[RNLD] Linguistics in the pub: supporting community-based researchers Tuesday Feb 11th 2014

Wed Jan 29 06:06:22 UTC 2014

Hi all,

Great topic. It's one that I think about quite a bit, so I was inspired to write a blogpost (slash rant) in response. (Please note that my response is not meant in anyway to be critical of LIP, the validity of this topic or Ruth's efforts in facilitating LIP and coming up with great discussion topics). I'm never able to attend LIP so I guess this is my way of contributing.

The link to my blogpost is here: http://munanga.blogspot.com.au/2014/01/linguists-supporting-communities-we-did.html but I've also put the text below (and sorry… it's quite a lengthy post). Interested to hear further thoughts!

Cheers,
Greg.

Linguists supporting communities: We did it well before. Did we lose our way?

The other day a discussion topic came through via email about 'supporting community researchers in the field'. The discussion topic was introduced as:
The ways that linguists work with communities is starting to change. The idea of doing research on or in a community is shifting to doing research with the community. The movement towards community-based and participatory fieldwork models in Linguistics mirrors shifts in other disciplines such as health research.
Okay, I know the above was just a quick way to introduce the topic but it tapped into a bigger issue and I felt the need to write the following... *steps up on to soapbox* 

Disclaimer: I'm not criticising the many of us who do linguistic fieldwork and try our best (often with great success) to increase local involvement, exchange skills and knowledge and so on. Nor am I criticising the organisations who do deliver great training and do great community-based work. Nor am I implying that this is a redundant topic of discussion - the more this is talked about the better. I simply want to add to the discussion and offer some discussion of where we're at with non-Indigenous linguists working on Aboriginal and Islander languages.

I want to delve further into the statement that "the ways that linguists work with communities is starting to change". While this may be true on a global scale, I argue that in the Australian context we have actually been going backwards for the past 20-30 years in regard to community development and community-based aspects of linguistic work. (The great work of RNLD is a notable exception). The recent discussion topic listed a bunch of references describing how to do collaborative research in community, but they were from international scholars. Let's not forget that in the 70s, 80s and 90s, Australian linguistics was a world leader and, I'd say, well ahead of where we are now in terms of community development, training and engagement. I don't think it's a case of things "starting to change" in a new direction. I think it's a case of 'been there, done that', and we've lost our way a bit and how do we get it back. I'm referring here to precedents like the School of Australian Linguistics (SAL) that started in the 1970s in what later evolved to become Batchelor Institute. They pioneered providing linguistic training to speakers of Aboriginal and TSI languages (see Black and Breen 2001). Wasn't it SAL's fantastic work that provided skilled Aboriginal staff who were the backbone to the NT's bilingual schools which at one stage numbered over 20? And one of SAL's star students was the author of the *only* peer-reviewed linguistics article ever written *in* an Australian language (see Bani 1987). Institutions like bilingual education and SAL/Batchelor Institute were marvels in terms of linguistics training and community development for Aboriginal and Islander people and their languages compared to what we have today. They also laid the foundation for the many community controlled language centres that popped up around Australia. Then we had the groundbreaking 1984 statement of the Linguistic Rights of Aboriginal and Islander Communities by the Australian Linguistic Society (taking a stab in the dark, my guess is that many young linguists even know this statement exists). Then there's David Wilkins' groundbreaking article on "Linguistic Research under Aboriginal Control" (1992). David was one of a bunch of pioneering linguists who in that era were, in my view, leaps and bounds ahead of the efforts that most linguists make today to give primacy to Aboriginal people in our research. Others that spring to mind are Jean Harkins (1994) and Diana Eades' fabulous PhD research done under the supervision of Michael Williams (1983). All this work was examples Australians leading the way globally and really put Aboriginal and Islander people in the co-pilot seat when it came to linguistic research. But slowly, a lot of it this has been in decline in recent decades and has declined under our watch. Bilingual programs have been largely abandoned. Batchelor Institute's language and linguistics section is a shadow of its former self. A number of Language Centres have become dysfunctional and/or declined. And through these declines, we have failed to compensate with equivalent new programs or institutions nor have we built up the engagement of Aboriginal and Islander linguists with our universities. I am skeptical that a majority of contemporary linguists are aware of AIATSIS's Guidelines for Ethical Research in Indigenous Communities, let alone adhere to them. If we did all follow AIATSIS' guidelines, then we would be be engaging better with community members we work with in the field and the need to even discuss this topic would be diminished.

I am being deliberately provocative here, but I think there's a point to be made that we don't need to look internationally for leadership in how to better do collaboration, community development and training in our work as linguists. I don't think we need to mirror what other disciplines do in terms of collaborative research. We paved the way! We've already proven historically that we can do it. I think what we should be about is trying to regain what we've lost in the past 20-30 years. Our professional body, the ALS, produces an excellent academic journal and hosts a great national annual conference but does next to nothing in terms of advocacy. Why do there seem to be more emerging and early career linguists gluing themselves to universities rather than getting out there and working for language centres, training and working in education, working for interpreting services, being content to work on collaborative community projects? (There are plenty of exceptions to this, I acknowledge that). Why do those that devote large chunks of their work to community pursuits seem to often be on the fringe of linguistics in Australia? The Joyce Hudsons, the David Wilkinses, the Rob Amerys, the Christina Eiras, the Anna Ashs and Amanda Lissarragues, the MaryAnn Gales, the John Hobsons, the Melanie Wilkinsons, the Jenny Greens, the Murray Gardes and RNLD's own Margaret Florey and so on... These guys are some of my heroes and represent best practice when it comes to non-Indigenous linguists to do collaborative linguistics in Aboriginal communities, but personally I don't think they get the recognition they deserve from our linguistics community.

Don't get me wrong, I love the work that linguists do in Australia in relation to Australian languages in all the diverse ways that we do it. And there are so many trailblazers and people doing great stuff around Australia right now. To know how to support community researchers and do community development, we don't need to look abroad or to other fields. We can look back at what was happening in Australian linguistics before, and also better recognise and learn from those who already do this stuff well and use that as a benchmark for where we should be. 

[/rant] *gets off soapbox* Thanks for listening.

References

AIATSIS. 2012. Guidelines for Ethical Research in Indigenous Studies. Canberra: AIATSIS.

Bani, Ephraim. 1987. 'Garka a ipika: masculine and feminine grammatical gender in Kala Lagaw Ya'. Australian Journal of Linguistics. 7(2): 189-201.

Black, Paul and Gavan Breen. 2001. 'The School of Australian Linguistics'. In Forty Years On: Ken Hale and Australian Languages. Eds: Jane Simpson et al. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. 161-178.

Eades, Diana. 1983. English as an Aboriginal Language in Southeast Queensland. PhD thesis: University of Queensland.

Harkins, Jean. 1994. Bridging Two Worlds: Aboriginal English and cross-cultural understanding. St Lucia: University of Queensland Press.

Wilkins, David. 1992. 'Linguistic Research under Aboriginal Control: A personal account of fieldwork in Central Australia'. Australian Journal of Linguistics. 12:171-200.

On 28/01/2014, at 1:19 PM, Ruth Singer wrote:

> Supporting community researchers in the field
> 
> The ways that linguists work with communities is starting to change. The idea of doing research on or in a community is shifting to doing research with the community. The movement towards community-based and participatory fieldwork models in Linguistics mirrors shifts in other disciplines such as health research (Putt 2012). Greater participation of community members in fieldwork has not surprisingly been shown to improve the quality of linguistic research (Rice 2011). There are various ways that community members can participate. In this session we will be discussing ideas about how to support community members to carry out linguistic research independently. We will be sharing ideas about how to provide training and supervision so that community members can continue their research even when we are not at the fieldsite. Participation in linguistic research can provide education and employment for community members. In addition community members who are informed about linguistic research can have a stronger voice in determining the direction of research.
> 
> 
> Background readings (all open-access)
> Good, J. 2012. ‘“Community” Collaboration in Africa: Experiences from Northwest Cameroon’. Language Documentation and Description 11. http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jcgood/jcgood-CommunityCollaboration.pdf
> 
> Laycock, A., D. Walker, N. Harrison and J. Brands. 2009. ‘Supporting Indigenous Researchers: A Practical Guide for Supervisors’. https://www.lowitja.org.au/lowitja-publishing/C023
> 
> Mihas, E. I. 2012. ‘Subcontracting Native Speakers in Linguistic Fieldwork: A Case Study of the Ashéninka Perené (Arawak) Research Community from the Peruvian Amazon’. http://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/handle/10125/4502
> 
> Putt, J. 2012. Conducting Research with Indigenous People and Communities. Indigenous Justice Clearinghouse. http://www.austdvclearinghouse.unsw.edu.au/documents/ConductingresearchwithIndigenouspeopleandcommunities.pdf
> 
> Rice, K. 2011. ‘Documentary Linguistics and Community Relations’. http://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/handle/10125/4498
> 
> 
> Date:                 Tuesday 11th February 2014
> Time:                6:00 - 8:00 pm
> Venue:             Upstairs room, Prince Alfred Hotel
> 191 Grattan St, Carlton
> (corner of Bouverie St)
> ph (03) 9347-3033
> 
> Food and drinks available at the venue
> 
> LIP is coordinated by Ruth Singer and Lauren Gawne (University of Melbourne)
> 
> Contact  Ruth Singer if you have any questions rsinger at unimelb.edu.au
> 
> LIP is an occasional gathering of language activists and linguists in
> Melbourne. All are welcome. Those in other parts of Australia and the
> world who can't make it to the Melbourne LIPs are encouraged to
> organise a local gathering to discuss this topic and support language
> activities in your area.    
> 
> Dr Ruth Singer
> DECRA Postdoctoral Fellow
> Linguistics Program and Research Unit for Indigenous Language
> School of Languages and Linguistics
> Faculty of Arts
> University of Melbourne 3010
> Tel. +61 3 90353774
> http://languages-linguistics.unimelb.edu.au/academic-staff/ruth-singer
> http://indiglang.arts.unimelb.edu.au/

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