibilidad a los servicios de salud [ . . . ] La principal barrera es la falta de accesibilidad geográfica, <i>cultural</i>
y económica [ . . . ]. Las personas indígenas reciben deficiente
atención en los centros de salud, ya sea por discriminación en el
sistema o por las <i>dificultades para comunicarse por hablar lenguas distintas</i>” (Ministerio de Salud de la Nación, <i>Situación
de salud, intervenciones y líneas de investigación para la toma de
decisiones en salud con pueblos indígenas en Argentina</i>, p. 10).</p></div><div id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-note-2" class="gmail-note"><p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2085">
(<a class="gmail-backref" href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29#ref_oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-note-2">2.</a>)
“La Educación Intercultural Bilingüe promueve un diálogo mutuamente
enriquecedor de conocimientos yvalores entre los pueblos indígenas y
poblaciones étnica, lingüística y culturalmente diferentes, y propicia
el reconocimiento y el respeto hacia tales diferencias” (Ley 26.206,
art. 52).</p></div><div id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-note-3" class="gmail-note"><p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2086">
(<a class="gmail-backref" href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29#ref_oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-note-3">3.</a>)
“Al 2016, todas las jurisdiccionales desarrollan formatos
institucionales de atención a niños y niñas con necesidades educativas
específicas (ruralidad, privación de la libertad de sus madres,
interculturalidad y bilingüismo, alumnos/as-padres discapacidad, en
atención hospitalaria y domiciliaria)” (<i>Plan Nacional de Educación Obligatoria y Formación Docente 2012–2016</i>; CFE No. 188/12).</p></div><div id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-note-4" class="gmail-note"><p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2087">
(<a class="gmail-backref" href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29#ref_oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-note-4">4.</a>)
“La comunicación entre culturas o comunicación intercultural, es
entendida básicamente como intercambio de información a través del
lenguaje” (Ministry of Health, <i>Interculturalidad y salud</i>, 50).</p></div><div id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-note-5" class="gmail-note"><p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2088">
(<a class="gmail-backref" href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29#ref_oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-note-5">5.</a>)
“Ampliar y mejorar las condiciones y formas de acceso,” “jardines
en contextos interculturales y bilingües,” “estudiantes en contextos de
interculturalidad y bilingüismo”)” (<i>Plan Nacional de Educación Obligatoria y Formación Docente 2012–2016</i>; CFE No. 188/12).</p></div><div id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-note-6" class="gmail-note"><p id="gmail-oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-p-2089">
(<a class="gmail-backref" href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29#ref_oxfordhb-9780190458898-e-29-note-6">6.</a>)
The expression “white” is used by Wichi people to refer to
non-indigenous people. In this chapter we take this native category in
the sense in which they use it.</p></div></div></div>
</div>
<br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature">=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+<br><br> Harold F. Schiffman<br><br>Professor Emeritus of <br> Dravidian Linguistics and Culture <br>Dept. of South Asia Studies <br>University of Pennsylvania<br>Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305<br><br>Phone: (215) 898-7475<br>Fax: (215) 573-2138 <br><br>Email: <a href="mailto:haroldfs@gmail.com" target="_blank">haroldfs@gmail.com</a><br><a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/" target="_blank">http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/</a> <br><br>-------------------------------------------------</div>
</div>