Constituencies: yes or no? if yes, which ones?

[Jeff Deby]

Hi,

This is longish, but please take the time to consider it.  Two main
points, as specified in the subject header.

1.    Constituencies: yes or no?

I'm inclined to agree with Ken Hyde, as far as I've weighed my thoughts
to now.  For refreshment:

> The proposed constituencies are:
>
> 1. Graduate and undergraduate students
> 2. Scholars in nontraditional employment situations (e.g., working in
> industry; independent scholars; part-time and adjunct faculty)
> 3. Members of color
> 4. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transsexual members
> 5. Men who are members of the organization
> 6. Members outside the US, Canada, and the UK
>

I fit into 1, 4, and 5, and probably will end up in 2 also, given the
market for sociolinguists.  For [GALA] purposes I don't feel I have to
choose which of these is my primary identity, regardless of whether I
want to run for one of the positions or not.  What I *do* want is to
know that ther are representatives of these constituencies who are
voicing my concerns (and that there are constituency representatives to
voice the concerns of the others, equally).  I am fully convinced that
people in [GALA] want to be as all-embracing as possible.  However,
without specific attention, sometimes concerns of all/some members, or a
single member, of the smaller groups get lost in between the cracks.  It
just happens.  We're human.  We're trying, but sometimes we miss
things.  I think it's good to have a governing structure which
acknowledges this and provides an inlet for such oversights or
dissatisfactions to be less likely and to be addressed when they do
occur.

So, I like the idea of the constituencies, in that if the organization
is committed to representing many aspects of gender and language
research, if I or another member feels that we are not being heard, we
have an appropriate person to approach about that.  And it also means
that it's a person who is not trying to cover all the bases at once, so
they can concentrate more clearly on the issues of that constituency.


2.    Which constituencies, if we do decide to have them?

Now that I've spoken my piece in favour of the constituencies being
represented, I have comments about the constituencies themselves.

a) I'd like to know that the constituencies are open to be expanded,
reduced, or collapsed if it appears that that would be best (which I
realize would be a difficult issue to decide, but that doesn't mean we
shouldn't prepare for future change).  Some wording to this effect would
please me.  Anyone else?

b) I also very much dislike the wording of constituency (3), "members of
color", because of the following reasons, among others:

*    the implications that "white" people have no colour,
*    the creation of a white-nonwhite dichotomy (are whites the only
oppressors? the only people who overlook the existence or sensitivities
of other racial or ethnic groups?), and, related to this,
*    the resultant grouping of all non-"white" people together, which
seems just as racist as anything else
*    that certain "people of colour" seem to be more represented than
others -- are First Peoples or Native Americans included here?  or, for
example, I have some fairly dark-skinned relatives in Ukraine, but also
in Canada -- would they both count?  Only the non-Canadians? Neither?
The term "people of colour" just doesn't seem very useful to me.

I believe that there needs to be some clearer discussion on who we mean
to include in this group (3), and why.  Perhaps change (3) to a
constituency to attend to ethnic and racial diversity, without
specifying certain groups and excluding others?  I would be interested
to hear other members' views on this.

c) Why are the USA, Canada and the UK grouped together as exclusionary
criteria in constituency (6)?  This seems bizarre to me.  The basis for
this grouping *could* be that that's where we think most of the gender &
lg research is being done, which ignores significant contributions from,
say, France and Japan.

Is constituency (6) based on language?  If so, do we mean,

*    Official language of the country?  If so, why not include
Australia, and New Zealand, for example?  Also, why include bilingual
Canada (arguably trilingual, if we include Nunavut's recent increased
autonomy)?  Note that recognizing Québec separately will be viewed as a
serious political statement by most Canadian members (to the pleasure of
some and the displeasure of others), and will exclude francophones
outside of Québec (j'en connais pas mal, savez-vous...)
*    Dominant language of the country?  If so, major groups such as
hispanophone USA-ans are obviously going to be excluded.
*    Mother tongue of the member?  If so, country is irrelevant.
*    Language of the research the member does?  Again, if so, country is
irrelevant.

In my current opinion, what we need is a constituency which recognizes
people *doing research* on non-English languages. This is because our
working language *is* English, so we're most likely to neglect these
researchers, especially if they draw on theoretical frameworks which are
not popular among English-language researchers, or are not available in
English.  I propose we change (6) to specify this group, then, and would
like to hear other people's comments about that.

Best,

Jeff
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jeff Deby, Georgetown University
• E-mail: Jeff_Deby at bc.sympatico.ca
• Web: http://www.georgetown.edu/users/debyj/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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