8 - “¿Para qué sirve la utopía? ”

Summary

Researchers investigating minoritized languages have engaged in the promotion and defense of these languages in a variety of ways. While not all researchers consider themselves to be activists, their actions are nonetheless a part of language politics in the contexts where they work. All research is political and all researchers are political actors, as members of colonized groups know all too well. In this chapter, I discuss language activism as a social project where multiple actors have meaningful roles to play, scholars among them. I begin by positioning myself as a scholar activist and then discuss the broad aims of language activism, including the potentially conflicting nature of activism goals. Turning to consider activism strategies, I draw on a framework developed through ethnographic study of language activists in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, Mexico, which represents a repertoire of strategies available to actors dependent on their positionality. Throughout, I reflect on the affordances and constraints of scholars as social actors within the wider project of language activism, drawing on my own experiences as a European-American scholar engaged in primarily Indigenous language initiatives. I highlight approaches that I have found helpful, including working across disciplines and a constructivist understanding of activism aims and strategies.