Learning and Using Languages in Ethnographic Research

Edited by Robert Gibb, Annabel Tremlett, Julien Danero Iglesias

Publication date:

11 October 2019

Publisher

Multilingual Matters

Dimensions:

234x156mm
6x9"

ISBN-13: 9781788925914

Learning and Using Languages in Ethnographic Research breaks the silence that still surrounds learning a language for ethnographic research and in the process demystifies some of the multilingual aspects of contemporary ethnographic work. It does this by offering a set of engaging and accessible accounts of language learning and use written by ethnographers who are at different stages of their academic career. A key theme is how researchers’ experiences of learning and using other languages in fieldwork contexts relate to wider structures of power, hierarchy and inequality. The volume aims to promote a wider debate among researchers about how they themselves learn and use different languages in their work, and to help future fieldworkers make more informed choices when carrying out ethnographic research using other languages.

Chapter 1. Robert Gibb, Annabel Tremlett and Julien Danero Iglesias: Introduction

Chapter 2. Lydia Medland: Language Learning as Research Rehearsal: Preparation for Multi-linguistic Field Research in Morocco

Chapter 3. Susan Frohlick and Carolina Meneses: Emergent Collaborations: Field Assistants, Voice, and Multilingualism

Chapter 4. Laela Adamson: Learning Language to Research Language in Two Tanzanian Secondary Schools

Chapter 5. Robert Gibb: ‘Demystifying’ Multilingual Fieldwork: On the Importance of Documenting and Reflecting on Language Learning in Ethnographic Research

Chapter 6. Dominic Esler: Dealing with Diglossia: Language Learning as Ethnography

Chapter 7. Teresa Piacentini: Language Learning and Unlearning in Ethnographic Fieldwork: ‘Speaking Asylum’ and ‘Doing Small Talk’

Chapter 8. Lara Momesso: One Language, Two Systems: On Conducting Ethnographic Research Across the Taiwan Strait

Chapter 9. Annabel Tremlett: Breakdowns for Breakthroughs: Using Anxiety and Embarrassment as Insightful Points for Understanding Fieldwork

Chapter 10. Daniella Jofré: Andean Ethnography and Language Learning: Reflecting on Identity Politics and Resistance Strategies of the Chilean Aymara

Chapter 11. Julien Danero Iglesias: How I Tried to Speak a Language Like a ‘Native’ and how this Influenced my Research

Chapter 12. Iolanda Vasile: ‘The Language is Mine. The Accent is Yours’: Doing Fieldwork in Angola

Chapter 13. Matthew Blackburn: Being ‘Proficient’ and ‘Competent’: On ‘Languaging’, Field Identity and Power/Privilege Dynamics in Ethnographic Research

Chapter 14. Charo Reyes: Plurilingual Focus, Multilingual Space, Bilingual Set-up: Conducting Ethnographic Research in Two Catalonian Schools

Chapter 15. Wine Tesseur: Listening, Languages and the Nature of Knowledge and Evidence: What We Can Learn from Investigating ‘Listening’ in NGOs

Chapter 16. Sarah Burton: Becoming a Multilingual Researcher in Contemporary Academic Culture: Experiential Stories of (Not) Learning and Using Languages

Chapter 17. Robert Gibb, Annabel Tremlett and Julien Danero Iglesias: Conclusion

Power, privilege, hierarchy, and dependence shape and often complicate ethnographers’ forays into unfamiliar languages. These thoughtful, reflexive essays, addressing an impressive range of field experiences, incisively reveal and explore the shifting ground of the authors’ linguistic interactions in relation to dynamics that are often invisible, usually risky, and always unpredictable.