[Linganth] AAA2015 session proposal: Reinforcing Monolingual Hegemonies: the Development State in Globalization

[Lauren Zentz]

Hi all,
  Please see my developing abstract below and let me know if you'd be
interested in forming a panel for AAA this fall. Send your abstract or any
questions you might have to me at laurenzentz at gmail.com.
  Thanks,
  Lauren



Reinforcing Monolingual Hegemonies: the Development State in Globalization



Contemporary state-level policy makers reinforce national identity through
nationally emblematic, reworked ‘indigenous’ or ‘proto-national’
(Errington, 2008) philosophies, and they are tagging onto these
philosophical orientations singular national languages that are supposed to
contain and re-awaken such philosophical orientations among their citizens.
These indigenous philosophies: *ujamaa*—or traditional socialism—in
Tanzania (Blommaert, 2014), *hexie*—harmony—in China (Wang et al., 2013),
and *Pancasila*—the five pillars—in Indonesia (Zentz, 2012) have been
revitalized at different points in time in the past century, and
revitalized repeatedly among developing nations through different waves of
decolonization and globalization. They have been deployed to (often
violently) enforce an inherent, “natural” and “self-defendable form of
power and coercion that can be used to impose certain order and
normativity” (Wang et al. 2013). In this panel we will explore national
language policy statements and the histories that they are embedded within,
among various developing nations, in order to examine trends and variations
as these states vie for acceptance among an international community, while
simultaneously consolidating and naturalizing state-level hegemony by
politically and culturally unifying their nations.

-- 
Assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics
Department of English
University of Houston
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