Paper at the invited symposium 'Illusions and Delusions of the Centre within the Framework of Globalization'

My interest in this paper is twofold: first, make visible the work that individuals and institutions “do” in the global North and global South. Second, illustrate how analyses across time and geopolitical spaces allows for revisiting the ways in which language categories get talked-and-written-into-being and how identity positions and culture become framed in and through social practices and textual accountings. Taking both a socially oriented perspective and a decolonial framework on languaging and identity positions, this contribution juxtaposes data from ethnographic projects at the CCD research group at Örebro University, Sweden (www.oru.se/humes/ccd). The analysis builds upon (i) video-recordings of mundane activities, (ii) data-prompted discussions and (iii) archives and policy related to institutions in Sweden and Mumbai, India where individuals have access to a number of language varieties.

The findings highlight the incongruence between individuals and institutional accountings in the global North (as opposed to individuals talk and institutional accountings in the global South) as well as the performance of languaging, identity and culture in the global North. In other words, this study challenges dominating understandings of language, identity and culture generally and the organization of “special” support for “immigrant” individuals in the global North more specifically. Issues are also raised regarding the “technification” of language and diversity. Evidence presented questions the simplistic positions and problematic “webs-of-understandings” (Bagga-Gupta 2012) that frame mono-bi-multilingualism and mono-bi-multiculturalism in the global North. Providing emic understandings of how accountings constitute a core dimension of “collective remembering” (Wertsch 2002) of “imagined communities” (Anderson 1991), the paper illustrates “alternative voices” (Hasnain el al 2013) in the Language and Educational Sciences (Bagga-Gupta 2013, 2014). This endeavor calls for a major shift in analytical perspectives, an “earthrise” viewing from decolonial positions, instead of the dominant “sunrise and moonrise” viewings that build upon northern hegemonies that currently frame discourses of globalization.

References:

Anderson, B. (1991). Imagined Communities. Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. London: Verso.

Bagga-Gupta, S. (2012). Challenging understandings of Bilingualism in the Language Sciences from the lens of research that focuses Social Practices. In Eva Hjörne, Geerdina van der Aalsvoort & Guida de Abreu (Eds.) Learning, social interaction and diversity – exploring school practices. pp 85-102. Rotterdam: Sense.

Bagga-Gupta, S. (2013). The Boundary-Turn. Relocating language, identity and culture through the epistemological lenses of time, space and social interactions. In Imtiaz Hasnain, Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta & Shailendra Mohan (Eds.) Alternative Voices: (Re)searching Language, Culture and Identity... pp 28-49 Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Bagga-Gupta, S. (in press 2014). Performing and accounting language and identity: Agency AS actors-in-(inter)action-with-tools. In P. Deters, Xuesong Gao, E. Miller and G. Vitanova-Haralampiev (Eds.) Interdisciplinary approaches to theorizing and analyzing agency and second language learning. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.

Hasnain, I., Bagga-Gupta, S. & Mohan, S. (Eds.) Alternative Voices: (Re)searching Language, Culture and Identity... Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Wertsch, J. (2002). Voices of Collective Remembering. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.