The Struggle for Legitimacy: Indigenized Englishes in Settler Schools
152
The Struggle for Legitimacy: Indigenized Englishes in Settler Schools
152Paperback
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781847695178 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Multilingual Matters Ltd. |
| Publication date: | 11/11/2011 |
| Series: | Critical Language and Literacy Studies , #12 |
| Pages: | 152 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.80(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.40(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
The Struggle for Legitimacy
Indigenized Englishes in Settler Schools
By Andrea Sterzuk
Multilingual Matters
Copyright © 2011 Andrea SterzukAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-84769-517-8
CHAPTER 1
Settler Societies and Language
Introduction
I was recently at an academic conference where I gave a presentation related to the topic of this book: language variation and linguistic bias in settler schools. During this presentation, I referred to Saskatchewan, the Canadian province where I live, as a settler postcolonial context. After my presentation, another conference delegate told me that he was surprised to hear Canada described in this way. This individual's confusion over my comment might be explained from a number of perspectives. Depending on the academic focus, Canada may or may not be 'included in a list of postcolonial locations' (Moss, 2003: 4). So one possibility, in terms of explaining his surprise, is that he was more likely to think of postcolonial when referring to former colonies of exploitation like India, Singapore, Algeria, Haiti and Guyana, to name a few. In these locations, settlers consisted of a relatively small group of Europeans (administrators, merchants, soldiers and missionaries) charged with overseeing and managing the appropriation of land, natural resources and labour. In most cases, most of these Europeans eventually left and so it is perhaps more possible to think of these locations as postcolonial. This type of colony differs from settler colonies such as Canada, Australia, South Africa, Mexico, Brazil, the United States and New Zealand where large numbers of Europeans, and subsequently others, settled on land seized from Indigenous peoples and made the new settlements their permanent homes. And while a clear divide is often made between these two types of colonial contexts – colonies of exploitation and settler colonies – there is also the danger that 'too sharp a division may obscure the terrible consequences of colonialism for the Indigenous peoples in the territories settled' (Moss, 2003: 2).
It also might be possible that this individual initially believed that I might be trying to draw attention to my own experiences as a Canadian white settler. There has, after all, been some debate in the field of literary studies about Canadian white settler writers describing themselves as colonized by the British academy and canon (Hutcheon, 1994). My conference colleague's comments might also have been related to the post in post-colonial. There are those who argue that given the continuing effects of colonialism in present-day societies, postcolonial is a misleading term as we have not moved past the influences of these systems. Proponents of this position might prefer, instead, to speak of colonial and settler societies; anti-colonialism; and decolonization but avoid the term postcolonial. While I agree that colonial systems continue to operate and affect the lives of humans who live in these societies, I use the term postcolonial not as a temporal marker but because, as a term and as a body of academic writing, it both signals and 'calls for a major rethinking of pregiven categories and histories, a major calling-into-question of assumed givens and fixed structures' (Pennycook, 1998: 17).
There was no time to respond to my fellow conference participant's comment and so I cannot be sure as to what his particular line of reasoning was. Irrespective of his intentions, his words had the result of giving me a moment of pause because while I recognize the differences between colonialism in different locations and understand the debate over post as a marker of time, I see evidence of colonialism everywhere I look in my comfortable Canadian white settler existence. Some easy symbolic examples that come to mind when I think of the influences of British imperialism on my daily life include the language I speak; Queen Elizabeth II's face on the coins in my wallet; local city streets named Victoria and Albert (Spolsky, 2009); and the girl guides who knock at my door selling cookies. These examples reflect the colonial intentions for white settler societies to serve as overseas extensions and replicas of British society (Stasiulis & Yuval-Davis, 1995).
If I look to evidence of the effects of colonialism in producing societal inequity and racialized identities in Saskatchewan, the examples become more uncomfortable for me: the teacher education programme where I work consisting almost exclusively of white bodies (students and faculty members alike) and provincial high-school graduation rates that indicate that only 25–30% of self-identified Indigenous students graduate within three years of beginning Grade 10 as compared to 72% and 75% of all Saskatchewan students (Saskatchewan Education Indicators Report, 2008). These types of examples are indicative of the role of settler schools and teacher education programmes in producing and re-producing domination, subjugation and exclusion in settler societies. Using a term like settler postcolonial Saskatchewan allows me to draw attention to the continuing influence of colonialism in the schools where I conduct research as well as in the society in which these schools are located.
Settler societies like Canada were created and structured (through policies and law) as racial hierarchies and this is what they continue to produce (Thobani, 2007). The semiotic act of reading colonial symbols such as currency or street names does not require high levels of critical literacy; for most, it is easy to see how British imperialism influences these aspects of the Canadian context. It may take closer analysis to see the influence of colonialism on educational inequity of Indigenous students in settler schools. This book aims to provide this closer examination by focusing on the relationships between: colonial discourses; English language variation, racialized identities and biased educational practices of settler schools, where I have been a student, teacher and, more recently, an educational researcher.
In some ways, this book's discussion may be somewhat of a departure from typical analyses of English language variation and classroom practices. Mindful of this possibility, I will discuss the theoretical framework of my research at length in Chapter 2 of this book. First though, I want to provide direction in this introductory chapter by (a) providing a discussion of some key terms and concepts that I use in my descriptions of racial and linguistic identities; (b) situating the book's arguments through a description of the classroom-based study that is central to this book; and (c) concluding this chapter with an overview of the book's content.
Describing Racial and Linguistic Identities
Choosing the terms I use to discuss the lives of people who live in settler societies shapes the types of arguments I am able to make. Smitherman (1991) argues that reality is sociolinguistically constructed. Experiences do not exist in raw or unaffected form but, unavoidably, are filtered through words. Smitherman contends that language is a key component in the development of 'ideology, consciousness, and class relations' (Smitherman, 1991: 4). What this means, in terms of the racial, ethnic and linguistic labels that I use through this book is that the words that I use are not simply neutral linguistic indicators, and so it is important to choose my words wisely as well as to share with readers the reasons behind my choices. Let me begin by describing one that I use throughout this book: white settler society. But what is a white settler society exactly? Sherene Razack describes this construct in the following way:
A white settler society is one established by Europeans on non-European soil. Its origins lie in the dispossession and near extermination of Indigenous populations by conquering Europeans. As it evolves, a white settler society continues to be structured by a racial hierarchy. In the national mythologies of such structures, it is believed that white peoples came first and that it is they who principally developed the land; Aboriginal peoples are presumed to be mostly dead or assimilated. European settlers thus become the original inhabitants and the group most entitled to the fruits of citizenship. A quintessential feature of white settler mythologies is, therefore, the disavowal of conquest, genocide, slavery, and the exploitation of the labour of people of colour. In North America, it is still the case that European conquest and colonization are often denied, largely through the fantasy that North America was peacefully settled and not colonized. (Razack, 2002: 2)
It does not necessarily sound like a great place. It is also sometimes hard to reconcile the above description with how places such as Canada, Australia and New Zealand are represented to the rest of the world and to ourselves. This is partly because a society with origins such as these produces ideologies that circulate and construct the daily lives of its racialized inhabitants long after the initial invasion of the non-European soil; the mechanisms of this process are discussed at length in Chapter 3. These ideologies have the potential to allow white settlers to view their societies as 'multicultural' and to enjoy shared stories of 'coming over', 'settling' and 'hard work'. This book suggests that these white settler mythologies, as well as how they serve to construct racialized identities, are part of the problem when it comes to determining whose languages and language varieties are allowed in official spaces like schools. As such, my use of the term settler when referring to individuals or groups for whom a settler society is not an ancestral home; white settler when referring specifically to settlers of European descent and white settler society to describe societies established on non-European soil by Europeans draws attention to the many complexities described by Razack in the above quotation. This decision is based on my desire to highlight the continuing role of colonialism in creating racial (and linguistic) hierarchies in settler nation-states and within the school and community where I conducted my research.
Colonialism positions white settlers at the top of a racial hierarchy. We occupy a place of dominance, not necessarily through our individual choices but through the processes and institutions that serve us. Zeus Leonardo explains this reality in the following way:
Domination is a relation of power that subjects enter into and is forged in the historical process. It does not form out of the random acts of hatred, although these are condemnable, but rather out of a patterned and enduring treatment of social groups. Ultimately, it is secured through a series of actions, the ontological meaning of which is not always transparent to its subjects and objects. (Leonardo, 2004: 139)
The unfortunate reality about growing up as white settlers in Saskatchewan is that colonial discourses about First Nations and Métis come to seem 'normal' to many of us at a very young age even though the processes by which this dominant identity is secured 'is not always transparent' to us. Here in the Canadian Prairies, as Epp (2008: 127) explains, 'the casual racism of everyday speech is shocking to outsiders.' And while these colonial discourses are sometimes caged in some very polite and caring language (though certainly not always), the general ideas (which I will discuss at length in Chapters 3 and 4) remain the same. Through these discourses, our dominance comes to feel mundane and unremarkable.
Settlers are not the only humans who live in white settler societies. Other peoples lived in these spaces long before European invasion and continue to live here to this day. Indigenous scholars Taiaiake Alfred and Jeff Corntassel explain indigenous identities in the following way:
Indigenousness is an identity constructed, shaped and lived in the politicized context of contemporary colonialism. The communities, clans, nations and tribes we call Indigenous peoples are just that: Indigenous to the lands they inhabit, in contrast to and in contention with the empire. It is this oppositional, place-based existence, along with the colonization by foreign peoples, that fundamentally distinguishes Indigenous peoples from other peoples of the world. (Alfred & Corntassel, 2005: 597)
In the Canadian context, other terms that are used in the same way as Indigenous peoples include Aboriginal peoples and First Peoples. When I narrow my focus to particular Indigenous peoples, for example, if I move from talking about Indigenous peoples in Canada to talking about Cree in Saskatchewan, it is important to use more specific terms. Let me explain what I mean by flipping this conversation to a European context. Referring to all Indigenous peoples as Indigenous or Aboriginal in discussions of local contexts would be similar to knowing that someone is Dutch and yet always referring to this person as European and describing cultural artefacts from his community such as clogs as European shoes. This type of situation, of course, would be unlikely to take place. That is not to say that generalizations about Europeans are not made, but simply that we often pay closer attention to national identities than we do to the diversity that exists among Indigenous peoples. Keeping this reality in mind, it is also important to use terms that reflect the local context of the study.
The Canadian constitution recognizes three indigenous groups – First Nations, Métis and Inuit. While it does not necessarily follow that a white settler document should determine how I refer to Indigenous peoples in Canada, it can serve as a starting point for this explanation of terms. These three groups of people are separate from one another; have unique backgrounds and traits; and within each of these groups there is much linguistic and cultural diversity and variation. First Nations refers to specific Indigenous peoples who live south of the demarcation that traditionally separates First Nations from Inuit. Today in Saskatchewan, the primary communities of First Nations are Cree, Saulteaux, Nakota (Assiniboine), Dakota (Sioux) and Dene (Chipewyan). Next, Métis are descendants of unions between First Nations and Europeans. They were offspring of First Nations women and French fur traders who worked for the North West Company or Scottish and English fur traders from the Hudson's Bay Company. Finally, the term Inuit refers to Indigenous peoples who have traditionally lived in the Eastern Arctic region of Canada. Of these three indigenous groups in Canada, the study discussed in this book involves only First Nations and Métis participants.
Turning now to the terms I use to describe the linguistic realities examined in my study, let me begin by describing why I do not use the term dialect (or non-standard dialect;Standard English or non-standard English) and choose instead to speak of English language varieties or Englishes. The term dialect, and the construct it describes, makes assumptions about the place of speakers in the world. These assumptions have the potential to construct our understandings of what counts as legitimate language. Since this book intends to trouble our understanding of this very construct, it follows that alternate terminology is in order. Every human speaks a variety or version of a language and no one variety is more standard (in the sense of uniformity) than another even if there are particular 'rules' about how that language should be written. As such, to refer to one variety as standard language or simply as language and another as a dialect is to construct a false hierarchy of language varieties.
Moving away from terms like dialect means that language variation can be thought of as the range of language varieties that make up the spectrum that constitutes a particular language. Some varieties are closer to one another than others; the only difference between two such varieties might be in terms of some of their phonological features or lexical items. Other language varieties differ more significantly from one another and have systematic differences on phonological, grammatical, morphological and lexical levels. Some language varieties provide greater access to power but, regardless of this unearned privilege, they remain language varieties; it is not fair or accurate to depict them as standard language which in turn forces another unofficial variety to be thought of as a dialect. I also name language varieties using what could be described as postcolonial terms (or anti-colonial, depending on your thinking). As such, I might call my own English language variety a Canadian white settler variety or, more specifically, a rural Saskatchewan white settler variety. Similarly, throughout this book, I will speak of varieties of Indigenous English.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Struggle for Legitimacy by Andrea Sterzuk. Copyright © 2011 Andrea Sterzuk. Excerpted by permission of Multilingual Matters.
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Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Settler Societies and LanguageChapter 2: Looking at English Language Variation in Schools: Current & Critical Directions
Chapter 3: Colonial Ideologies and Discourses
Chapter 4: Constructing Race in Settler Saskatchewan
Chapter 5: The Racialization of Space and School
Chapter 6: Suppressing Linguistic Alterity in Settler Schools
Chapter 7: “Radical Solutions” for Schools & Teacher Education