[lg policy] Re: [Baalmail] Who is indigenous?

Fri Aug 14 02:42:02 UTC 2015

I couldn't read the film (dreadful Australian internet means it is delivered one syllable at a time).

I think one of the problems is that the current 'immigration' debates confuse asylum seekers and refugees with migrants. All countries have a right to control immigration, preferably in a fair and non-racist way. But refugees have a right to be given a place of safety so their numbers cannot be controlled.

I certainly agree that the groups of communities with on-going migration can be 'traditional'. English also has ongoing migration (such as between Australia and UK). The languages of the groups that were formerly colonised by Britain also seem to me to have a special kind of status  (the most obvious examples would be Urdu, Bangla, and Gujarati rather than Hindi), but I would not want to argue that the 'traditional' should be privileged any more than the indigenous. I feel that what is needed is to support the linguistic and non-linguistic needs of groups that are present in the a country, paying particular attention to those that are poor, disproportionately incarcerated and so on.

Anthea

*     *     *     *     *
Anthea Fraser Gupta (Dr)
(Honorary Research Fellow
School of English, University of Leeds, UK)
<anthea.id.au>
Home address:
62 Balgownie Road
Fairy Meadow
NSW 2519
Australia
*     *     *     *     *

________________________________
From: baalmail-bounces at lists.leeds.ac.uk <baalmail-bounces at lists.leeds.ac.uk> on behalf of Ibrar <elluminate76 at gmail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, 12 August 2015 6:54 PM
To: Dave Sayers
Cc: LING-ETHNOG at JISCMAIL.AC.UK; Language Policy List; baalmail at lists.leeds.ac.uk; Variationist List; ENDANGERED-LANGUAGES-L at listserv.linguistlist.org
Subject: Re: [Baalmail] Who is indigenous?

Thank for the article Dave. Enjoyed it.

This is a related discussion from Mehdi Hasan's show 'Head to Head' where he interview Paul Collier on immigration, diversity, etc.
http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/headtohead/2015/07/immigration-150728134414833.html

The issue of what is 'indigenous' is interesting and emerges at around 5:49 into the recording.

Perhaps it adds to the discussion.

Best wishes

Ibrar

On 12 August 2015 at 09:04, Dave Sayers <dave.sayers at cantab.net<mailto:dave.sayers at cantab.net>> wrote:
Hi everyone,

After a hilariously long delay (two and a half years!), I've managed to write up this blithering ramble into something longer, and possibly more coherent. It's been further tidied up and prettified by the wonderful people at Language on the Move, and it's online here: http://goo.gl/tdEfvi.

Sadly I wasn't trendy enough to mention super-diversity, but it relates to all that jazz quite straightforwardly, if that's your thing :)

Please feel free to share the link far and wide (that shortened link above is best; the full link will break in emails).

Comments welcome either in reply to this email or in the comments section of the web article - rest assured the comments sections on Language on the Move articles are usually less frothing than on the interweb badlands generally, but who knows, maybe I'll entice the trolls with this one.

Enjoy!

Dave

--
Dr. Dave Sayers
Senior Lecturer, Dept Humanities, Sheffield Hallam University
Honorary Research Fellow, Arts & Humanities, Swansea University (2009-2015)
dave.sayers at cantab.net<mailto:dave.sayers at cantab.net> | http://shu.academia.edu/DaveSayers

On 07/01/2013 14:54, Dave Sayers wrote:
Hello one and all,

I do hope the new year is treating you all well so far, and that you managed to get some sort of a
break during the festivities. I'm well and truly back in harness, and I hope I'm not butting into
anyone's continued vacation with this question, especially one that has turned out to be such a
monster as I've written it. (I also apologise for cross-posting.) Well, here goes...

In language policy research, I've always been struck by the implicitness of the meaning of
'indigenous', usually referring to those with the oldest known historical ancestry in a given
location. One example that comes to mind is Nancy Hornberger's 1998 article:

http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=28435

Since 1998, the emphasis on education has been increasingly called into question (including by Nancy
Hornberger, I hasten to add), but I haven't really seen the same critical deconstruction of what
'indigenous' means -- either in language policy or elsewhere. I hope I'm just looking in the wrong
places and that the debate is alive and well, somewhere. From what I have seen in language policy
research, the meaning of 'indigenous' is complex and varied...

In some cases, it's very clear and salient, defined starkly against the backdrop of historical
injustice and present-day inequalities (e.g. USA, Australia, Canada). Language policy is often a
central aspect of such debates. The indigenous people are typically socially excluded, poorer, with
higher rates of incarceration, alcohol and drug dependence, shorter life spans and so on. (I do have
concerns about quite how substantively language policy in these contexts is actually motivated by
concerns over material human wellbeing, but that's another matter.)

In other cases, the picture is very different. In much of Europe, 'indigenous' is a term used often
by elements of the political far right, in contrast to 'immigrants', those with more recent
ancestries on other shores. In these cases though, the 'indigenous' ones are relatively privileged,
while the immigrants tend to be socially excluded, poorer, etc. 'Indigenous' in these contexts is
seldom equated explicitly to the struggles of, for example, Native Americans. I'm not suggesting
this is the case in all of Europe, of course. My point is that 'indigenous' in European contexts is
a varied condition -- some richer, some poorer, and variously the beneficiaries and the dispossessed
in different historical struggles.

Perhaps 'indigenous' is taken to mean those with the oldest known historical connection to a place;
but that crumbles under closer inspection in a lot of cases. The English like to define themselves
as Anglo-Saxons since time immemorial, but try telling that to the sixth century Britons as they
were shoved ever further westward by successive waves of Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Franks (who were
themselves later shoved around by the Vikings for a few centuries, and so on and so on).

Defining an indigenous Brit these days continues to embarrass the British far right (no bad thing).
But whatever its meaning, it isn't strictly "us what was here first". Nevertheless (and back to my
original question), I've always wondered what is meant by 'indigenous' in these more historically
less recent and less salient cases, in language policy research. Where the term is used in LP
research, it's usually in order to contrast with (im)migrants (not in a far-right type of way, but
just as a point of contrast). That in turn begs the more important question: If the Anglo-Saxons
ultimately 'became indigenous', then how long must others wait to qualify for indigenous status? How
many centuries do you have to be around?

The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages might not actually use the word
"indigenous", but its somewhat mealy-mouthed focus on "languages that are traditionally used within
a given territory of a State" is placed in contrast to the "languages of migrants", which are
excluded. I've seen Anthea Fraser Gupta call the ECRML a racist document for this reason, which is a
fair heckle to an extent. If 'traditional' here is a kind of definition of indigeneity, then how
long, in years, is 'traditional'? Without wanting to put words in Anthea FG's mouth, I took her
point to be that languages like Hindi have a centuries-long 'tradition' in parts of the UK, but they
just happen to be associated with an ethnic group whose migration is ongoing, not ancient history --
yet those languages are perfectly 'traditional' in those parts of the UK.

The conundrum for the creators of the ECRML (and let's remember it took 8 years to write, so there
were bound to be compromises made and corners trimmed) was that Europe is host to hundreds of
languages, depending on the measure, and so protecting all of them would be practicably impossible.
But the next question is: well, why not decide on an actual definition of how long it takes to be
counted as 'indigenous', or 'traditional' etc., after which you can join the club? We've already
established that it isn't based on being there first, and that it is just a matter of time (e.g.
Anglo-Saxons). I doubt the current 'minorities' of Europe will all count themselves as
non-indigenous in a few hundred years' time. So how long is it?

I hope it's clear that I'm not actually looking for an answer in the form of X years. I'm really
hoping for this idea of 'indigenous' to be picked apart and ultimately discarded, as it's just not
very helpful to any but those on the far right (and it's not particularly helpful to them; it's so
nebulous it just makes them look silly). I'm not trying to rhetorically equate anyone who uses that
word with far right extremists! But I am asking... after all this... am I re-inventing the wheel
with all of the above? Has there been a decent deconstruction of the 'indigenous' label, either in
language policy research or elsewhere? If so, please let me know as I've run out of leads. If not,
then let's start it...!

All the best,
Dave

--
Dr. Dave Sayers
Honorary Research Fellow, Arts & Humanities, Swansea University
and Visiting Lecturer (2012-2013), Dept English, Åbo Akademi University
dave.sayers at cantab.net<mailto:dave.sayers at cantab.net>
http://swansea.academia.edu/DaveSayers

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