"In", "for", or "with"? (was Re: [ILAT] LSA 2006)

[Jan Tucker]

Susan, thanks for responding, I was hoping to hear from community members on
the list regarding this topic. I had a discussion with a web developer and
online educator who did many presentations at the community level regarding
connectivity, and in our discussion he emphasized the desire of communities
to control their own communication networks and educational output.
Sovereignty is the key he said in relation to indigenous knowledge and
learning networks. I wondered how much of the desire for sovereignty in
knowledge sharing might affect any efforts in language and cultural
revitalization by non community members who would like to collaborate or
work "for" or "with" the community? And if there is a barrier to
collaboration due to the desire of the communities to control their
collective knowledge of the language and the sharing of that knowledge. Just
a thought that could affect any efforts by outsiders to help or affect the
direction or focus of outsider support to language revitalization.

Jan


  -----Original Message-----
  From: Indigenous Languages and Technology
[mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU]On Behalf Of Susan Penfield
  Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2006 1:53 PM
  To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU
  Subject: Re: [ILAT] "In", "for", or "with"? (was Re: [ILAT] LSA 2006)


  Jan,
  Of course...these are good points and important to mention. Increasingly ,
communities are choosing to do their own work which is great -- but if they
decide to involve a linguist, then that linguist needs to really think
through the relationship with the community -- on many levels. I actually
agree with Scott -- working 'with' is the current model and a good one -- or
at least an improved one. My personal hope is that communities feel
empowered in terms of choosing or not choosing a linguist and in terms of
being able to outline how a linguist might or might not be of specifi use to
them fro either documentation or revitalization.
  Best,
  Susan


  On 1/11/06, Jan Tucker <jtucker at starband.net> wrote:
    Scott, great points here. It would be good to hear from community
members
    regarding working "for" the community. How do the communities want
    "outsiders"
    working "for" them. Also, do the communities even want outside
    collaborators in
    their revitalization programs? Would they rather train their own
community
    members
    working on revitalization to document language and develop language
    revitalization tools?

    Jan

    -----Original Message-----
    From: Indigenous Languages and Technology
    [mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU]On Behalf Of Scott DeLancey
    Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2006 11:48 AM
    To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU
    Subject: [ILAT] "In", "for", or "with"? (was Re: [ILAT] LSA 2006)


    On Wed, 11 Jan 2006, Susan Penfield wrote:

    > Jeff's session) is supportive of the community's efforts. This
requires a
    > second set of 'Best Practices' -- still being defined -- for working
with
    > communties (actually, I think we should think in terms of working FOR
    > communities --a step beyond working 'IN' or even 'WITH' ) ...

    I may be splitting hairs here, but then, that's what I do for a living
...

    A lot of folks in linguistics now put these in the other order--once
upon
    a time we worked *in* the communities, then we learned we had to think
    about working *for* the community, now we work *with* them.

    To me the difference is:  if you are working *for* the community, that
    sounds like you design and carry out the project, and the community
    benefits.  Sounds cool, but it can't work that way--no revitalization
    program can get anywhere unless the community is involved all the way
    along, not just in goal-setting but in implementation too--if you're
    not working *with* the community then the community isn't going to end
    up getting much out of your work.

    Scott DeLancey
    Department of Linguistics
    1290 University of Oregon
    Eugene, OR 97403-1290, USA

    delancey at darkwing.uoregon.edu
    http://www.uoregon.edu/~delancey/prohp.html




  --
  Susan D. Penfield, Ph.D.

  Department of English
  Affiliate faculty: Department of Linguistics
  and the Second Language Acquisition and Teaching Program
  American Indian Language Development Institute
  Phone for messages: (520) 621-1836
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ilat/attachments/20060111/3de07b11/attachment.htm>