Learning and Using Languages in Ethnographic Research 9781788925921

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Learning and Using ­Languages in Ethnographic Research

RESEARCHING MULTILINGUALLY Series Editors: Prue Holmes, Durham University, UK, Richard Fay, University of Manchester, UK and Jane Andrews, U ­ niversity of the West of England, UK Consulting Editor: Alison Phipps, University of Glasgow, UK The increasingly diverse character of many societies means that many researchers may now find themselves engaging with multilingual opportunities and complexities as they design, carry out and disseminate their research. This may be the case regardless of whether or not there is an explicit language and multilingual aspect to their research. This book series proposes to address the methodological, practical, ethical and other options and dilemmas that researchers face as they go about their research. How do they design their research methodology to account for multilingual possibilities and practices? How do they manage such linguistic complexities in the research domain? What are the implications for their research outcomes? Research methods training programmes only rarely address these questions and there is, as yet, only a limited literature available. This series proposes to establish a new track of theoretical, methodological, and ethical researcher praxis that researchers can draw upon in research(er) contexts where multiple languages are at play or might be purposefully used. In particular, the series proposes to offer critical and interpretive perspectives on research practices and endeavours in interand multi-disciplinary contexts and especially where languages, and the people speaking and using them, are under pressure, pain, and tension.  All books in this series are externally peer-reviewed. Full details of all the books in this series and of all our other publications can be found on http://www.multilingual-matters.com, or by writing to Multilingual Matters, St Nicholas House, 31-34 High Street, Bristol BS1 2AW, UK.

RESEARCHING MULTILINGUALLY: 2

Learning and Using Languages in Ethnographic Research Edited by Robert Gibb, Annabel Tremlett and Julien Danero Iglesias

MULTILINGUAL MATTERS Bristol • Blue Ridge Summit

DOI https://doi.org/10.21832/GIBB5914 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Names: Tremlett, Annabel, editor. | Danero Iglesias, Julien, editor. | Gibb, Robert, 1969-editor. Title: Learning and Using Languages in Ethnographic Research/Edited by Robert Gibb, Annabel Tremlett and Julien Danero Iglesias. Description: Blue Ridge Summit: Multilingual Matters, 2019. | Series: Researching Multilingually: 2 | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: ‘This book breaks the silence that surrounds learning a language for ethnographic research and in the process demystifies some of the multilingual aspects of contemporary ethnographic work. It offers a set of engaging and accessible accounts of language learning and use written by ethnographers who are at different stages of their academic career’ – Provided by publisher. Identifiers: LCCN 2019022075 (print) | LCCN 2019981568 (ebook) | ISBN 9781788925914 (hardback) | ISBN 9781788925907 (paperback) | ISBN 9781788925945 (kindle edition) | ISBN 9781788925938 (epub) | ISBN 9781788925921 (pdf) Subjects: LCSH: Anthropological linguistics – Case studies. Classification: LCC P35 .L43 2019 (print) | LCC P35 (ebook) | DDC 306.442 – dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019022075 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019981568

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue entry for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN-13: 978-1-78892-591-4 (hbk) ISBN-13: 978-1-78892-590-7 (pbk) Multilingual Matters UK: St Nicholas House, 31-34 High Street, Bristol BS1 2AW, UK. USA: NBN, Blue Ridge Summit, PA, USA. Website: www.multilingual-matters.com Twitter: Multi_Ling_Mat Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/multilingualmatters Blog: www.channelviewpublications.wordpress.com Copyright © 2020 Robert Gibb, Annabel Tremlett, Julien Danero Iglesias and the authors of individual chapters. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher. The policy of Multilingual Matters/Channel View Publications is to use papers that are natural, renewable and recyclable products, made from wood grown in sustainable forests. In the manufacturing process of our books, and to further support our policy, preference is given to printers that have FSC and PEFC Chain of Custody certification. The FSC and/or PEFC logos will appear on those books where full certification has been granted to the printer concerned.

Typeset by Riverside Publishing Solutions Printed and bound in the UK by Short Run Press Ltd. Printed and bound in the US by NBN.

Contents

Acknowledgements

vii

Contributors

ix

1 Introduction Robert Gibb, Annabel Tremlett and Julien Danero Iglesias

1

Part 1: Learning Languages in Ethnographic Research 2 Language Learning as Research Rehearsal: Preparation for Multilinguistic Field Research in Morocco Lydia Medland

17

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

31

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

44

5 ‘Demystifying’ Multilingual Fieldwork: On the Importance of Documenting and Reflecting on Language Learning in Ethnographic Research Robert Gibb 6 Dealing with Diglossia: Language Learning as Ethnography Dominic Esler

57 70

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

83

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

97

v

vi Contents

Part 2: Using Languages in Ethnographic Research 9 Breakdowns for Breakthroughs: Using Anxiety and Embarrassment as Insightful Points for Understanding Fieldwork113 Annabel Tremlett 10 Andean Ethnography and Language Learning: Reflecting on Identity Politics and Resistance Strategies of the Chilean Aymara Daniella Jofré

126

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

140

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

152

13 Being ‘Proficient’ and ‘Competent’: On ‘Languaging’, Field Identity and Power/Privilege Dynamics in Ethnographic Research Matthew Blackburn 14 Plurilingual Focus, Multilingual Space, Bilingual Set-up: Conducting Ethnographic Research in Two Catalonian Schools Charo Reyes

164

177

Part 3: Institutional Contexts and Challenges 15 Listening, Languages and the Nature of Knowledge and Evidence: What We Can Learn from Investigating ‘Listening’ in NGOs Wine Tesseur 16 Becoming a Multilingual Researcher in Contemporary Academic Culture: Experiential Stories of (Not) Learning and Using Languages Sarah Burton

193

207

17 Conclusion Robert Gibb, Annabel Tremlett and Julien Danero Iglesias

221

Index

238

Acknowledgements

This book developed out of a workshop on ‘Language Learning and Ethnographic Fieldwork’ held at the University of Glasgow on 11 and 12 April 2016. Financial support for the event was kindly provided by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). We are also very grateful to Angela Creese, Hilary Footitt, Charles Forsdick and Alison Phipps for acting as discussants at the workshop. We thank the contributors to this volume, all of whom participated in the original workshop, for being willing to share in such an open and honest way their experiences – both successful and unsuccessful – of learning and using languages in ethnographic research. We have learned much from working with them over the past three years. Finally, we would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their extremely detailed and helpful comments on the manuscript, and Anna Roderick and her colleagues at Multilingual Matters for all their support and guidance.

vii

Contributors

Laela Adamson is in the final year of a part-time doctorate at the UCL Institute of Education, University College London. Her thesis takes an ethnographic approach to explore students’ experiences of the multilingual environment in two secondary schools in Tanzania. She has a particular interest in how the Capability Approach can broaden the debate around language-of-instruction in Sub-Saharan Africa. Laela teaches history at City of London School for Girls where she also holds the post of Researcher-in-Residence, supporting teachers and students to both engage in, and engage with, research. Sarah Burton is Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in the Department of Sociology at City, University of London. Her research areas include political sociology, representations of the intellectual, cosmopolitanism, and multilingualism. She completed her PhD at Goldsmiths and has studied English Literature and Sociology at the universities of Newcastle, Cambridge, and Glasgow. Sarah has published widely on social theory and the politics of knowledge, including a contribution to the 50th anniversary special issue of Sociology. Additionally, Sarah is a member of Glasgow Refugee, Asylum and Migration Network, as well as a convenor of the British Sociological Association Early Career Forum. Matthew Blackburn completed his doctoral thesis on ‘Nationalist discourses and the imagined nation in Post-Soviet Russia’ at the University of Glasgow in June 2018. Having graduated with an MA in History at Edinburgh University, he moved on to work in Russia for four years, gaining proficiency in the language. Expanding from a research project on Russian-speaking identity in Kazakhstan, his doctoral research was an in-depth exploration of hegemonic nationalist discourses ‘from below’ in Russia itself through analysis of in-depth interviews. In October 2018, Matthew took up a two-year postdoctoral position at the Institute of Russian Studies at Uppsala University. Julien Danero Iglesias works in local government and is an affiliate researcher at the University of Glasgow. Julien holds a PhD in political sciences from the Free University of Brussels (ULB) and has researched nationalism, borders and minority in Moldova, Romania, Serbia and Ukraine. His research was published in English, French and Romanian ix

x Contributors

in journals including East European Politics and Societies and Cultures, Nationalities Papers, Journal of Borderlands Studies and Sudosteuropa. Dominic Esler is currently completing a PhD in anthropology at University College London. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in northern Sri Lanka, his research looks at rice farming, caste, Catholicism, and the village. He has an MA in anthropology from SOAS, and a BA in Russian and English from Trinity College Dublin. Susan Frohlick is a cultural anthropologist. She teaches anthropology and gender and women’s studies and is the Head of the Community, Culture, and Global Studies Department at the University of British Columbia, Syilx Nation Territory, Okanagan. Her publications include Sexuality, Women, Tourism: Cross Border Desires through Contemporary Travel (Routledge, 2013). With community collaborators she is writing about African youth settlement in Winnipeg, Canada. She has collaborated with Carolina Meneses on various research projects in the Caribbean region of Costa Rica. Robert Gibb teaches anthropology and sociology at the University of Glasgow. For his PhD he carried out an anthropological study of a French anti-racist organisation, and he has also conducted research on asylum processes in France. His most recent research focused on the multilingual working practices of a range of actors involved in the refugee status determination process in Bulgaria. Daniella Jofré is a Canadian/Chilean archaeologist/anthropologist currently teaching at the Universidad de Chile, Santiago, who has continuously worked with indigenous communities in the Andes since 2003. Her doctoral research focuses on property rights of the Aymara in the Lauca Biosphere reserve at the borderlands of Chile, Peru and Bolivia (University of Toronto, 2014). Dr Jofré is a member of the Colegio de Arqueólogos de Chile, part of the organising team of the Teoría Arqueológica de América del Sur, and recently joined the Laboratorio de Historia de la Ciencia, Tecnología y Sociedad. Carolina Meneses is from Costa Rica and holds a master’s degree in Anthropology from the University of Manitoba. She currently works as a Newcomer Youth Outreach Coordinator at a non-profit organization in Winnipeg, Canada. Lydia Medland is an interdisciplinary researcher based at the University of Bristol where she teaches in sociology and politics. Her PhD thesis focuses on workers’ experiences within global food systems. For this she conducted qualitative research in Morocco to listen to the stories of workers in a context of intensive global production. This project followed five years living in Spain where she studied a Masters in Agroecology (University of

Contributors xi

Córdoba) and worked for an NGO focusing on transparency (Access Info Europe). Where possible, she uses arts-based and participatory methodologies to explore the most entrenched global issues and contradictions. Lara Momesso is a Lecturer in Asia Pacific Studies at the School of Language and Global Studies at the University of Central Lancashire. Her current research interests include contemporary migrations across the Asia Pacific region with a particular focus on marriage migration between China and Taiwan, family formation in contemporary Chinese societies and gender in the Asia Pacific region. Lara’s research has been published in several international journals, such as International Migration, Journal of Current Chinese Affairs, Asia Pacific Migration Journal, as well as in edited book projects, for instance Taiwan’s Social Movements under Ma Ying-jeou. From the Wild Strawberries to the Sunflowers (Routledge). Teresa Piacentini is a Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Glasgow. She researches and teaches migration-related topics and has worked in the area of asylum and refugee migration in Scotland since 2000. Her research and teaching focuses on broad questions of settlement, community, belonging and identity, solidarity and resistance. Prior to her PhD (2011) she worked for 10 years as a community interpreter in Scotland mainly with asylum seekers and refugees and a range of public and third sector agencies. Charo Reyes has a PhD in Social Anthropology. Her research focuses on educational inequalities, immigration and linguistic capital among students in secondary education in Barcelona. She was a visiting scholar at the Centre of Language, Culture and Education, Goldsmiths College, London and in the Social Work and Social Policy Department, the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow. She is a member of the Centre of Studies and Research in Migrations at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and part of the ORALPHA KA2-ERASMUS+ (Cooperation for Innovation and the Exchange of Good Practices. KA204 2017-1-ES01-KA204-038450. Literacy of refugees and new citizens 2017–2020) research team. Wine Tesseur is a postdoctoral researcher at Dublin City University. Her current research focuses on the role of translation as a contributor to human rights advocacy in the work of civil society organisations in the Global South. She previously worked as a postdoctoral researcher on the AHRC-project ‘The Listening Zones of NGOs: Languages and Cultural Knowledge in Development Programmes’ (2015–2018). Her doctoral research focused on translation policies and practices in Amnesty International (Aston University, 2015). Annabel Tremlett lectures on a social work course at the University of Portsmouth. Her research interests include investigating the life stories and everyday experiences of people from minority or marginalized groups.

xii Contributors

She is particularly interested in how to challenge misleading representations and has extensive expertise in ethnographic and photo elicitation research with Roma and non-Roma people in Hungary. She is currently researching the visual history of the Gitano in Spain, and separately from that, the experiences of circular migrants from Central and Eastern European countries who are based in the UK. Iolanda Vasile is a PhD candidate and a Junior Researcher at the Centre for Social Studies, University of Coimbra, Portugal. She is also a Portuguese Language Lecturer for Camões Insitute at West University in Timisoara, Romania. She holds a BA in Foreign Languages (Japanese and Portuguese) from the University of Bucharest, Romania. Her PhD research looks at the role played by the Angolan women at the outburst of the liberation movements in Angola (1945–1961).

1 Introduction Robert Gibb, Annabel Tremlett and Julien Danero Iglesias

Imagine that you are planning to carry out fieldwork or interviews as part of a new research project, and that to conduct the research you will need either to learn a new language or to use a second or additional language you already know. How exactly will you go about learning the new language? What kinds of issues are you likely to encounter when using another language for research purposes, even if it is one you have previously learned? Given the multilingual nature of much ethnographic research – the fact that it often entails working in two or more different languages – these are questions that arise for many researchers. It is striking, therefore, how few ethnographers have published detailed accounts of their own attempts to learn other languages and to use them during fieldwork. The effect of this is to maintain a ‘silence’ or ‘mystique’ around the learning and using of languages in ethnographic research, and to leave many researchers feeling anxious or uncertain about how to handle these matters in their own work (Temple, 1997; Borchgrevink, 2003; Tremlett, 2009; Gibb & Danero Iglesias, 2017). Learning and Using Languages in Ethnographic Research is a contribution to breaking this silence and to ‘demystifying’ some of the multilingual aspects of contemporary ethnographic work. The first edited ­collection on the subject available in English, it seeks 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. The volume 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, from PhD ­students to researchers already on their second or even third fieldwork sites. The authors have conducted research on a wide range of topics, using many different languages, in countries located on five continents.1 In all but one case, they draw here on their personal experience of ‘researching ­multilingually’ (Holmes et al., 2013) to contribute chapters that: (1) document and analyse in an in-depth, systematic way processes and practices of language learning and use in ethnographic research; 1

2  Learning and Using ­Languages in Ethnographic Research

(2) identify and analyse the epistemological, methodological, conceptual, theoretical and practical issues that arise when researchers conduct ethnographic research in a language that is not their ‘first’ language, and assess the implications of these at different stages of the research process; and, finally, (3) explore how researchers’ experiences of learning and using other languages in fieldwork contexts relate to wider structures of power, hierarchy and inequality. The book is divided into three parts. The first of these (Chapters 2–8) focuses on how ethnographers learn, ‘unlearn’ or relearn languages. The second part (Chapters 9–14) explores some of the key issues that can arise for researchers when they use one (or more than one) other language to carry out their work. Both the learning and the use of different languages in ethnographic research are shaped by broader social, political, economic and cultural processes, and a concern with analysing the nature of these influences runs like a thread through the book as a whole. This includes examining how academic and other institutional contexts facilitate or create barriers to multilingual ethnographic research, an issue that is the main focus of the final part of the book (Chapters 15 and 16). All the chapters draw, albeit in different ways and to varying degrees, on existing scholarship about, on the one hand, ethnographic research – including recent developments such as linguistic ethnography (see Rampton, 2007; Snell et al., 2015; Copland & Creese, 2015) – and, on the other, language learning or ‘second language acquisition’ (SLA). In the rest of this introduction, we highlight points from these literatures that are particularly relevant to the arguments developed in the book, and then provide a brief presentation of each of the chapters. We discuss the book’s contents at greater length in the final chapter, where we reflect on how the contributors have enhanced our understanding of the challenges and the value of learning and using languages in ethnographic research. In the conclusion, we also briefly identify important areas for future investigation and draw on the contributors’ combined experience to offer some ‘top tips’ for those learning a language for research purposes. Learning and Using Languages for Ethnographic Research

When preparing for fieldwork that requires new language skills, researchers often worry about time and other practical issues: How long will it take to become proficient enough in the language to carry out the research successfully? What is the best way to go about trying to learn the language? How will they know when the necessary level of fluency has been reached? In its ‘Postgraduate Funding Guide’, the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) provides intending PhD students with the following answer to the first of these questions:

Introduction 3

Up to one extra year’s extra support may be considered if a student needs to acquire or develop a working ability with a difficult language in order to carry out fieldwork (including UK fieldwork) or other parts of their research; this is over and above the funded length of the studentship. (ESRC, 2018: 25)

What the ESRC means here by ‘a difficult language’ becomes clearer in an annex to the Guide, where four groups of languages are distinguished (2018: 42). The first of these (Group A) covers ‘unwritten languages’ or those ‘for which no grammars, vocabularies, or other learning aids are available’, and includes Ameridian and Papuan languages; an extension of 12 months for ‘difficult language training’ can be requested in such cases. Applications for extensions of nine, six and three months, respectively, can be made to learn languages in the three other groups (B-D). The shortest extension applies to languages, including ‘all European languages’, for which ‘intensive learning materials’ are available. The ESRC’s recognition that some of the postgraduate students it funds will require additional time for language learning is important, particularly in the context of a growing ‘culture of speed’ in universities in the UK and many other countries (Berg & Seeber, 2016). However, its guidance on ‘language training’ leaves a number of crucial questions unanswered: What do we mean by ‘a’ language in the first place? Do we need to learn only one (‘the’ language), particularly if we propose to work in a multilingual setting? What constitutes ‘a working ability’ in a language as far as social scientific research is concerned? Is there a beginning, a middle and an end to language learning (as the ESRC’s allocation of specific periods of time for the latter tends to suggest)? Even when ‘intensive learning materials’ exist for a given language, how can we use them effectively, in ways that suit our personal learning styles? The present volume aims to help both post-graduate students and more experienced researchers in the social sciences reflect on and find answers to these and other language-related questions arising in their own research projects. Very little practical advice and guidance written specifically for social scientists is in fact currently available elsewhere, not just in documents prepared by the ESRC and other funding bodies but also in textbooks on ethnographic research or scholarly articles and monographs. As far as language learning is concerned, for example, Robbins Burling’s short guide to Learning a Field Language (1984) is still the only booklength work on the topic that has been published to date in English. It remains a valuable resource for fieldworkers, but the focus is mainly on the needs of those wanting to learn an ‘unwritten’ language or one for which standard learning aids are either non-existent or very limited (1984: 1). Although the book includes a brief appendix with some useful general advice on learning ‘literary and national languages’ (1984: 107–112), this would probably not be considered detailed enough by most ethnographers attempting to learn such languages today.

4  Learning and Using ­Languages in Ethnographic Research

A few years before the publication of Burling’s guide, Michael Agar (2008 [1980]: 150) had argued that the anthropological literature was ‘eerily quiet’ on the subject of the researcher’s language competence or fluency, as well as on related issues such as translation and the use of interpreters. Elizabeth Tonkin argued shortly afterwards that ‘anthropologists have often taken refuge in silence, instead of thinking critically about how to improve language learning in the discipline’ (1984: 178). Over the past 20 years, similar calls to break the ‘silence’ over language-related issues in qualitative research have been made at fairly regular intervals by scholars working not only in social anthropology (e.g. Borchgrevink, 2003; Tanu & Dales, 2016; Gibb & Danero Iglesias, 2017), but also in linguistic anthropology (e.g. Moore, 2009), sociology (e.g. Temple, 1997; Bradby, 2002), geography (e.g. Smith, 1996; Gade, 2001; Watson, 2004; Krzywoszynska, 2015) and cultural studies (e.g. Tremlett, 2009; Drozdzewski, 2018). This has led to the publication of a small but growing number of accounts by fieldworkers of their attempts to learn and/or use a second or additional language for the purposes of research (e.g. Tremlett, 2009; Rodgers, 2012; Herzfeld, 2012; Drozdzewski, 2018). Other recent work has explored what ethnographers can gain if they do the following: learn a ‘field’ language (Watson, 2004); reflect on the language learning process and on questions of fluency and communicative competence (Tremlett, 2009; Moore, 2009; Tanu & Dales, 2016); devote more attention to issues of translation (Temple, 1997; Gawlewicz, 2016; Krzywoszynska, 2015); and discuss more openly the role of interpreters in their fieldwork (Bradby, 2002; Borchgrevink, 2003). The present collection builds on these contributions, and seeks to further demystify a wide range of aspects of language learning and use in ethnographic research. It complements other work that shares a general concern with language learning and ethnography, such as the important volume Language Learners as Ethnographers (Roberts et al., 2001). The latter study explores how Modern/Foreign Languages (MFL) students can use ethnographic methods to develop their learning during a period of residence abroad. As its title indicates, the emphasis is on language learners as (potential) ethnographers. In contrast, the focus of Learning and Using Languages in Ethnographic Research is on ethnographers as language learners, that is, it examines how researchers learn and use other languages for fieldwork purposes. The two books thus have different aims and audiences, but their approaches can be considered as complementary, underpinned by a common interest in developing understanding of connections between language learning and ethnography. Ethnography, Language Learning and Anxiety

Thus far we have referred repeatedly to ‘ethnographic’ research, but what do we mean by this, and by the term ‘ethnography’ from which it is

Introduction 5

derived? Over 20 years ago, Agar began the second edition of his classic text The Professional Stranger: An Informal Introduction to Ethnography by noting ‘how broad the interest in ethnography has become outside its historic home in anthropology’ (2008: 1). This has only increased in the intervening period, to the extent that Thomas F. Carter has recently written of ‘a veritable explosion’ and ‘proliferation’ (2017: 1) of the use of the term across many different disciplines and fields (see also Hammersley, 2017). Carter suggests that ethnography ‘mutates as it crosses disciplinary boundaries’ and that its meanings are shaped by the ‘different ontological perspectives’ of the disciplines concerned (2017: 5 and 3). It is certainly true that definitions of ethnography vary between disciplines, and, to an extent, also within them. For example, the sociologists Paul Willis and Mats Trondman explain that, for them, ethnography is: a family of methods involving direct and sustained contact with agents, and of richly writing up the encounter, respecting, recording, representing at least partly in its own terms, the irreducibility of human experience. Ethnography is the disciplined and deliberate witness-cum-recording of human events. (2000: 1, italics in original)

Other scholars (from different disciplines) have proposed that we consider ethnography instead as ‘a methodological orientation’, one characterised by the importance attached to ‘studying at first hand what people do and say in particular contexts’ (Hammersley, 2006: 4, italics in original. See also Carter, 2017: 5–6). As Hammersley (2006: 4) has explained: This usually involves fairly lengthy contact, through participant observation in relevant settings, and/or through relatively open-ended interviews designed to understand people’s perspectives, perhaps complemented by the study of various sorts of document – official, publicly available, or personal.

In contrast, the social anthropologist Tim Ingold has insisted on a much narrower definition of ethnography as ‘a craft of writing about the people’ with whom the researcher is working (2014: 384, 390). Criticising what he regards as the term’s overuse in his own discipline and its ‘abuse’ in other social sciences, he contends that it is ‘positively misleading’ to describe specific methods as ‘ethnographic’ (2014: 385). For his part, the sociolinguist Jan Blommaert has recently argued against the ‘reduction’ of ethnography to fieldwork, a method of data collection or description (2018: 1–2). Instead, he advances a view of ethnography as ‘a general programmatic perspective on social reality and how real subjects, in real conditions of everyday life, possessed by real interests, make sense of it’ (2018: ix, italics in original). According to Blommaert, there are strong reasons for considering ethnography as both a theoretical and a critical approach to understanding society (2018: 3, 8).

6  Learning and Using ­Languages in Ethnographic Research

Underlying these debates are wider concerns about the purpose of particular disciplines (Ingold, 2014) and about the future of ethnographic work itself within different fields (Hammersley, 2017). In the present volume, how each of the contributors defines ‘ethnography’ and ‘ethnographic research’ has inevitably been informed, to some extent at least, by the traditions of the discipline(s) in which they have been trained: social and cultural anthropology, sociology, political science, cultural studies, area studies or education. Despite their diverse disciplinary backgrounds, all the contributors nevertheless share a general methodological orientation of the kind described by Hammersley above. In other words, each has sought to understand the everyday lives of other people through direct observation of and often also participation in the latter’s activities over a significant period of time. Their contributions here show how documenting and analysing processes of language learning and use before, during and after fieldwork enhances our knowledge and understanding of the nature of ethnographic research. As previous commentators have suggested, reflecting on language-related issues can, for example, help ethnographers examine the basis of their own claims to knowledge (see Tremlett, 2009) as well as the implications of their ‘identities’ or ‘positionality’ in the field (Tanu & Dales, 2016) for the processes of data collection and analysis. The chapters that follow support and develop these arguments through detailed, personal accounts of learning and using languages for research purposes in a wide range of fieldwork sites. One of the central messages of this book is therefore that much can be learned from paying close attention to the multilingual aspects of ethnographic research. We discuss this further in the concluding chapter, but three points are worth introducing briefly here, since they emerge particularly clearly. The first is that learning and using languages is a crucial part of the ‘broader process of learning and building relations with people’ (Watson, 2004: 65) that is fundamental to field research. For example, the most important early relationships an ethnographer establishes may be with language teachers, interpreters or research assistants; as several chapters show in detail, these can have a significant bearing on the future development of a research project. Secondly, and more generally, the chapters emphasise that while all encounters in the field are shaped by wider structures of power, hierarchy and inequality, the task of researchers working in multilingual, and often also highly politicised, contexts can be especially challenging. The reason, as Bonny Norton reminds us, is that ‘[l]anguage is not only a linguistic system of words and sentences, but also a social practice in which identities and desires are negotiated in the context of complex and often unequal social relationships’ (2016: 2). Just one of the consequences of this for ethnographers, as highlighted by many of the contributors, is that they can face difficult decisions about which language (or languages) to learn and/ or use in order to carry out field research in multilingual settings.

Introduction 7

Finally, it is striking how frequently and prominently the accounts of learning and using other languages published in this book refer to anxiety, loneliness, vulnerability, shame or being ‘at risk’ in one way or another. All ethnographers, not just those learning and using other languages, are likely to experience at least some of these feelings from time to time during their fieldwork. Indeed, Ingold has argued that participant observation is ‘a practice of exposure’, a method that requires the researcher to attend to what others are doing or saying and to what is going on around and about; to follow along where others go and to do their bidding, whatever this might entail and wherever it might take you. This can be unnerving, and entail considerable existential risk. (Ingold, 2014: 389, italics in original)

What the chapters here make evident is that learning and using l­ anguages for research is also ‘a practice of exposure’, one that often compounds or amplifies the uncertainties or anxieties associated with fieldwork in general. This should not come as a surprise, for, as Michael Kelly has noted in a discussion of language learning in the UK: the experience of language and the way we use it is a risky business. It is tangled up with all the joys and struggles of our life (…); with our sharpest emotions and our deepest beliefs. Every time we speak or listen, read or write, we open ourselves to new experiences that can change our lives, both for good and for ill. (Kelly, 2018: 16–17)

As learners and users of other languages, most of the contributors to this book worried in some way about their language skills before, during and even after their fieldwork. They recount openly and honestly how they experienced feelings ranging from a lack of confidence in their ability to ‘perform’ at an appropriate level, through a sense of inadequacy, discouragement or despair, to embarrassment, shame and vulnerability. While language learning (and participant observation) inevitably involves some degree of risk, one of the most damaging effects of the current silence or ‘mystique’ about language-related issues in ethnographic research is the way it deprives individuals of potential resources for developing their own strategies to cope with and hopefully reduce the anxiety and uncertainty they may be experiencing. Against this background, the detailed and varied accounts of language learning and use brought together in this book are intended to provide reassurance, advice and encouragement to contemporary ethnographers engaged in ‘researching multilingually’. Challenging the ‘Native Speaker’ Model

The contributions to this book have been written by researchers who found useful, struggled with and/or challenged various language

8  Learning and Using ­Languages in Ethnographic Research

resources and pedagogical perspectives when attempting to learn a second (or third, or fourth) language for fieldwork purposes. Our discussions at the two-day workshop in Glasgow in April 2016 where the first versions of the chapters were presented often involved comparing experiences of different approaches to learning languages and what we actually found to be effective in practice. In particular, we noted the differences that frequently exist between learning a language in a classroom context and in the dynamic ‘sociolinguistic landscapes’ (Blommaert, 2013: 1–22) of our everyday experiences and those of our research participants. How language learning ‘in the classroom’ and ‘in the wild’ (Pavlenko, 2015) relate to each other is a prominent theme in many of the chapters that follow. Debates about the notion of the ‘native speaker’ and ‘authenticity’ are particularly relevant to this book’s concern with the process of learning a language for ethnographic research. In the 1990s, scholars challenged the field of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) to reconsider the basis of its knowledge of language acquisition. Firth and Wagner, notably, warned that SLA was ‘in danger of losing contact with research on language and social interaction’, due to its tendency to focus solely on lab-type data; its reliance on a deficit-oriented model of interaction (i.e. ‘learners’ are always lacking); and the assumptions it made about ‘pure’ or ‘real’ communication (1998: 82, see also Rampton, 1990). Scholars critical of conventional SLA argued, crucially, that it rested on a distinction between, on the one hand, an ‘idealized “native” speaker’ who was fluent in a stable target language, and, on the other, a ‘stereotypicalized “non-native”’, an incomplete speaker who needed to emulate the ‘native’ speaker (Firth & Wagner, 1998: 285). The ‘native’ speaker was seen to be located at the top of a linguistic hierarchy, based on ideas of ‘authenticity’ and ‘legitimacy’ (see Kramsch, 2012: 115). Over the past two decades, the concept of ‘native speaker’ has been more widely questioned (see, for example, Davies, 2003 and Schmitz, 2013). For example, the concept of plurilingualism has increasingly informed the Council of Europe’s approach to language learning: From this perspective, the aim of language education is profoundly modified. It is no longer seen as simply to achieve ‘mastery’ of one or two, or even three languages, each taken in isolation, with the ‘ideal native speaker’ as the ultimate model. Instead, the aim is to develop a linguistic repertory, in which all linguistic abilities have a place. (2001: 5. See also Council of Europe, 2018: 35, 50 and 157)

In a similar way, this period has witnessed the development of approaches within critical applied linguistics and sociolinguistics that have ‘foregrounded multilingualism, rather than monolingualism, as the new norm’ (May, 2014: 1). Notions such as ‘translanguaging’ and ‘superdiversity’, which have underpinned recent empirical research by linguistic

Introduction 9

ethnographers (e.g. Blackledge & Creese, 2018), also mark a shift away from ‘the native speaker model’. It is clear from chapters in the present book, however, that the spectre of the ‘native speaker’ still looms large even for many of us, as we continue to aspire to such an image (or illusion) of communicative competence in our desire to be successful language learners and researchers. In the ­concluding chapter, we suggest that recent work in sociolinguistics and, especially, linguistic ethnography can help ethnographers trained in other disciplines develop a more consistently critical perspective on the ideological assumptions underpinning many of the concepts we commonly use when discussing language learning and language-related issues more broadly (see also Gibb & Danero Iglesias, 2018). Presentation of the Chapters

The first part of this book is composed of seven chapters that provide detailed, personal accounts of how their authors learned, ‘un-learned’ or relearned specific languages in order to conduct ethnographic research. The authors range from PhD students undertaking their first piece of fieldwork to researchers at a later career stage who are in a position to reflect on several different research experiences. The main focus of these chapters is on documenting and analysing how the authors approached learning one or more new languages before, during and even after fieldwork, although inevitably this leads as well to some discussion of how the researchers subsequently used the language(s) in question. In Chapter 2, Lydia Medland examines the language learning choices she made in relation to her doctoral research about seasonal workers in Southern Moroccan greenhouse production. She argues that an intensive period of study in a language school in Morocco helped to prepare her culturally as well as linguistically for her subsequent field research; her language learning effectively became a form of ‘research rehearsal’. The authors of Chapter 3, Susan Frohlick and Carolina Meneses, worked together, as language-learning Anglo-Canadian anthropologist and bilingual Costa Rican field assistant respectively, on a research project in Costa Rica about youth, sexual health and global tourism. In their chapter, Frohlick discusses how her attempts to learn Spanish were shaped by socio-economic processes within neoliberal academia, and then both authors consider how confronting issues of language and competency in the field led to the emergence of a form of research collaboration and a commitment to challenging the ‘voicelessness’ of bilingual field assistants in written accounts of ethnographic research. In the next chapter, Laela Adamson describes her approach to learning and using Swahili for her PhD research on the experiences of Tanzanian secondary school students for whom the English language was the medium of instruction and assessment. She considers the connections between

10  Learning and Using ­Languages in Ethnographic Research

language, power, emotions and the self, focusing on how feelings of powerlessness, vulnerability and anxiety can be experienced by learners and users of different languages, in this case not only the researcher herself but also the research participants. In Chapter 5, Robert Gibb compares how he approached language learning for his doctoral fieldwork in France and for a subsequent project involving research in Bulgaria. On the basis of this, he argues that ‘demystifying’ multilingual ethnographic research requires not only wider debate about language learning processes and practices but also an open discussion with funding bodies about expectations regarding ‘linguistic expertise’. In Chapter 6, Dominic Esler reflects on the strategies he adopted to learn Tamil for his doctoral research in Sri Lanka, focusing in particular on the practical challenges posed by the complex sociolinguistic relationship between the language’s literary and colloquial registers (diglossia) and how Tamil speakers responded to him as a language learner. More generally, he emphasises the importance of viewing language learning as an integral part of ‘the wider, embodied process of learning’ that characterises long-term ethnographic research. These five chapters all document and analyse how individual ethnographers have attempted to learn a new language for the purposes of fieldwork. The final two chapters in the first part of the book broaden the focus by showing how researchers who already speak a ‘field’ language may need to ‘unlearn’ or ‘relearn’ it in order to carry out their research successfully. The author of Chapter 7, Teresa Piacentini, describes herself as ‘a practitioner-turned-researcher’: after working as a professional interpreter, she undertook research on Francophone African refugee and migrations associations in Glasgow for a PhD. As she explains, this required her both to ‘unlearn’ some of the French she had been taught and to learn new ways of using the language: ‘speaking asylum’ and ‘doing small talk’. In Chapter 8, Lara Momesso discusses the various challenges she faced when she began to conduct research in Taiwan, after studying Mandarin Chinese at university in Italy and then working in Mainland China. She had to ‘relearn’ certain aspects of the language (in particular, a different written form), and this prompted her to reflect on the complex relations between power, knowledge production and language, and on the extent to which these are addressed in teaching environments. In the second part of the book, the focus moves from learning to using languages in ethnographic research. What epistemological, methodological, conceptual, theoretical and practical issues arise when researchers conduct fieldwork in another language? This is the key question that is explored in the next eight chapters. Once again, the authors include both PhD students and researchers with several different experiences of fieldwork. In Chapter 9, Annabel Tremlett describes some of the embarrassing moments and communication problems that occurred when she was using Hungarian to study the everyday lives of Roma and non-Roma children

Introduction 11

in a town in central Hungary. She argues that reflecting on these ‘breakdowns’ led to a series of important ‘breakthroughs’ in her understanding, notably with respect to the nature of her relationships with participants as a foreign language learner and to the basis of knowledge claims in fieldwork. The author of the next chapter, Daniella Jofré, learned and used the Aymara language to conduct multi-sited ethnographic research in the Chilean Highlands. As she explains, this experience of fieldwork in ‘contested language terrains’ led to a questioning of the cultural assumptions she held as a researcher and to a ‘rethinking’ of English language concepts. In Chapter 11, Julien Danero Iglesias begins by reflecting on why he became obsessed with learning to speak Romanian ‘like a native’. He then compares how he used Romanian to carry out research in Moldova, Ukraine and Serbia, showing how his competence in the language influenced not only how he negotiated access and presented himself in interviews but also how he perceived the realities he was observing in the three countries. The importance of context also emerges clearly in the next chapter, where Iolanda Vasile examines the methodological and epistemological issues that arose when she conducted fieldwork in Angola, after learning European Portuguese at university in Romania and then in Portugal. In so doing, she problematises the concept of ‘a language’ and raises key questions about power relations between researchers and participants during fieldwork. In Chapter 13, Matthew Blackburn draws on examples from his doctoral research on national identity and everyday nationalism in Russia to explore the ‘performative’ aspects of conducting fieldwork in a foreign language the researcher speaks fluently. He focuses in particular on the process of negotiating a ‘field identity’ and the impact being ‘proficient’ in Russian had on the development of his research. The author of the next chapter, Charo Reyes, presents a detailed account of how she used different languages in the course of her ethnographic research in two multilingual schools in bilingual Catalonia. She reflects on the linguistic choices she made and on some of the associated ethical, political and methodological issues that arose during her fieldwork. The first two parts of the book are thus composed of detailed, personal accounts of how ethnographers at different stages of their academic career have learned and used different languages for research purposes. The two chapters that form the final part of the book share a primary focus not so much on the individual language user but on how institutional barriers, perspectives and realities can hinder or promote the development of multilingual ethnographic research. In Chapter 15, Wine Tesseur explores an under-researched aspect of language and communication, namely the role of listening, using examples from a study of international UK-based development non-governmental organisations (NGOs). She raises the question of how we as researchers listen, in different languages, and considers some of the conceptual and methodological implications of this for

12  Learning and Using ­Languages in Ethnographic Research

research in multilingual settings. In the book’s final core chapter, Sarah Burton analyses material from interviews she carried out with sociologists working in UK universities to investigate the role of cultural capital and other factors in the ‘making’ of a multilingual researcher. She grounds her interviewees’ narratives about learning and using different languages in the contemporary academic context of neoliberal competition, arguing that ‘breaking the silence’ about language-related issues in ethnographic research must also involve addressing wider questions about power relations, hierarchy and inequality within universities. Conclusion

One of the most unfortunate effects of the current ‘silence’ about l­anguage-related matters in ethnographic research is to leave intending multilingual fieldworkers with little guidance specifically tailored to their needs. This only serves, among other things, to increase the levels of uncertainty and anxiety many will already be feeling, as they start to prepare for fieldwork. As the chapters in this book show, learning and using other languages in ethnographic research is often challenging but it can also be very rewarding. By giving detailed, personal accounts of their own attempts – both successful and unsuccessful! – to ‘research multilingually’, the contributors to this book have two main goals: (1) to help other researchers make more ‘informed choices’ (Holmes et al., 2013: 297) about their own language learning and multilingual research strategies, by providing relevant examples and advice, as well as reassurance and encouragement; and (2) to stimulate a wider debate among ethnographers about how to address the epistemological, methodological, conceptual, theoretical and practical issues that often arise when we use other languages in our research. In these ways, the book sets out to further ‘demystify’ key aspects of fieldwork and to promote an honest discussion about learning and using languages in ethnographic research, in place of the rather embarrassed or awkward silence about such matters that persists today. Note (1) The chapters in this book draw on ethnographic research carried out in the following countries: Morocco, Costa Rica, Canada, Tanzania, France, Bulgaria, Sri L ­ anka, Scotland, China, Taiwan, People’s Republic of China, Hungary, Chile, Romania, ­ ­Moldova, Serbia, Ukraine, Portugal, Angola, Russia, Spain, England. The languages ­referred to include: French, Moroccan Arabic, Spanish, Tigrinya, Swahili, B ­ ulgarian, Tamil, English, Mandarin Chinese, Hungarian, Spanish, Aymara, Romanian, ­Portuguese, Kimbundu, Russian, Catalan, German.

References Agar, M. (2008) The Professional Stranger: An Informal Introduction to Ethnography (2nd edn). Bingley: Emerald (1st edn published in 1980).

Introduction 13

Berg, M. and Seeber, B.K. (2017) The Slow Professor: Challenging the Culture of Speed in the Academy. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Blackledge, A. and Creese, A. (with others) (2018) Language and superdiversity: An interdisciplinary perspective. In A. Creese and A. Blackledge (eds) The Routledge Handbook of Language and Superdiversity (pp. xxi–xlv). Abingdon: Routledge. Blommaert, J. (2013) Ethnography, Superdiversity and Linguistic Landscapes. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Blommaert, J. (2018) Dialogues with Ethnography. Notes on Classics, and How I Read Them. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Borchgrevink, A. (2003) Silencing language: Of anthropologists and interpreters. Ethnography 4 (1), 95–121. Bradby, H. (2002) Translating culture and language: A research note on multilingual settings. Sociology of Health & Illness 24 (6), 842–855. Burling, R. (1984) Learning a field language. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Carter, T. F. (2017) Disciplinary (Per)Mutations of Ethnography. Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies, 1–8 (OnlineFirst article: DOI: 10.1177/1532708617746423). Copland, F. and Creese, A. (with F. Rock and S. Shaw) (2015) Linguistic Ethnography. London: Sage. Council of Europe (2001) Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, teaching, assessment (CEFR). (Accessed 15 February 2019.) https://rm.coe. int/1680459f97. Council of Europe (2018) Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, teaching, assessment (CEFR): Companion Volume with New Descriptors. (Accessed 15 February 2019.) https://rm.coe.int/cefr-companion-volume-with-newdescriptors-2018/1680787989. Davies, A. (2003) The Native Speaker: Myth and Reality. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Drozdzewski, D. (2018) ‘Less-than-fluent’ and culturally connected: Language learning and cultural fluency as research methodology. Area 50 (1), 109–116. Economic and Social Research Council (2018) Postgraduate Funding Guide. (Accessed 15 February 2019.) www.esrc.ac.uk/files/skills-and-careers/studentships/postgraduatefunding-guide-for-accredited-doctoral-training-centres/. Firth, A. and Wagner, J. (1998) SLA property: No trespassing! The Modern Language Journal 82 (1), 91–94. Gade, D. W. (2001) The languages of foreign fieldwork. The Geographical Review 91 (1–2), 370–379. Gawlewicz, A. (2016) Language and translation strategies in researching migrant experience of difference from the position of migrant researcher. Qualitative Research 16 (1), 27–42. Gibb, R. and Danero Iglesias, J. (2017) Breaking the silence (again): On language learning and levels of fluency in ethnographic research. The Sociological Review 65 (1), 134–149. Gibb, R. and Danero Iglesias, J. (2018) Blurred vision? ‘Superdiversity’ as a lens in research on communication in border contexts. In A. Creese and A. Blackledge (eds) The Routledge Handbook of Language and Superdiversity (pp. 89-102). Abingdon: Routledge. Hammersley, M. (2006) Ethnography: Problems and prospects. Ethnography and Education 1 (1), 3–14. Hammersley, M. (2017) What is ethnography? Can it survive? Should it? Ethnography and Education 13 (1), 1–17. Herzfeld, M. (2012) Passionate serendipity: From the Acropolis to the Golden Mount. In A. Gottlieb (ed.) The Restless Anthropologist: New Fieldsites, New Visions (pp. 100–22). Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press. Holmes, P., Fay, R., Andrews, J. and Attia, M. (2013) Researching multilingually: New theoretical and methodological directions. International Journal of Applied Linguistics 23 (3), 285–299.

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Ingold, T. (2014) That’s enough about ethnography! HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 4 (1), 383–395. Kelly, M. (2018) What are so many people resistant to other languages? In M. Kelly (ed.) Languages after Brexit: How the UK Speaks to the World (pp. 13–24). Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. Kramsch, C. (2012) Authenticity and legitimacy in multilingual SLA. Critical Multilingualism Studies 1 (1), 107–128. Krzywoszynska, A. (2015) On being a foreign body in the field, or how reflexivity around translation can take us beyond language. Area 47 (3), 311–318. May, S. (2014) The Multilingual Turn: Implications for SLA, TESOL and Bilingual Education. London: Routledge. Moore, L.C. (2009) On communicative competence … in the field. Language & Communication 29 (3), 244–253. Norton, B. (2016) Identity and language learning: Back to the future. TESOL Quarterly 50 (2), 275–279. Pavlenko A. (2015) Learning languages in the classroom and ‘in the wild’: Second language learning and embodied cognition. Psychology Today, 28 January 2015. (Accessed 24 March 2018.) www.psychologytoday.com/blog/life-bilingual/201501/learninglanguages-in-the-classroom-and-in-the-wild. Rampton, M.B.H. (1990) Displacing the ‘native speaker’: Expertise, affiliation, and inheritance. ELT Journal 44 (2), 97–101. Rampton, B. (2007) Neo-Hymesian linguistic ethnography in the United Kingdom. Journal of Sociolinguistics 11 (5), 584–607. Roberts, C., Byram, M., Barro, A., Jordan, S. and Street, B. (2001) Language Learners as Ethnographers. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Rodgers, S. (2012) How I learned Batak: Studying the Angkola Batak language in 1970s New Order Indonesia. Indonesia 93 (April), 1–32. Schmitz, J. (2013) The native speaker and nonnative speaker debate: What are the issues and what are the outcomes? Calidoscopio 11 (2), 135–152. Smith, F. M. (1996) Problematising language: Limitations and possibilities in ‘foreign language’ research. Area 28 (2), 160–166. Snell, J., Shaw, S. and Copland, F. (eds) (2015) Linguistic Ethnography: Interdisciplinary Explorations. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Tanu, D. and Dales, L. (2016) Language in fieldwork: Making visible the ethnographic impact of the researcher’s linguistic fluency. TAJA: The Australian Journal of Anthropology 27 (3), 353–369. Temple, B. (1997) Watch your tongue: Issues in translation and cross-cultural research. Sociology 31 (3), 607–618. Tonkin, E. (1984) Language learning. In R.F. Ellen (ed.) Ethnographic Research: A Guide to General Conduct (pp. 178–87). London: Academic Press. Tremlett, A. (2009) Claims of ‘knowing’ in ethnography: Realising anti-essentialism through a critical reflection on language acquisition in fieldwork. Graduate Journal of Social Science 6 (3), 63–85. (Accessed 28 December 2017.) www.gjss.org/content/ claims-‘knowing’-ethnography-realising-anti-essentialism-through-critical-reflection. Watson, E.E. (2004) ‘What a dolt one is’: Language learning and fieldwork in geography. Area 36 (1), 59–68. Willis, P. and Trondman, M. (2000) Manifesto for Ethnography. Ethnography 1 (1), 5–16.

2 Language Learning as Research Rehearsal: Preparation for Multilinguistic Field Research in Morocco Lydia Medland

In this chapter I discuss several ways in which language learning was a valuable process in itself for my research in Morocco. Pre-research language learning cannot be expected to completely mitigate the risks and limitations of being an outsider in a foreign research context. However, I found that cultural learning was an inherent and invaluable element of my language preparation in both French and Moroccan Arabic. Unpicking the illusionary goal of becoming fluent in the language(s) and culture(s) of research contexts, I illustrate how some of the costs of learning a language may not be as insurmountable as many assume. I show how my stay at a language school provided a forgiving and powerful environment for research preparation, acting as a variety of rehearsal space. Finally, exploring the value of untranslatable and in-between linguistic terms, I consider how they helped build an understanding of the social phenomena of my research. Introduction Between coffee shop and coffee shop, there is a coffee shop. (Moroccan saying included in a language learning text, March 2015.) I passed several cafés before choosing one. I have not seen one single woman in a single café in the whole city, except a little girl greeting her Dad. (Excerpt from journal during excursion alone to small city while on pre-research language learning trip, May 2015.)

There were many things that I learnt during the course of my language learning (Moroccan Arabic, MA), that were not about the language, or 17

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rather went beyond language learning.1 The ‘coffee shop’ text I was given in class one day was a good example. This seemingly innocuous topic of discussion, the coffee shop, turned out to reveal to me deep gendered and spatial social norms. In this case, and many others, the language school became a space of exploration not just of language but also of culture and meaning. ‘Between coffee shop and coffee shop there is a coffee shop.’ Why? The text, prepared by the language school, went on to discuss possible explanations for the vast number of coffee shops typically filled with men that the text described: perhaps men spent time in the coffee shops because it was too noisy at home; perhaps this was their space to relax, while the home was the space of women. Yet was this really the case in modern Morocco where men and women were often seen together in coffee shops around the capital? One language teacher tasked me to make a short survey and sent me off around the school to ask all the Moroccan women I could find, including administrators, kitchen staff and other teachers, whether indeed they went to coffee shops. Having spent only a few months in Morocco and most of this in large cities I was quite surprised at some of the responses. One new teacher from a rural town told me categorically, ‘absolutely not, never’. Another said, perhaps with her husband’s permission, while another said, ‘of course, we have every right to be in any public space’. Yet the general consensus seemed to be ‘sometimes, but mainly in big cities’. The seemingly uncontroversial text on the coffee shop, therefore, not only gave me a grounding in basic vocabulary for sharing beverages but also prepared me with both nuances of meaning and social narratives for finding myself later (a lone female researcher) inside and outside these ubiquitous semi-public spaces. It gave me the relative concerns to weigh up: thirst/need to stop versus trespassing social norms and perhaps being perceived as overly-confident with men. With this in mind, when travelling a little during my language learning stay, I treated coffee shops as normal stopping places despite the scarcity of women in them. Later, however, I decided not to go in to them at all during my more intensive period of ethnographic research in 2016 in which I was based in a small town. The research preparation discussed in this chapter was for my PhD fieldwork in 2016 in the region of Chtouka-Aït Baha, Southern Morocco. Following previous work in Southern Spain (Medland, 2016), my PhD project focused on the case of seasonal workers in the intensive region of production for tomatoes (and related crops) for export to the European market during the winter months. The high season for export is October– May, although many people remain in the region of Chtouka-Aït Baha year-round. My interest was in how dynamics related to the global food system, for example supermarket ‘orders’ and time schedules, manifested for workers on a daily basis in such a context of intensive agricultural production.

Language Learning as Research Rehearsal  19

The workers in this context are internal migrant workers, mostly rural migrants from relatively poorer regions of the country. My research included both women and men; however, the work is mainly carried out by women who make up around 70% of the workforce (Fairfood, 2016). In relation to the choices that I made for my research, in the first section of this chapter I will discuss various early considerations in developing a language learning strategy. This included considering whether I should learn a language and how it could contribute to the nature of my research. If so, I had to decide which language to learn and finally, how I would go about this. My ultimate decision was to learn both Moroccan Arabic (MA) and French for my PhD fieldwork. In the second half of this chapter I will focus on some of the experiences of my intensive period in a language school in Morocco (January– May 2015). Here, I will look at how the school provided me with a space for cultural exploration, similar to rehearsal. Furthermore, the deeply gendered and cultural experience was a preparation for many of the conversations that I would later have as part of fieldwork. Finally, one of the most interesting elements of being hyper-aware of language for the research process was the discovery of non-translatable concepts and the possibilities for how these might help me understand some deep socio-economic processes at the heart of my research.

First Considerations: Why Learn? Which Language? How to Go About It?

My preparation for fieldwork in Morocco involved a multi-lingual strategy to learn both French and MA. This involved ongoing learning of French several hours a week for three years (2013–2016) and an intensive pre-fieldwork language-learning stay in Morocco to learn MA (January– May 2015). This language learning contributed directly to my main stay in Morocco for fieldwork (August–December 2016). The question of language arose in my research design because I needed to come to a level of understanding to be able to communicate with communities that I would not have been able to contact using the languages that I spoke prior to starting my PhD (English and Spanish). I was following an interpretative approach to research which was influenced by ethnography, grounded theory and participatory action research. The foundation of the research was ethnographic observation; however, in the final stage of the research I also facilitated group work and in-depth interviews with workers in the region. I wanted my research to reach an understanding of seasonal work and mobility and how these processes were entangled with global food systems. I also wanted the research to be primarily grounded in the experiences of workers. For this reason, I considered early on how language learning might play an important role

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in increasing my understanding of this case and in particular of workers’ experiences. Why learn languages for research?

In qualitative research, and particularly ethnographic observation, we seek to understand the social reality of the participants of our research projects. Yet, how do we engage with participants: in their linguistic framings or in our own? By actively reflecting on our linguistic options for research we can go a long way towards recognising the cultural and politically loaded connotations of the languages we plan to use. By engaging with the language, or languages of participants, we discover not only new words and meanings, but also important cultural concepts. These can be pivotal for understanding research and may not translate back into our own languages at all. Many metaphors have been used to describe the role of language in qualitative research. Languages have been described as ‘filters’ through which meaning is obtained and interpreted, as ‘houses of being’, or as particular forms of art (Watson, 2004: 61). Furthermore linguists, philosophers, psychologists, anthropologists, and others have struggled for centuries over the question of linguistic relativism, or the question of whether the language that we speak affects our thinking (Sidnell & Enfield, 2012). Many scholars are still working on developments of theories of linguistic relativism and the nuances of the so-called Sapir–Whorf hypothesis, which holds that linguistic forms affect non-language related thought (for example, Sapir, 1929; Sidnell & Enfield, 2012). If we broadly recognise that the language spoken is more than a question of replaceable words, perhaps like our careful choice of methodology, we should recognise that our choice of language is likely to have profound implications on the knowledge and meanings that we are able to access and interpret. Questioning the linguistic means through which we engage with our research participants is not just a question of which language is most accessible to the researcher. Watson (2004: 63) argues that in choosing a contact language we should consider who will and will not be able to participate. Furthermore, while difficulties might be presented for the researcher, there are definite advantages for participants, and therefore for the research, where it is conducted in the mother tongue of participants: by holding a dialogue in the others’ language, and according to their customs, the understandings and knowledge that is produced is likely to be more in their control and (literally) more on their terms. (Watson, 2004: 63)

Avoiding seeing research through our own linguistic ‘filter’ and e­ ndeavouring to feel the importance of a term in its own context is particularly important in research about social relations. Different languages

Language Learning as Research Rehearsal  21

condition us in the negotiation of our different social roles and will therefore affect the positionality of the researcher. This is partly due to the character of the languages, the modes of interactions which they engender, and the contexts with which they are associated. Therefore, in considering which language or languages to learn, the consideration that I prioritised was the certainty that I could understand the seasonal workers who were at the centre of my research. Like Caretta (2015), I had to acknowledge that it was possible that I would still need to use translators and interpreters in my research due to neither French nor MA being universal first languages in the country, and to my unguaranteed ability to gain sufficient fluency in a short time. Nevertheless, the aim of ‘perfect translation’ was not necessarily the only goal. Any intersubjective encounter involves the intention to communicate meaning from one language or culture to the next. Becoming aware of language as a filter might be even more significant as we become conscious of the imperfections in our own linguistic filters. Smith (1996) argues that in inter-subjective research encounters, ‘in-between’, ‘hybrid’ spaces of meaning are created. She argues that while it is unreasonable to expect to be able to reveal the ‘truth’ about another culture or research setting, in the ‘hybrid spaces’ between ‘home’ and ‘foreign’ language, new spaces of insight and meaning can be created (Smith, 1996). Such spaces may play the significant role of de-naturalising and displacing the home language of the researcher and therefore their assumptions that their home language is clear in meaning (Smith, 1996). Finally, she suggests such a focus may draw us away from the routine of exploring ‘out there’ and bringing meaning ‘back home’, a research practice that was associated with colonialism and imperialism (Smith, 1996). When researchers are directly involved in the negotiation of language, they can be more alert to the ‘hybrid meanings’ and the potential holes in their own linguistic filters, and understandings of research contexts. What to learn?

In working out a plan for language learning for fieldwork, one important first step was to consider my own likely potential for acquiring any useful language skills for use in fieldwork in Morocco. I am sure that everyone has a relationship with language learning; I do too. I did not excel in languages at school, and even gained my lowest secondary school exam grade in the only language that I took (German). However, during my twenties I had slowly built up knowledge of Spanish, and reached a solid fluency in it several years before starting my PhD research. I therefore had the vital experience of knowing that learning another language was in fact a possibility. However, I also knew that gaining the kind of competency in Standard Modern Arabic (the official first language in Morocco) that would allow me to rely on it to both read and communicate with

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gatekeepers in Morocco was probably out of my reach. By considering the languages spoken and used in Morocco and after also considering my own limits and abilities I decided to adopt a mixed approach. Considering my research context, there were at least four potential languages that could in some way help me with the research, all widely spoken in Morocco. These were: Standard Modern Arabic (SA), Moroccan Arabic (MA), French and a variant of the Tamazight (Berber) languages. Taking into account, therefore, that fluency in all four of these languages would be far beyond reach, I considered the role of language in relation to the project and the research process. In Morocco, SA is the main official language. However, MA is the version of Arabic spoken in everyday contexts, including in homes and on the television and radio. It is very different to SA, with some arguing that it should be recognised as a language in its own right (see discussion in Elinson, 2013). The contexts in which SA is used in Morocco are most often formal ones and those in which highly educated people are involved. In such contexts, French is also widely used and while French is not an official language of Morocco, many documents and much practical information such as government websites and reports, road signs, and statistics are printed in both SA and French. The widespread expectation that foreigners speak French also meant that whether I chose to learn French or not, Moroccans would often speak to me in it. Considering that I already spoke Spanish, I realised that it was feasible for me to use this foundation in Spanish to build a working competency in French due to the proximity of the two languages. Furthermore, French was an accessible language to learn from the UK, where I was based. The function of the language would not necessarily be to do the research itself, but rather to gain access to the research context in a way that was expected of me as a foreigner. The limitations of the usefulness of French in Morocco were however significant enough to consider other language options for research. Its effect on my positionality in the research context seemed to be likely to increase the prospective differences in perceived social position forcing me to adopt formal ‘vous’ (the formal address for ‘you’ in French) forms of speaking and placing me in a role widely perceived in Morocco as being from a known ‘high-class’ foreign space due to the strong colonial and post-­colonial relationship with France. MA, or Darija as it is known in Morocco, is the version of Arabic most widely spoken in Morocco. It is MA and Tamazight (the native language of the Amazigh or Berber people of Morocco) that are spoken in more everyday, and particularly lower class and rural Moroccan, contexts. Both languages are informal in differing ways. MA is by definition informal as it not recognised in the constitution and is simply considered a dialect of SA. Tamazight, by contrast, was recognised as the second official language of Morocco as part of constitutional reforms of 2011 following mounting pressure for the recognition of Berber peoples as part

Language Learning as Research Rehearsal  23

of Moroccan protests during the Arab Spring (Morocco 2011). However, learning Tamazight would be both difficult due to a lack of resources, and would not fit the context of my research project. There are three varieties of Tamazight spoken in Morocco. The local version of this language in the region I was researching is called Tashlhit. However, my case study was of seasonal workers who are primarily internal migrants having come from other regions of Morocco. Therefore, although Tashlhit was the local native language it was not the primary language of greeting, exchange and conversation in the region I was studying. The varieties of Tamazight are sufficiently different that MA is used as a ‘vehicular language’ between Moroccans who speak different versions of Tamazight (Hachimi, 2012). This meant that MA was also the common language among the internal migrant workers of the region I was studying. In Morocco in general, although MA is not found in formal materials, it is easy to access on television, in the streets and on the radio. Tamazight speaking Moroccans who attend school (most seasonal workers have at least a primary education) also learn MA in the process of learning to read and write SA. Therefore, I hoped that MA would be the language that could give me access to Moroccan everyday life in the region where I would carry out my research. Morocco is not a unique case of a complex linguistic context. Perhaps it is more representative of the common situation in countries in the Global South. This situation is a linguistic mixture of European languages (due to a history of colonialism and the more recent processes of globalisation), as well as dominant regional languages, and more local and indigenous languages. Furthermore, languages are often overlapping and used in the same contexts. In practice it is very difficult to identify the language necessary for fieldwork. Overall, this linguistic mixture of French and MA allowed me to carry out fieldwork in 2016, although I was still learning MA when I started my ethnographic work. Despite the more in-depth language training that I did in MA, when I approached the research context, my first contact and negotiation with gatekeepers was indeed in French. Later, in the town in which I lived, the language use was mixed or primarily MA. For example, on one occasion I attended an NGO training of local childminders of the children of seasonal workers I was working with, and this was carried out simultaneously in MA and Tamazight, yet local trade union meetings were held in a mixture of SA and MA. Meanwhile, meetings with regional and national NGO representatives and academics would always involve a mixture of French and MA, as well as a small amount of English. To add to the complications of multiple and overlapping language use, there is also the sheer difficulty of learning non-dominant languages. A clear plan can be constructed if we decide to learn French, Spanish, or a similar dominant language. However, finding resources, language schools, teachers and people who understand what we are trying to do, becomes a

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whole new challenge when learning a non-dominant language. Such challenges can almost inspire researchers to either give up, stick to their native language, or choose a different research problem. However, while both these conclusions might be valid decisions in some situations, I think that there is also much to gain from entering into the maze of language learning as part of research. Limitations and possibilities: Balancing aspirations of fluency with progress in research

At the mention of language learning, costs become immediately apparent. These costs are principally time-costs, but also often involve financial costs and the self-questioning of whether it is even possible to learn the target language. Yet, like other scholars, I have found that there are also often opportunities, options and compromises which can be reached. In order to fund my MA learning I applied for support from the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC, 2018). This was useful to support a dedicated period of language learning which I felt was necessary to learn this complex language after only minimal prior exposure to SA. I did not know how far this intensive course would take me but I was sure that it would provide both a basic grammatical structure and the experience of immersion as I opted to stay with a host family during the time I was at the school. I supplemented this before, during and afterwards with free language exchanges with students and others I met who expressed an interest in learning English. The idea that we must reach an almost bilingual proficiency in order to gain anything useful from the effort of learning can stop our journey of language development before it has started. In fact, I have found that different levels of proficiency can be useful at different stages, in removing language barriers and allowing space to develop relationships. Reasonable pronunciation of basic greetings can be a good starting point for basic orientation. An introductory awareness of grammar and vocabulary allowed me to deduce the topics of most conversations going on around me. An intermediate level has allowed me to gain impromptu information in unexpected settings, for example about the local infrastructure whilst sitting in a taxi next to a water engineer, or an opportunity to arrange an interview. Although getting to competent language level might seem daunting, some concepts can vary in relative complexity from one language to another, and therefore some terms which a learner might not expect to understand may appear relatively early on. For example, in my language classes I soon learnt that a vegetable being ‘in season’ was referred to as it being ‘the time of’ the certain vegetable, I learnt the word ‘time’ early on, so this was relatively accessible vocabulary. Both Watson (2004) and Crane et al. (2009) point out that there can even be advantages in research to having imperfect language skills. Crane

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et al., argue that moments where they were not quick on picking up following questions, or where interviewees had to explain their situation in two different ways, were useful and insightful. Crane et al. (2009) also point out that assumptions about the researcher’s identity in non-native linguistic contexts often revealed power relations. Furthermore, such experiences emphasise that identity categories and insider-outsider categories are fluid, with other aspects of identity, such as gender, age or ‘foreignness’ becoming points of identification and trust-building with some interviewees, once initial language barriers have been negotiated. Finally, Watson (2004) argues that learning a language places the researcher in a ‘childlike position’, which she explained meant people felt that they could ‘explain’ things to her in ways that they might not with native speakers. The adoption of this childlike status is something that I very much relate to from my language learning and research experiences. In Morocco, the host family that I stayed with whilst at the language school were quick to point out and explain my cultural, as well as linguistic errors, attributing me perhaps teenager, rather than child status. Later, during the research stay in 2016, although my language (and cultural) sensitivities improved, I found that I could still draw on the childlike freedom of an outsider and imperfect linguist to ask, why? Although imperfection in language skills is not an asset in itself, there are benefits that it can provide which I believe should be enough to indicate that learning a language can be worth it even where it is unlikely that a point will be reached where every word is understood. Furthermore, the appearance of imperfections can break down barriers, invite explanations, stimulate interest, build rapport and perhaps above all demonstrate our commitment and desire to gain a deep understanding of the context in which we are carrying out research. Thus, even though the language process can be difficult, expensive, time-consuming and imperfect, it can also be valuable in and of itself. This can form part of a broader process in which researchers can influence the personal and political dynamics of research in positive ways (Watson, 2004: 67). Experiences in a New Language The language school as a rehearsal room

My experience of language learning in a language school in Morocco felt very much like a rehearsal for negotiating the research context itself. MacKenzie (2016) has emphasised that field assistants can play important roles as interpreters and cultural guides. Likewise, language teachers and the language school certainly played an important role in assisting me with my research itself. The language school for me became a direct and indirect rehearsal room for my research. In the field of tourism and

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language studies, Phipps (2006) has previously offered an in-depth analysis of the language learning process as a rehearsal. She describes the dialogues given to language students as being like scripts and says that they are ‘in many ways identical to the rehearsal processes for the staging of drama’ (2006: 105). In my language school in Morocco, I feel that I gained at least as much cultural knowledge as I did linguistic skills. In the case of MA, a lack of specialist teaching materials forced the school and teachers to construct courses based on primary materials in the language such as songs, or texts written by the school itself. Only one month’s worth of teaching materials existed in which the curriculum focused on grammar and formal exercises. Beyond this time, when the emphasis turned to stimulating conversation, each day I was presented with a new theme that the school judged relevant for foreigners in Morocco to understand. This meant that every day I had one-to-one or small group discussions with my teachers about ‘social phenomena’ as diverse as ‘Migration in Morocco’, ‘Marriage in Islam’, ‘Friendship’ and ‘Un-married Women’. My experience was that the context of the language school was additionally useful to prepare myself for research because I was able to interactively investigate cultural insights before starting the research. I therefore saw it as both a space of cultural interpretation and as a rehearsal room for research. The language learning environment provided a variety of a forgiving space where cultural and linguistic faux pas could be made in a context where there was likely to be minimum consequence. In Morocco for example, the language school was an environment in which most of the otherwise taboo topics of conversation often arose in classroom contexts, and could be discussed to a lesser or greater degree. Generally taboo topics such as the political situation in Western Sahara could be carefully broached in the school, and religion could be openly talked about. This allowed me as a researcher to sketch out the limits to acceptable and non-acceptable topics of conversation. It was extremely useful for me to discover the relative reactions to other social phenomena in this forgiving context in order to be prudent in research-related contexts outside of the school later on. For example, I found that divorce, although controversial, could be openly discussed. However, mentions of past relationships or anything that indicated sexual relationships outside of matrimony were severely frowned upon, and in particular, homosexuality appeared to be so extremely taboo that our teachers refused to provide a translation of the term. This relevant cultural knowledge, obtained without the need for a research assistant but gained as an extra benefit to linguistic skills, is something that researchers considering the relative costs and benefits of language learning for research should be aware of. When using qualitative and particularly ethnographic methods of research, trust is gained and rapport is built often through the careful explanation of the researcher’s personal, as well as academic situation.

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In Morocco, I found these personal questions constant, and of vital significance. Knowing how to answer such questions, feeling calm that I could admit that my parents were divorced, but that I should be careful about revealing that I am not married and do not live with my family, were key to negotiating culturally sensitive entrances to my research setting. As a sociocultural mediator, the language school or teacher is also a mediator from which researchers can eventually become independent. Language learning can prepare for attentiveness to social and linguistic meaning in communication which researchers may not otherwise achieve by being solely reliant on a research assistant or interpreter. Having learnt a language, researchers are able to negotiate their own access into various contexts and this may make access wider whilst still allowing for the option to work with a research assistant or interpreter where this would be additionally helpful. For example, in the case of Morocco, many of the environments in which I was able to speak with women were in their homes. Without having to rely on an interpreter when I was invited to someone’s home in the context of my research, I was able to accept independently. Safe spaces and gender

In my case, my language classes were also deeply gendered. Perhaps by the decision of the school, or perhaps by chance, my teachers were always female. For the vast majority of the time I was learning, due to the low demand for the course, the lessons were also one to one, with just the teacher and me in the classroom. The women-only environment in which I learnt MA, in the deeply gendered context of Morocco, meant that I was given many personal insights into how women were expected to act, and how I might be interpreted according to both the language and the behaviour I adopted. This gendered language-learning experience meant that I had insights into some of the dynamics of female-only spaces and how I might be allowed to share in some of the more open conversations that happened between women and some of the topics of concern to women and how they are managed. More than anything, this female-only space added to my sensation of the language school, and the spaces that I found in it with my teachers, as a safe-space within which to explore many of the themes which I was later confronted with in the research context. Domestic violence, contraception, the work-home balance of looking after children, and maternity leave, were all mentioned in this language learning context. Rather than reading from pre-written scripts as are prepared in modern-language textbooks, in these classes the teachers and I devised the lessons and the vocabulary needed, based on my ethnographically positioned needs as a relatively young, un-married researcher of seasonal work in Morocco.

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Learning what can’t be learnt: The untranslatable and in-between

One of the most interesting elements of learning a language is discovering what is not translated. The role of the untranslatable in the Moroccan context is pervasive. As a language of mixture, and of change, MA leaves many linguistic concepts in-tact, integrating particularly French, but also Spanish, English, and Amazigh terms with SA (Elinson, 2013). Moroccans are well known for being multilingual and therefore having a mixture of linguistic resources at hand is important both practically and in grasping connotations and meanings in Morocco. One interesting element of studying MA, and engaging in the linguistic practices used in Morocco, is noting what is not translated. My experience in Morocco suggested that the mixture of languages used in an interaction could reveal something of both the entrance of a social or cultural phenomena into Moroccan society, or a mode in which a certain activity is carried out. For example, when asking if I could speak with any workers on the tomato farms in a pre-research visit to the region, the workers of each greenhouse said that they could not speak because the ‘Patron’ (the ‘boss’) had gone home. In the area, the prevalent use of both the French words for ‘boss’ and for ‘greenhouse’, reveal the European socio-economic links that have accompanied the installation and growth of the agricultural sector for export in the region. Attention to languages and what is and is not translated or translatable can therefore signify insights into deeper socio-cultural connections and how they are sustained or may have come about. The question of translating the ‘untranslatable’ is also a topic of concern in social science debates on translating in qualitative research (Smith, 1996). Some feel that it is the untranslatable concepts that often provide clues regarding little understood social phenomena. There is also some debate regarding whether or not such terms should be translated at all (Hassink, 2007). When the researcher is involved in the translation process they have the advantage of being able to repeatedly use, try-out, and potentially verify the meaning of concepts in situ. While it was frustrating not to have an interpreter, a dictionary, or a text cleanly translated, using the language of the context did seem to bring me, as a researcher, close to the terminology, and therefore many of the meanings of the situated knowledge regarding seasonal work. Thus, in my experience in Morocco, like qualitative research itself, language learning required not a blinkered or formulaic approach but an openness to communication and meaning which was most insightfully discovered when working from inside the (linguistic) context that I hoped to understand to the fullest degree possible. Conclusion

This chapter was first drafted after I returned from the language school visit in 2015 and re-written after I returned from fieldwork in 2016.

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To date, I have managed to carry out all my fieldwork independently, using French and MA to communicate with my participants. Language learning is a continuous and enriching element of my research that remained part of my analysis, related reading and contact with participants and others in Morocco. However, in the case of both languages I reached a level of development (or maturity) that meant that I was able to use them to complete my PhD fieldwork. Reasons for language learning depend on the research project and personal goals and opportunities. Perhaps the most obvious benefit of learning a language is access to direct communication. This applies not just in the research setting, but also in related settings allowing for contextual understanding and the verification of meanings in contexts outside of formal research settings. However, as explored in this chapter, there are other benefits to language learning in preparation for field research. Associated costs may not be as insurmountable as some might assume. Building on the commentary of Watson (2004) I have emphasised how reaching bilingual proficiency is not the sole goal of language learning and imperfections in language skills can lead to insights and opportunities in the research process. Exploring my own experience, I have considered how the language school itself could be interpreted as a rehearsal room for research, allowing researchers to learn cultural skills and explore terminology and contextual norms in a forgiving space. Finally, in the context of Morocco I have suggested that developing the ability to recognise the ‘untranslatable’ may lead to valuable insights into non-language related processes such as those to do with socio-cultural and economic transformations. Note (1) This research and language training has been supported by the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).

References Caretta, M.A. (2015) Situated knowledge in cross-cultural, cross-language research: A collaborative reflexive analysis of researcher, assistant and participant subjectivities. Qualitative Research 15 (4), 489–505. Crane, L.G., Lombard, M.B. and Tenz, E.M. (2009) More than just translation: Challenges and opportunities in translingual research. Social Geography 4 (1), 39–46. Economic and Social Research Council (2018) Postgraduate Funding Guide. (Accessed 15 February 2019.) www.esrc.ac.uk/files/skills-and-careers/studentships/postgraduatefunding-guide-for-accredited-doctoral-training-centres/. Elinson, A.E. (2013) Darija and changing writing practices in Morocco. International Journal of Middle East Studies 45 (4), 715–730. Fairfood (2016) Creating positive change for workers in global food chains. Amsterdam, Fairfood International. Hachimi, A. (2012) The urban and the urbane: Identities, language ideologies, and arabic dialects in Morocco. Language in Society 41 (03) 321–341.

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Hassink, R. (2007) It’s the language, stupid! On emotions, strategies, and consequences related to the use of one language to describe and explain a diverse world - commentary. Environment and Planning A 39 (6), 1282–1287. MacKenzie, C.A. (2016) Filtered meaning: Appreciating linguistic skill, social position and subjectivity of interpreters in cross-language research. Qualitative Research 16 (2), 167–182. Medland, L. (2016) Working for social sustainability: Insights from a Spanish organic production enclave. Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems 40 (10), 1133–1156. Morocco (2011) Constitution. Official Bulletin, 1902-1928 Government of Morocco. Phipps, A. (2006) Learning the Arts of Linguistic Survival: Languaging, Tourism, Life. Clevedon: Channel View Publications. Sapir, E. (1929) The status of linguistics as a science. Language 5 (4), 207–214. Sidnell, J. and Enfield, N.J. (2012) Language diversity and social action a third locus of linguistic relativity. Current Anthropology 53 (3), 302–333. Smith, F.M. (1996) Problematising language: Limitations and possibilities in ‘foreign language’ research. Area 28 (2) 160–166. Watson, E.E. (2004) ‘What a dolt one is’: Language learning and fieldwork in geography. Area 36 (1), 59–68.

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

As an Anglo-Canadian anthropologist and a Costa Rican field assistant, we reflect on fieldwork carried out in Costa Rica in order to trace the emergence of research collaboration through our mutual involvement in the embodied politics and emotions of language. While in a multilingual tourist town in the Caribbean, language was far from a neutral field of communication and thus required constant reflection. Yet, despite the language challenges, we managed together to acquire competency within the field. While initially hiring a bilingual field-assistant was a remedy for the anthropologist’s limited Spanish, without recognising it at the time we ultimately became collaborators through our entangled co-presence in the field. By exploring collaborative writing we also address the linked issues of the fallacies both of ‘the native speaker’ and ‘voicelessness’ of field assistants, situating these matters within the contemporary context of neoliberal academia and shifting fieldsites.

Introduction

The long-held notion of the anthropologist as a fluent local language speaker has profoundly impacted me as it eluded me (Frohlick). For years, I internalised feelings of inadequacy resulting from not ‘mastering’ a field language, especially one so closely related to English, as well as frustrations over what I missed out on ethnographically, socially, and politically because my language skills have not kept pace with my anthropological interests. However, a personal reflection of my difficulties does little to advance understandings of the complexities of dealing with language in ethnographic fieldwork, which is why, together with my field assistant (Meneses) we use these challenges as an entryway into larger issues. Given that ethnographic fieldwork inherently involves collaboration, we aim to redress the ways in which collaborators tend to remain in the shadows 31

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of our representations (Gupta, 2014). Undoubtedly, linguistic competency remains indispensable in ethnography’s toolkit. Yet, the notion of ‘the native speaker’ is part of a broader problematic mystique of fieldwork and ethnographers’ authority (Borchgrevink, 2003). Considering how globalisation and transnational population flows have ushered in changes, creating increasingly multilingual fieldsites (Martin-Jones et al., 2012), in such a context, collaboration with others holding pertinent linguistic skills would seem beneficial rather than a crutch or affront to ethnographers’ authority. Primarily, this chapter is an exploration of collaborative writing, thinking, and analysing that has materialised out of fieldwork in Costa Rica in 2012 on youth, sexual health, and global tourism where I (Frohlick) was/am a Euro-Canadian English speaker and Spanish learner and my field assistant (Meneses) was/is a mestiza Costa Rican Spanish speaker and proficient in English. We demonstrate through reflections on our fieldwork the emergence of collaboration, both in terms of emotional support and empathy for one another, around the embodied politics and emotions of language, and epistemologically where collaboration is co-production of knowledge in ethnography. We begin by tracing my relationship with a field language and how my language needs changed over time. I write about, and ‘disclose’, my language learning angst and failures as an intervention against ‘the silencing of language in fieldwork’ (Borchgrevink, 2003). We follow Gupta (2014) and others (e.g. Martin-Jones et al., 2012) by bringing field assistants into view, including their voices against the hegemony of sole authorship (Gupta, 2014: 394). Sharing her fieldnotes and reflections with the reader, Carolina recalls memorable experiences in the fieldwork that have, upon co-reflection, helped us to see more clearly how language and the complex issue of competency in a multilingual fieldsite shaped the research process. We conclude that research collaboration is a process of ‘entanglement’ that occurs over time and, in our case, without recognising it as such at the time. Language Learning Angst in Fast Academia

Ethnography seeks to connect everyday social practices with wider social processes. Thus, my experiences are a starting place for an ethnography of language learning and fieldwork. A brief account contextualises the institutional and political economic influences shaping fieldwork practices and also casts light on the emotional dimensions of my professional relationship with Carolina as my translator, which we later flesh out. My daughter has tried to make me feel better about my painfully slow progress in trying to learn Spanish as a late learner, offering the words, ‘You’re just not good at languages, Mom, don’t worry about it’. To acquire language skills for my research in Costa Rica, I took private, university, and online classes. I hired Spanish-speaking university students

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to help me memorise verb conjugations and become conversant beyond topics of weather and food. As I delved into a second language later in life (in my mid-forties), I was an assistant professor on tenure track, teaching four to five courses per year while focusing on publications, committee service, and myriad time-consumptive tasks. While Spanish fluency was a goal, I somehow could never justify the necessary time to reach that goal. Envious of colleagues who had acquired a field language through immersion abroad while in their teens or early twenties and of bi- or multi-­ lingual anthropologists who grew up speaking two or more languages as well as tourists and expats in Costa Rica who picked up Spanish in no time at all, I suffered an agonising inability to get past my stumbling blocks. In turn, I became ever more frustrated. Wider socio-economic processes also affected my language learning, specifically changes occurring in anthropology departments due to the entrenching neoliberalism taking hold in universities in Canada in the 2000s. The ‘tenure clock’ shaped my decision to undertake research on tourism in fieldsites where English was the lingua franca. Once tenured, my workload included administrative duties such as department head and committee chair, resulting in the deferment of two sabbaticals. Fieldwork occurred in increments, two weeks here and there; at a frantic pace to collect data, my shy, stilted Spanish all too often slowed my progress. Often it was easier for interlocutors to speak English with me. In sum, my relationship with Spanish has been angst-ridden. Stretched too thin, unteachable, I have also been acutely aware of the privilege that accrues from the dominance of English in tourism and in international research. In writing about labourers within academia as ‘model neoliberal subjects’, Gill states, ‘It is in relation to research that most people feel most under pressure, for it is here where our “worth” is most harshly surveilled and assessed, and where we are subject to ever greater scrutiny’ (2010: 237). My anxieties around measured time and the impossibility of taking ‘time out’ for intensive language training are troublingly aligned with what Gill characterises as ‘fast academia.’ Fast academia fosters insecurity, self-­ scrutiny, and even shame when professional inadequacies surface (Gill, 2010), such as when language fluency does not happen quickly enough or whilst multi-tasking. Being a slow learner-late bloomer under neoliberal regimes of speed and intensification of workload has also exacerbated a historical tendency in anthropology to be silent about language difficulties or uncertainties experienced in fieldwork, where disciplinary conventions have assumed mastery in the local language (Borchgrevink, 2003). The canonical decree set out by the celebrated forebearer of ethnography, Malinowski, that anthropologists be fluent in the native language of the people they are studying (Borchgrevink, 2003), was not helpful for me. Not only did I not have ‘a gift for languages’ but, also, the model of long-term immersive fieldwork of spending at least one year in one’s

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fieldsite was impossible. Therefore, the emerging body of literature (e.g. Borchgrevink, 2003; Gupta, 2014) challenging these premises as myths and revealing the more complex realities beneath the cloak of silence around anthropologists’ linguistic competencies – and the attendant issue of the silence over the widespread use of and reliance on interpreters – has helped me see things differently. As Borchgrevink has said, there are considerable reasons why anthropologists have not and do not become fluent, including that ‘many experienced anthropologists who start doing fieldwork in a second location may never learn that language properly’ (2003: 103), which echoes my own experience with my fieldsite in Costa Rica. It was not only a second location for me but also, as is the case when fields shift in response to pressing social transformations or to anthropologists’ biographies, I embarked on ‘a next project’ in the same community that was in many respects a new field, which presented its own challenges, rewards, and visions (Gottlieb, 2012). Same Locale, Different Fieldsites

Anthropologists recognise that fieldsites are geographical and physical places and yet are socially constructed with the ethnographer as fulcrum. Any town or community is a geo-physical locale transformed, through ethnographic imagination, into differently construed fieldsites. Puerto Viejo de Talamanca, a small town located in the southern Caribbean region of Costa Rica, was precisely this shifting field for me. When I first carried out fieldwork there, beginning in 2005, I was working largely with foreign European and North American tourists and expatriates and, also, with several local Afro-Caribbean men, to study transnational sex. The field unfolded through my access to the social networks and social worlds of these individuals and groups, such as beaches, bars and nightclubs, cafés, spas, yoga studios, vacation rentals, and private homes. Within these networks and spaces English was readily spoken, unsurprisingly given its advantageous status in the linguistic landscape of international tourism (Bruyèl-Olmedo & Jaun-Garau, 2009). I began learning Spanish at that point in time, although it did not come easily to me, as I explain above. But, nevertheless, by capitalising on the prevalence of English, I had access to a broad and diverse group of people and discourses more than sufficient for my research. After completing a monograph on transnational sex, my research focus departed from predominantly English-speaking milieus as I became interested in a pressing issue related to the sexual economies flourishing in the area, that of public discourses of sexual health and rural access to sexual healthcare. Also, I wanted to focus on local young adults as a group who were predominant social actors in transnational and international encounters. With this next project, my presence in the community as an ethnographer would entail gaining access to new – and for

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me, unfamiliar – spaces: health clinics, doctor’s offices, and pharmacies, which I had barely noticed when doing the previous fieldwork; as well as youth spaces, which I was more familiar with but only those where English was predominant. Local (rather than foreign) residents were to be new interlocutors for me – Costa Rican teenagers and young adults, doctors, nurses, high school teachers, for instance. While I had known that Puerto Viejo was multicultural and multilingual due to its history as home to Afro-Caribbean and Indigenous communities as well as contemporary transformations through global tourism, my imaginary of the town nevertheless categorised its population into a dichotomy of Spanish and English speakers. I intended to ramp up my own Spanish learning but also had to come to terms with the practical limitations I faced given the short duration of the funding for the project, which was only one year. Therefore, I teamed up with a research partner at the University of Costa Rica,1 and, pertinent to this chapter, I hired a field assistant bilingual in Spanish and English. Carolina and I remember vividly the first day we met. She was a bright-eyed young university student from San José, the capital city of Costa Rica, who had learnt about my research through her own interest in Afro-Caribbean culture and particularly the shaping of Afro-Caribbean masculinities through tourism. By then, I was a middle-aged tenured professor on an exploratory visit to the community, with my adolescent daughter in tow, keen to connect with someone like Carolina and yet nervous about the new terrain I was now treading on by hiring someone and trusting them with the unknown. Each of us cautiously eyed the other as potential employee or employer and yet our mutual feeling over the possibility of working together was effervescent from that initial meeting. Reflecting back, my decision to hire a Spanish-English speaker made sense and yet, as we have both come to recognise, the project ultimately demanded from both of us a realm of competencies well beyond bilingualism. Furthermore, I relinquished far more control over the research process than I had anticipated by hiring Carolina as an interpreter and I was also naive about how the affective dimensions of language and its politics would animate our emergent collaboration. Entry to a Multilingual Fieldsite

On any given day in Puerto Viejo, depending on where and when, a diversity of languages is spoken. In a café owned by an Italian couple, customers and employees communicate amongst themselves in Italian, Spanish, and/or English. At a public medical clinic, the resident nurse shifts between Spanish, patois, and/or English with her patients. German is spoken at several lodges run by German expats. At the outskirts of town where agricultural workers reside, the Indigenous languages of Bri Bri and Cabecar are spoken. Recently, Arabic and Hebrew have also made

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their way into the growing inventory of ‘local’ languages and the diverse linguistic landscape. The transnational tourism town is a multilingual setting inhabited by local and foreign residents, temporary and permanent residents, and residents from local families with deep roots in the community as well as those who have recently arrived. Groups of Italian, German, Argentinean, Canadian, American, and many other nationalities form enclaves of expat communities. Nicaraguan and Panamanian migrants have resided in the region for decades, adding to the heterogeneity of the Afro-Caribbean, Indigenous, mestizo and other Costa Rican ethno-racial identities of the local people. While the diversity of nationality and culture is much celebrated locally and has become part of the construction of Puerto Viejo as a multicultural utopia and space for ‘global citizens’ (Vandegrift, 2007), that gloss cannot obscure language as a power relation and political issue. Spanish is the official language of the nation, since the 1940s. But due to the Anglophone Caribbean history of the Limón province and its settlers from Jamaica and Barbados, the right to speak English was fought for years before and after the government enforced Spanish in 1940 in the education system and more widely onto the West Indian community in Limón. When doing fieldwork, we found that some older residents of Puerto Viejo preferred to speak the English and patois that they grew up with, while some of the younger generation, to the disappointment of some of the Afro-Caribbean parents, did not know much English since Spanish was spoken in the school system. Speaking Spanish was used by younger generations to ‘fit’ into Costa Rican society. Some of the AfroCaribbean youth were ashamed to speak English because the language differentiated them from their ‘white’ Costa Rican peers at school. Yet again, many of the young surfers who interacted with tourists spoke several European languages, not only Spanish and English, to foster relationships with foreign tourists. This was the context in which the ethnographic methodology for my new research project on sexual health had to adapt. Using a combination of ethnographic interviews, hanging out in the community waiting for spontaneous interactions and conversations, and mapping strategies to capture the political economy and accessibility of condoms and pregnancy tests, Carolina and I took to the streets and community as an ethnographic duo. We now bring in Carolina’s voice and reflect together on our fieldwork experiences. For this writing collaboration, Carolina selected excerpts from moments that were particularly memorable to her, because they were uncomfortable for her or else very positive. The fieldnotes were written by her at the time of the fieldwork while the reflections were written this past year when we discussed writing this chapter together. We hope that they show how the multilingual landscape shaped a sense of growing empathy between us as we both struggled, in different ways, with the embodied politics of language and, also, that they convey a sense of

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ethnographic competency beyond language mastery when we successfully mobilised youth in a sexual health awareness event.

Carolina’s Voice: Fieldnotes and Reflections

In 2012, we carried out 23 interviews over three weeks. Six interviews were in Spanish. Four were in Spanish and English mixed. Thirteen were carried out in English. Of the 13 interviews in English, two involved North American participants (one from Canada, one from the United States), five were with Costa Rican English speakers originally from Limón, two involved Costa Ricans from the Central Valley, and four were with Europeans from France, Italy, and Switzerland. About a third of the interviewees were native English speakers. The remaining two-thirds were native Spanish speakers or spoke Spanish as a second (or third) language. This tally, organised around a bounded notion of discrete languages, belies the ways in which interviews required a kind of nimble brokering by Carolina, in her role as Spanish interpreter. As a local resident of ten years whose friends and acquaintances became key interlocutors, she was placed in what were sometimes not merely awkward but also highly coded moments needing her to decipher gestures and code switching. Carolina’s fieldnotes reflect on an interview we did together with someone she knew. The notes show how Carolina puzzled over the actions of Patricia, an Afro-Caribbean woman with deep connections to the community as well as knowledge of tourists and other foreigners from her work in a tourism agency.2 The interview took place outside of the agency at the end of Patricia’s shift on a warm afternoon. Like many of our participants, she had agreed to an interview wanting to ‘help’ us yet with some ambivalence. Sitting on a bench on a main street, people walked by as we made our way through the interview questions. Some passersby engaged in a conversation with her or with all three of us. The setting was lively and, at times, chaotic. Carolina’s fieldnotes evoke her sense of unease with how Patricia switched to Spanish several times during the interview, despite Patricia’s fluency in English: Her braided hair in a ponytail, shorts, and tank top seemed to fit perfectly with her body language, which sometimes denoted indifference or disdain. But her answers were broad, even though at times I felt she contradicted herself. I also noticed that sometimes she spoke Spanish. I do not know why she did it, maybe because local people here are used to mix the languages, or maybe she was just being thoughtless with Susan? I do not know. But despite my fears, she spoke for a long time, and at the end it seemed she liked to be seen with us. She spoke in patois with some people who came and, at the end, she agreed to call another girl to see if she wanted to do the interview but, unfortunately, she did not accept (November 27, 2012).

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For Carolina, the multilingualism with which we dealt during fieldwork was sometimes synonymous with discomfort; she wanted to focus on this in our writing collaboration here. She felt that by recounting a moment where she had felt uncomfortable, questioning Patricia’s language shifting as a sign of being rude to me, the nuances of the dynamics in the field are made apparent. As Carolina and I reflected on this excerpt together four years later we realised that it was more than a matter of her feeling it was her job as interpreter (to see that I understood as much as possible) that made her feel uncomfortable. Carolina felt protective of me knowing my comprehension of Spanish was still limited and yet also felt torn, aware of the wider language politics. This moment with Patricia was emblematic of numerous occasions when Carolina suspected that an interlocutor’s codeswitching was a form of resistance to the imposition of English within a multilingual setting while she also felt a growing sense of compassion and caring for me, knowing that I was also sensitive to and, also, entangled together with her in these politics. A piece of reflective writing by Carolina about another scenario, below, is meant to convey these conflicting emotions she experienced as my field assistant: Four years ago, we had an uncomfortable encounter with a government worker who, probably, was not aware of how her actions were still going to be remembered to this day. I did not understand it either at that moment … Imagine you are working, for the first time, as a research assistant for a Canadian anthropologist in your town. On a very humid day, both of you are standing outside of a [particular] institution … trying to make connections for your research project about sexual health. This morning you are lucky enough to find [the staff member]. She seemed busy and in a hurry, but she agreed to talk to us for a while. And you can feel that the person is not only uncomfortable but also, I might say, mad because the researcher is speaking in English and not in Spanish, our language. Ana tried for a couple of minutes to be polite and speak English, but you can notice she is not very fluent. Suddenly, the conversation turned tense for the three of us. Ana couldn’t express herself, so she started to speak Spanish. And the speed of her talking was not for beginners. It was fast Costa Rican Spanish. Then, she tells Susan something related to her need, or ‘duty’, of speaking the native language. I still remember Susan’s facial expression. She seemed ashamed. And Ana seemed satisfied with that. Was almost like a price the foreigner needed to pay to be accepted by her. And I could not help feeling I was in the middle of the ‘conflict’. In one way, I totally understood Ana’s arguments. At some point, I had thought the same way. But I have also witnessed Susan’s efforts for speaking Spanish. Probably that moment took no more than ten minutes, but without a doubt, was meaningful not only for the research project but also for the developing relation between Susan and me (September 2016).

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Gupta has brought attention to the need for anthropologists to credit authorship to field assistants/interpreters in our publications because of the ‘inherently social’ nature of ethnographic data, such that data obtained – always through relationships – ‘is multiply mediated, social, processual and highly contingent’ (2014: 399). Given the fusing of collaborators and anthropologists in the ethnographic enterprise such that the bits and pieces of data collection become inseparable, ‘The question is not whether to acknowledge their presence but how best to do it…’ (Gupta, 2014: 398). Here, we can see how our respective roles as ‘field assistant’ and ‘PI (Principal Investigator)’ merge and are complicated by interlocutors’ behaviours that often generated feelings of discomfort, uncertainty, and even heated moments, where Carolina in her role as translator was caught, literally, in the middle. For example, as my own fieldnotes document, I was relieved when Patricia fell into Spanish because I interpreted this to mean that she was becoming more relaxed in the interview. Although I did not feel offended at all, Carolina worried that I might be. With Ana, however, her antagonism towards me was unmistakable. Its intensity created a bond between Carolina and me, as she wrote in her reflection, above. Not only did we become close because of my vulnerability, which effectively disrupted power hierarchies between us related to my ­position as employer and also an older person, a foreigner, and a university professor, but the event spurred more open discussions about language and ethical-political boundaries we would draw together as the research ­progressed. We never again attempted an interview with Ana. All public officials were interviewed by a Costa Rican researcher and university professor. The ‘Ana’ incident, as we came to call it, led me to assure Carolina that in our research together people could speak Spanish if they preferred. Thereafter, we developed strategies, such as debriefing after interviews to discuss what I had not picked up on. In some of the English interviews that she attended with me, Carolina did not always understand the exact meanings of words or phrases or their implications either so debriefing then was also necessary. As a field assistant, Carolina became integral to the research and her continual feedback, not merely her translation skills, thoroughly shaped the research in its iterative process. I agree with Gupta’s position, ‘It is not just a matter of “how much” someone contributed, it is also about the particular roles taken by people that index their distinctive contributions. Research assistants in the field … fundamentally configure the process and results of data collection’ (2014: 397). The main point is that Carolina’s feelings of discomfort, and my own, galvanised the collaborative turn in our fieldwork, the reason for her ‘voice’ to appear here. The ‘Condom Night’

Carolina felt it was important that we write about the difficulties over language during fieldwork but also that we convey some of the other

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competencies that proved useful as the field evolved. The range of competencies demanded of both of us included learning sexual health terminology and gaining basic knowledge about STIs and HIV as well as local resources such as where to obtain free condoms. Another competency was in the realm of ethics. For instance, we had to make decisions about supplying certain interlocutors with alcohol or, on one occasion, with first aid supplies for someone who needed medical attention but had refused to go to the clinic to avoid the doctor’s scrutiny. More than anything, though, competency in working with youth and bridging generational differences, especially for me as a middle-aged woman, was fundamental to the research. Even Carolina had to negotiate age, as she was used to spending time with young adults in recreational spaces and in her job in a restaurant-bar but was not use to spending time with teenagers or youth in a research context. At some point during our fieldwork, one of the youth participants suggested an idea for a community-based sexual health awareness activity. A young Afro-Caribbean man voiced his view that an effective strategy for local engagement might be to invite local youth to distribute free condoms and basic information about local sexual health resources to patrons in the bars and nightclubs, many of whom were the folks we were trying to reach through the study. We acted on his suggestion and managed to pull together a group of young people. Saturday evening, December 1, 2012 was the last day of the project and, as World AIDS day, perfect timing for this event. Seven youth worked together as outreach activists to create a public discourse on sexual health by passing out free condoms while wearing bilingual t-shirts that said ‘Get Real’ on the front and ‘Protéjase’ (Protect Yourself) on the back. Two women (one was Carolina) and five young men participated; all of them spoke Spanish and five of them also spoke English. The patrons in the bars were very diverse linguistically, although Spanish and English predominated. The free condoms struck a chord with them, as did the public discourse around sexuality. For Carolina and me, what we found particularly satisfying was in seeing people reading the text printed on the card, that is, information about the public clinic in town where they could go for free STI testing and sexual and reproductive healthcare and free condoms, rather than simply tearing off the free condoms and tossing the card away. That euphoric sense of communicating successfully in a multilingual setting about a challenging issue is what Carolina recorded in her fieldnotes: My last day of work was full of mixed feelings. Although the idea of ​​ delivering condoms was quite good, I did not know how the people were going to react and how our collaborators were going to behave [...] I wondered which were the reasons behind their motivation to help us. We should have asked them. I’m sure it wasn’t the money, because at first they did not even know we were going to pay them [...].

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After waiting for a while, it looked like they were ready to handle the condoms. Before they made some questions: To whom do we distribute them? Only to locals or tourists as well? Maybe the question that called my attention the most: Do we give them to men or women as well? [...] And right there, on the main street, they started giving away condoms to the people walking around, who seemed surprised […]. After the next bar, and the next, I had no doubt the ​​condoms night was a success. While we were going down the street, some people approached us because they already knew what we were doing.

Four years later, this event continued to stand out in Carolina’s mind when we met to discuss this writing project. She wrote another reflection: We made sure to print the card both in English and Spanish. Doing so, we read the multilingual context of the fieldsite and adapted the method we were using (which is also the case of the pamphlet). In my opinion, one of the biggest achievements was that, despite the language limitations for you with a couple of the participants [who did not speak any English] it was possible to get young local people involved. And, as we know, that is not something easy. Local people, especially the younger ones, are reluctant to participate and I think that they must have liked you (and also me) and they did not feel ‘threatened’ or ‘judged’ by you. Which also had to do with the age difference and the ways you were able to connect with them despite the language skills to do it. For example, we were not the only ones who decided which bars to go to. I remember that I thought that the bar was empty and somebody said, let’s go to the next one, and we just followed them, so it wasn’t like we have everything planned and they just followed [our] instructions. Also, we planned the activity for the bars at night, which was a setting that facilitated a more informal and relaxed communication between them, us, and the people on the bars. Again, it would not have been the same if we, for example, hand out the condoms at the beach during day time. They were not shy to go and talk with people because in the context of Puerto, bars are common spaces for people to talk about sex. And, also, because the people we were working with: All of them are used to interact with different people all the times and they knew very well the local bar-scene. I also consider that the condom night showed us how local people were open to ‘new ways’ of receiving certain information. They not only got the condoms and read the information on the cards, but after, for a while they even called me to get more condoms (actually a couple of them went to my house after to pick up some condoms). Which in my opinion means that, despite the language limitations, a simple activity like the condom night showed that maybe, with a different research project, or with other resources, it was possible for us to think about the condom night or similar activities, as a potential sustainable activity to address public discourses on sexual health in town (September 2016).

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What stands out for me in Carolina’s writing is how much she felt part of a collective communicative experience where I was not distanced from the interlocutors. She and I had played a significant role in setting up the event as bilingual. Yet for Carolina, through the embodied actions of the youth as ‘collaborators’ – her choice of term to describe their roles – what was demonstrated in good measure was fieldwork competency beyond language on both her part and mine. These were competencies that were developed from our respective previous experiences of living and spending time in the community as well as personal biographies (for instance, me being a parent of young adults and Carolina having worked in the local bars) and, critically, our shared passion for the work we were doing and the issues we were engaging in with what had become our research community. Carolina’s reflections convey how, on the last night of the fieldwork, the ‘condom night’ manifested these competencies in a particularly palpable way and thereby fostered the realisation to her that we had become a collective of collaborators and co-producers in the research process. Furthermore, my not being a ‘native speaker’ receded into the background rather than remaining tortuously in the foreground, as it had with Ana. Conclusion

In this chapter, we provide a glimpse into the fieldwork language anxiety as it played out for me over the course of my career path as an anthropologist within neoliberal ‘fast academia’ and ‘next’ fieldsites. I tell my narrative with the intent to humanise and, also, be frank about an anthropologist’s lack of language mastery as a strategy to demystify the disciplinary silence around language competency, as urged by Borchgrevink (2003), and, also, to disrupt the notion of ‘one field, one language, one anthropologist’ (Gottlieb, 2012) by showing the changes I experienced over time. This chapter also acknowledges our collaboration, and Carolina’s central role, as a matter of finding appropriate routes to authorship for those collaborators in the field who contribute significantly to the research and yet whose voices are, oddly, regularly hidden (Gupta, 2014). She has gone on to do a master’s degree in Anthropology in a Canadian university under my supervision. Because she is currently completing her thesis, her time is limited. Therefore, the approach we took to writing was to meet for a three-day writing intensive where we went over our fieldnotes and interview transcripts and then discussed what has become the theme of the chapter, and how Carolina would contribute. Carolina liked the idea of incorporating her fieldnotes, as registers of her emotional subjectivity as a field assistant, and then adding two of the reflections that were written during the writing workshop in September 2016. I took the responsibility of organising the chapter and writing up the analytical framework.

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We have tried to make apparent how Carolina gained power because of her role as a language broker, while I gained tremendously, intellectually, from her input on all phases of the fieldwork and now as we start to write up the research. I was humbled by the affective dimensions of her experiences as a field assistant, where language was far from a neutral field of communication, yet neither was it the only means of methodological competency we managed to pull off together. In short, while initially hiring a bilingual field assistant was a remedy for my limited Spanish skills, over time, but without recognising it at the time, we became collaborators through our entangled co-presence in the field. By ‘entangled’ we mean that fieldwork for us involved difficulties and complicated circumstances that were utterly inescapable but that we shared and handled together – always around language but hardly only about language. Notes (1) Dr Mauricio Lopez-Ruiz was the co-PI on the project. He worked independently from Carolina and I, and therefore is not included in this particular piece of reflective writing about language and fieldwork. (2) Patricia is a pseudonym, as is, in a subsequent passage, Ana.

References Borchgrevink, A. (2003) Silencing language: Of anthropologists and interpreters. Ethnography 4 (1), 95–121. Bruyèl-Olmedo, A. and Jaun-Garau, M. (2009) English as a lingua franca in the linguistic landscape of the multilingual resort of S’Arenal in Mallorca. International Journal of Multilingualism 6 (4), 386–411. Gill, R. (2010) Breaking the silence: The hidden injuries of neoliberal academia. In R. Gill and R. Ryan-Flood (eds) Secrecy and Silence in the Research Process: Feminist Reflections (pp. 228–244). London: Routledge. Gottlieb, A. (2012) Introduction: The challenges – and pleasures – of switching fieldsites. In A. Gottlieb (ed.) The Restless Anthropologist: New Fieldsites, New Visions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Gupta, A. (2014) Authorship, research assistants, and the ethnographic field. Ethnography 15 (3), 394–400. Martin-Jones, M., Blackledge, A. and Creese, A. (eds) (2012) Routledge Handbook on Multiculturalism. London: Routledge. Vandegrift, D. (2007) Global tourism and racialized citizenship claims: Citizen-subjects in Costa Rica. Race/Ethnicity 1 (1), 121–143.

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

This chapter takes a reflexive approach to the PhD student’s experience of learning language in order to undertake ethnographic fieldwork. It focuses on issues of language and power, considering situations where language related to both feelings of power and powerlessness. It reflects on the experience of a native English speaker learning and using Swahili. This takes place in the context of a study that explored the experiences of Tanzanian secondary students who were learning and using English as the medium of instruction in a country where Swahili is the lingua franca. This chapter offers examples of ways that the different languages offered power in terms of building relationships and accessing data. Moreover, it argues that the turning point in this research came when the researcher recognised the commonalities between her experience and the experiences of participants, in particular their shared feelings of vulnerability or powerlessness in relation to language. Introduction

This chapter forms part of the reflexive process related to my PhD project, which took an ethnographic approach to exploring the experiences of Tanzanian secondary school students who were learning and being assessed using English as the medium of instruction, despite the fact that Swahili was both the national language and the dominant lingua franca in most other areas of their lives. In order to do this, I both wanted, and needed, to learn Swahili, a language that I had made numerous, floundering efforts to engage with prior to beginning this study. The first section of this chapter describes my relationship to Tanzania and to Swahili in more detail, explaining the motivation behind undertaking the research. 44

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This is followed by a brief discussion of language in Tanzania and the status and power conferred upon English, even though Swahili plays a much more prevalent role in people’s day to day lives. I then consider the relationship between language and power in my fieldwork, conducted over a period of seven months in two secondary schools. I discuss how being a native English speaker accorded particular status in this context and situations where this was both wanted and unwanted. I also consider how both English and Swahili, as well as my position as a language learner, at different times, enabled me to build relationships, which in turn gave me power of access to the people and spaces that I needed to be able to generate data. The second half of this chapter reflects on the relationship between language and a sense of powerlessness. I discuss the feelings of anxiety and vulnerability that I experienced when trying to engage in fieldwork in another language. But far from being a weakness, I argue that acknowledgement of these feelings acted as a turning point in my research, when I recognised that my own feelings were mirrored by the students as they talked about their experiences of learning English and using English as the language of instruction. This helped me to see language not just as a tool for communication, but also closely tied to emotions and the sense of self (Pavlenko, 2005). Finally, I note that concerns and vulnerabilities about language do not end when a researcher leaves the field (Martin-Jones et al., 2017), but resurface every time I engage with my data and the words of the students that taught me both about their language and their experiences. Background: My Relationship with Tanzania, Swahili and the PhD

My motivation to do a PhD has always been about language, on two levels. I first encountered the issue of language in schooling in Tanzania in 2006 as a volunteer with a UK university project that distributed textbooks to secondary schools. Since then I returned to Tanzania on similar short visits with the same organisation culminating with a year-long stay in Dar es Salaam, the country’s largest city, establishing a country office for the same NGO that was eager to develop a more sustained presence. During this time, I was struck by the enormity of the challenge that students faced. Despite recent changes in the Tanzanian language-in-­ education policy that seem to accept use of Swahili at all levels, students are still taught using Swahili for seven years at primary school before a shift to use English as the predominant medium of instruction at secondary school. Secondary level examinations are in English for all subjects except Swahili, a situation that has led Vavrus and Bartlett (2013) to characterise Tanzanian national examinations as tests of language rather than subject content. It is understandable that Brock-Utne and Holmarsdottir express frustration that students are unable to access the potential benefits and opportunities associated with education because

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it is being ‘provided through a foreign medium of instruction that the learners do not understand’ (2004: 81). In addition to wanting to better understand how students negotiate these language challenges, I was also motivated to pursue a PhD by my frustration with my own failure to learn Swahili. Despite having accumulated more than two years’ experience in Tanzania, I had only made short visits to schools and had spent a lot of time with head teachers and local government officials who spoke English. Though I had taken beginner level Swahili courses, my success in my role had never been contingent on my ability to speak the language. I had become proficient at greetings and had found this to be enough to break the ice in meetings. There had been no real expectation that I would be able to continue in Swahili. But this was not the case when I wanted to talk to students. During a Masters research project where I wanted to talk to young people about the challenges they faced in schooling, I was reliant on a teacher to help translate and there was no doubt that this prevented students from feeling comfortable and limited the data I was able to gather. Moreover, the Swahili language is very closely related to people’s identities as Tanzanians (see Blommaert, 2014). It is the language that they use in the majority of domains. Even in the schools I studied, English was usually limited to use during lessons, and even then, Swahili was used to translate and explain so that students could understand the content. Without Swahili, I was vastly limiting the extent to which I could both engage in and understand life in Tanzania. An extended period of fieldwork, then, was not only about generating data to answer my research question, but it also took the form of a personal language challenge. I had previously lived abroad in Germany and in Italy and still felt haunted by feelings of inadequacy that I had not ‘mastered’ these languages. On some level, I also saw this as an opportunity to right those wrongs. I began my doctoral programme, part-time, in 2012, whilst also teaching part-time in a secondary school in London. This meant that I had two years to prepare for going into the field. For a while I took Swahili classes in London, but the expense, plus the feeling that I wasn’t making much progress from two hours a week, led me to use the UK school holidays to travel to Dar es Salaam to take language classes there. There, I could join an affordable class which met every day and was made up of other people who had a drive or need to learn Swahili. I could also practise what I had learned with taxi drivers or guest house staff, though I didn’t find this easy, and I regularly worried that a project that relied so heavily on my ability to use Swahili was a mistake. At the beginning of the 2014–15 academic year I spent four months in Dar es Salaam whilst waiting for research permits. During some of this time I continued with group Swahili classes. As the beginning of the time I would spend in school grew closer, though, I changed to 1:1 discussion classes where I could focus on the vocabulary that I anticipated would be most relevant to my study.

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I approached the issue of language in schooling from an ethnographic perspective. Hornberger and Cassels Johnson highlight the positive role ethnography can play in investigating the different layers of language policy, importantly including the agency of local actors who adapt and negotiate national policies in their specific contexts (2007: 510. See also Copland & Creese, 2015; Gardner & Martin-Jones, 2012; McCarty, 2011), and there have also been calls for ‘discourses of language in education …to account for voices from the field’ (Juffermans & Van Camp, 2013). A longer-­term engagement with the school communities would also allow me to continue learning Swahili and to listen, watch and ask questions repeatedly to try and be certain that I was developing an accurate understanding. I spent seven months divided between two schools, one urban and one rural, in the Morogoro region of Tanzania. I acted as a participant observer, both teaching and observing lessons. In addition, I interviewed students and teachers, organised workshops, and took part in a variety of school activities. In an attempt to make sure that I was representing the voices of the young people whose experiences I was investigating, I also worked with a small group of student researchers who conducted their own interviews and acted as important critical friends. My analysis of the data generated has focused on the variety of challenges that students experience in the language situation in secondary schools and how these are negotiated. Context: Language and Power in Tanzania

It has already been stated that both Swahili and English are used as languages of instruction in the Tanzanian education system. But, because English is the most important language at the higher levels, English has been described as being synonymous with education in Tanzania (RoyCampbell & Qorro, 1997). Although the majority of people in Tanzania are not proficient in English, Bamgbose argues that the power associated with European languages in Africa ‘does not lie in numbers of speakers, but rather in the superior roles assigned to them’ (1991: 1). Students regularly talk about the importance of learning English for accessing high-­status jobs like doctors, politicians or working in international o ­ rganisations. Starting from its historical position as the language of power under the British colonial administrators, English continues to occupy the position at the top of the Tanzanian ‘linguistic hierarchy’ in the postcolonial period and is a ‘vital component of the “cultural capital” of the neo-colonial elite’ (Alexander, as cited in Brock-Utne & Holmarsdottir, 2004: 68). Although the use of English in the government schooling system means that the wider population have access to English, and education seems to offer the promise of progress and development to the position of the high-status English-speakers, the poor quality and challenges of the education system mean that the position of the elite is preserved because ‘it is the elite who are proficient in it’ (Rubagumya, 2004: 135).

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English is the ‘official’ language of Tanzania, but Swahili, as the ‘national’ language, is also extremely important. At the point of Tanzania’s independence, the expansion of primary schooling in Swahili was seen by President Nyerere as a crucial element of constructing a national, Tanzanian identity in a country with 120 local languages. This element of the nation-building project was very successful and Swahili is now spoken by nearly all Tanzanians (Blommaert, 2014). Many young people consider Swahili their first language and it is closely tied to their conceptions of themselves as Tanzanian (see work by Puja, discussed in Brock-Utne & Holmarsdottir, 2004). In this study, young people described Swahili as ‘lugha yetu’, or ‘our language’, distinguishing it from other languages, in particular English, which was clearly viewed as a foreign language and was regularly referred to as ‘kizungu’ or ‘language of the foreigner/European’. As a native English speaker in this context, I was enthusiastically welcomed and given the status of someone important. Of course, my ‘outsider’ status was also a feature of this, apart from language, but towards the end of my stay there was also a Japanese volunteer in the town school and she was treated quite differently, partly because she spoke neither Swahili nor English well and so people were unsure how to communicate. I was invited as a special guest to English speaking competitions and particularly praised for the fact that I speak ‘British English’, as opposed to American English or variations from other African countries such as Kenya or Nigeria. But as an ethnographer, this role as ‘expert’ was not always one that I wanted. Although I could never eliminate it, I sought to minimise the unequal power balance between myself and my participants. I was eager to present myself as being there to learn, about people’s experiences of schooling, about Tanzanian culture and about the dominant local language, Swahili. This strategy of adopting the status of learner was quite successful and some teachers and students relished the role of language teacher, though I did occasionally have to swallow my frustration about having basic vocabulary explained to me when I had both introduced myself and explained my research, including some of the more complex ideas like anonymity, in Swahili. The language choices that I made in certain situations affected the way that I was viewed by others, although the discussion that follows will demonstrate that I was not always in control of this process. It will also show that I was not the only person in the research making regular language choices and negotiating the reactions of others. Reflections on the Relationship between Language and Power during Fieldwork Language as power – Status

I have set out above how my position as a native English speaker and a foreigner conferred a certain amount of power in the form of status. This

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status was not only afforded to ‘outsiders’ or native speakers. Students who had higher levels of competency in English could also acquire this status. At the town school, there were some students who had studied at private, English-medium primary schools, or whose parents were proficient in English and so supported them to learn at home. The town school also had Advanced Level classes and students who had reached this level had been successful in the national Form Four examinations, suggesting that they had a reasonable grasp of English. A few of my student researchers fell into this group. One explained, referring to when a member of the public might overhear a conversation between students at the market: ‘When they hear us speaking English they think ... “Ah! He is educated” ’. Some of the younger students in this group described their first few days of secondary school, noting that, from the start, their ability to speak English gave them a higher status than other students. One girl explained to me that, in the first lesson, the teachers asked who had been to an English-medium primary school. These students were appointed to the role of class monitor and many questions were directed to them. This status wasn’t always welcomed, though. Along with this status came responsibilities that made these students uncomfortable and even vulnerable. They were expected by teachers to take a disciplinary role, providing names of students who had been talking or misbehaving, who would then be punished. They were expected to set an example by using English around school, something their peers regularly mocked and criticised them for. But at the same time, their classmates also expected their support in their studies, whether translating something during a lesson, helping with homework, or providing answers during an exam. Students told me that, on the one hand, they enjoyed being able to support their classmates, and I observed that some took their leadership roles very seriously. On the other hand, they also reported feeling upset by the way their peers treated them, and frustrated that they had to minimise their use of English to avoid this. One female student in the second year of secondary school lamented: ‘They break my heart and I forget my English’. Language as power – Access

In the context of this project, power might also be conceived as the ability to access a situation or experience. In the case of the students, knowledge of English allows the understanding necessary to access learning. In my case, the ability to understand was also crucial for data collection as I spoke to the majority of students in Swahili and most school activities were conducted at least partly in Swahili. Swahili was also symbolic, though, and functioned as an indicator of genuine interest in the experiences of participants. It appeared to increase people’s willingness to speak and explain things to me, including those who spoke fluent English.

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Despite my best efforts, though, there were still some who, because I was a foreigner, assumed that I could not speak more than very basic Swahili. This could get quite frustrating, especially because it was often the students who were more reluctant to engage with English who avoided me. And these were the students whose perspectives are under-represented in research about language, and whose voices I really wanted to hear. The following example is taken from my field notes: Towards the end of the graduation ceremony I was standing to the side of the stage watching students receive their certificates when I noticed a group of 3 girls to my left, giggling and staring at me. From the small distance I managed to pick up that they were discussing whether I spoke Swahili. I addressed the group in Swahili and asked if they were enjoying the day. Their reaction was dramatic – there was squeaking and more giggling and 2 of the girls ran away to the side of a building where they stopped and looked back. I asked the last girl why the others had run away and she explained that they were afraid. When I asked what they were afraid of, she said that they were afraid of having to speak English. This was a slightly frustrating experience for me, especially since the whole conversation had been in Swahili.

Although I was particularly interested in student experiences, teachers were key gatekeepers in this research. During the initial period in each school I invested a lot of time on gaining acceptance from teachers. This was a very important site of the negotiation of power. Although I had already negotiated permission for this research with the University of Dares Salaam, the national Commission for Science and Technology, the immigration department and the regional and district governments, on arrival at school, the first point of contact was the Headmaster. Throughout my fieldwork, the Headmaster of the urban school spoke to me in English. Occasionally he expected me to be able to follow conversation that was happening in Swahili around me and I always greeted him in Swahili, but he would quickly switch to English. It was only during the weeks that I was preparing to leave that he acknowledged my ability to conduct myself in Swahili, referring to me as Mswahili, a Swahili person. Moments like this represented significant shifts in status as it was an indication that I was considered less as an outsider or foreigner. In contrast, the Headmaster of the rural school always spoke to me in Swahili, though I did observe him using English well. He did not correct my mistakes and was patient when I needed to rephrase things I was trying to say. Of course, personality was a factor. But I suspect the fact that the urban Headmaster had a higher status position at a big, urban school also had an impact on his language choice. He had also travelled to England and was always keen to tell me about his experiences. It is also likely that the language choices these Headmasters, and others, made were related to the first impression that I gave. I did not

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approach the rural school until my third month in the field, by which time I spoke more confidently and fluently. When I approached the District Education Office about making contact with the school, there was significant surprise at the white woman who spoke Swahili. While I was waiting for the District Education Officer to finish her meeting, several people came to talk to me to find out for themselves if the rumours were true. I have no doubt that this information was relayed to the rural Headmaster before I first went to meet him. At the level of middle management and class teachers, those who most regularly spoke to me in English were teachers of English, though there were a number of exceptions, particularly in town. At the rural school, there was an older history teacher who spoke English very comfortably and used English to engage me in extended conversations about European culture and politics. He was also enthusiastic that I should expand my Swahili vocabulary and he would introduce new words, explaining them in English where necessary. This comfortable mix of languages was also a common feature of his lessons and, of all the teachers I observed, he perhaps used the two languages together most effectively to aid student understanding and encourage participation. Most common was that teachers would code-switch, sometimes to aid my understanding, but other times as a demonstration to others that they were talking to the foreigner. I have already mentioned that many teachers seemed to enjoy the role of ‘Swahili teacher’ when talking to me, something I was initially happy about as I was eager to present myself as being eager to learn. But it was common that these interchanges felt like they were designed less to develop my knowledge as to catch me out as a source of entertainment. Greetings are extremely important in Tanzania and are often quite extended, including enquiries about a variety of different aspects of life. These conversations were often used, though, as an opportunity to try and trip me up, to insert a question that I would not know. It was not unusual for people to ask a question in a different local language to watch me struggle to answer. This was always met with laughter, and often by the retelling of what had happened to others, who would also laugh. Initially, I protested about the laughter, explaining that I was making my best attempt to learn. The response to this was often: ‘Hatucheki, tunafurahi’, ‘We are not laughing, we are enjoying’. Language and Feelings of Anxiety and Vulnerability – ­Powerlessness

The exchanges described above did not always feel good-natured to me, but I initially dismissed this, telling myself that I was being over-­ sensitive because of my own anxiety about making mistakes. My perspective shifted, though, when I began a series of semi-structured interviews

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with students. Nearly all of them talked about their fear of making mistakes and being laughed at. The following excerpt is from an interview with two girls in their second year of secondary school, in town. I had been particularly interested to speak to these students because, during my observations, I had noticed that they were very quiet in the classroom and actively avoided having to answer questions or talk in front of the class. Researcher: Na nimeona sana darasani kwamba mwalimu anauliza, ‘mmeelewa?’ na wanafunzi wanasema ‘ndiyooo ...’ Lakini kama anauliza swali, hakuna mtu anaonyesha mkono. Kuna tatizo gani?  [Often in the classroom I have seen that the teacher asks, ‘do you understand?’ and students say ‘yeeess’. But if he or she asks a question, no-one puts their hand up. What’s the problem?] Alisha1: Yaani tatizo anasema anaelewa kumbe haelewi.  [The problem is they say they understand, but they don’t understand.] Researcher: Mhh…. [Mhh…] Alisha:  Ila tu anaona aibu kusema mwalimu, ‘mimi sijaelewa’, atachekwa na wenzake. [It’s just that they feel shame to say to the teacher, ‘I don’t understand’. They will be laughed at by their classmates.] Researcher: Mwalimu atacheka au wanafunzi wengine? [The teacher will laugh, or other students?] Alisha: Wanafunzi wenzake [Classmates.] Halima: Wanafunzi wengine wanacheka … tabia zao mbaya… [Other students laugh … their bad behaviour…] Researcher: Sasa kwa nini wanacheka … kwa nini wanacheka? Kuna… [So, why do they laugh? … why do they laugh? Is there…] Alisha: Ulivyokosea… [How you made a mistake.]

In every interview I conducted, students talked about fear of being laughed at for making a mistake or for not understanding or knowing an answer. But it had taken three months before I had begun to ask about this. I had noticed that students were reluctant to participate in class and had assumed that the explanation was that they didn’t understand. While Alisha and Halima talked about not wanting to admit that they didn’t understand, some other students told me that they did understand, but were afraid of making a mistake when trying to answer in English. This was a turning point in my research because fear, anxiety and a sense of vulnerability and powerlessness were features of my everyday while in the field. I had to psych myself up to leave the house in the morning and I rehearsed what I wanted to say over and over in my head before I entered

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a classroom or approached someone to talk to them. One of the reasons for taking a semi-structured approach to interviewing was that I had the security of a list of questions to return to if I lost the place in the conversation. It is likely that, when students looked at me as an adult from Europe talking to their class in Swahili, and they laughed, they had no idea that it made me question myself and my ability to conduct meaningful research. In an informal discussion with a small group of girls, one girl who spoke English well burst out laughing. I asked what she was laughing at and she said that the way I speak Swahili is funny. I asked if I was making lots of mistakes, if I could still be understood and she said, yes she understood, but that it was funny. Although my confidence with Swahili grew over time, I always felt like I was making myself vulnerable and somehow giving up control. When talking to students, although I inhabited a position of respect as an adult and a foreigner, when we spoke Swahili, I felt like I was no longer in control of the situation. This was particularly the case when several people tried to speak to me at once. To some extent, this was my aim. I wanted to be viewed as less apart from the students and I think that it was seeing me stumble and fail that eventually made me able to talk to students who seemed to struggle in class, like Alisha and Halima. I also realised, though, how closely linked my confidence in Swahili was to my confidence about the project as a whole. As I began to observe interactions in the classroom more carefully, I noticed that the Tanzanian students had an option for retaining some power and control that was not open to me – they could remain silent. By making this choice, attention would be on them for a short time, but they would not open themselves to the possibility of making a mistake and having to face the humiliation of being laughed at. There was one particularly striking example of this, involving Alisha, that I recorded in my field notes: During today’s English lesson Alisha was one of the students selected to come up and present the sentences they had been working on in groups (c. every 3rd–4th student was selected so 20 students total). She was probably the 11th or 12th student to come out (so she had seen plenty of examples). She made her reluctance clear as she shuffled her shoes heavily to the front of the classroom. But she absolutely refused to face the class – she stood facing the door. It did not initially look like she had brought any notes with her, although I later saw that she had a piece of paper screwed up under her headscarf. The teacher kept trying to get her to turn around and speak (I think that she was trying to encourage her, but her tone, as usual, was quite stern and she was quickly getting frustrated). After a few minutes of the teacher trying, but Alisha refusing to turn around and speak, the teacher sent her out of the classroom while she continued with the next few students.

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When she was called back in, she still refused to face the class. The teacher physically took hold of her arms and tried to turn her around, but Alisha absolutely refused to change the direction of her feet, which stayed pointing out of the door. Eventually, the teacher gave up and Alisha returned to her seat. At the end of the lesson, after the teacher had left, I asked Alisha why she hadn’t just read her sentences. I knew that she had correct sentences because I had seen her group give their answers to Aiko (a student with good English) to check and she had even added more examples. I asked, ‘Kwa nini hukusoma tu? Ulikuwa na sentensi nzuri’ [Why didn’t you just read them? You had good sentences.]. Alisha said nothing, but she turned away from me and folded her entire body over as if she were trying to fit her head under the desk. I asked, ‘kwa nini unaogopa?’ [Why are you afraid?] and one of her friends replied, ‘anajiona aibu’ [She feels shame].

Without the option of silence, and unable to control what others thought or said about me, I had a number of experiences and these left me feeling quite powerless. I have already pointed to examples where, despite the efforts I had put into learning Swahili and presenting myself as approachable, students and teachers chose to walk away because they thought they would be required to speak English. But there were also examples where people who knew that I spoke Swahili purposely downplayed my ability. One example was one of the student researchers. When designing the study, I had been concerned about my position as an outsider attempting to comment on students’ experiences, and I wanted to explore ways to involve students more fully in the generation of data. Since the urban school also had a campus for Advanced Level, I approached some of these students about being more involved in the research. These students spoke good English and because they were enthusiastic about the opportunity to work with me as it would be an opportunity to improve their English, we mostly communicated in English. The students were aware that I spoke Swahili, though, because we talked about it, and had developed a practice that, if someone were struggling to express their idea in English, they would switch to Swahili and, if I didn’t understand, we would discuss a translation as a group. I had explained why I wanted students to be involved as researchers in terms of their being experts in their own experience and that I was concerned that I might not ask questions about the issues they thought were really important. They designed their own interview schedules and led workshops for younger students at both schools. I was surprised, then, when I heard one student telling others that the reason they were helping me was because I could not understand Swahili. Salim had emerged as a sort of leader of the group – he was proactive when we were planning practical arrangements and took a role in leading group discussions. He had other leadership responsibilities in school and was often called upon by teachers when they needed

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something done. In this context, I felt that his downgrading of my language ability was a conscious move to elevate his own power and status in the project. Though no longer in the field, I am still plagued with anxiety about my language skills in relation to this project. Throughout the process of reading, translating and analysing transcripts my attention was quickly drawn to mistakes that I made. I had employed native Swahili speakers to transcribe the semi-structured interviews. One of them, very helpfully, added a number of footnotes to offer clarification where a student has used slang, or a local language term. But he also used footnotes to highlight where I had made errors in the way I had expressed myself, or pronounced something. Although I should appreciate this guidance for my learning process, the vulnerability I feel about these errors being permanently written down perhaps leads to an over-reaction, particularly as the transcriber has not corrected mistakes that the students made. Perhaps my biggest regret, though, are the moments where it is clear that I had not properly understood at the time of the interview what the student was saying, and so have missed opportunities to follow up on interesting comments. When writing, there is also a lingering anxiety about mistranslating or misrepresenting the voices of the young people that I had built relationships with. Conclusion

In this chapter I have considered issues of language and power in the context of my PhD research about students’ experience of learning in English in Tanzanian secondary schools. I have briefly highlighted the power dynamics related with the two main languages in this study, English and Swahili, in Tanzania. This was necessary to position myself, a native English speaker, in a context where English confers the speaker with high status. But the focus of this discussion has been on my experience of learning Swahili. I have pointed to the ways in which acquiring Swahili could be viewed as acquiring power of access because it made it possible for me to understand what was being said, and acted as a symbol of my commitment to learning about people’s experiences and perspectives. Finally, I presented examples of situations where I was left feeling powerless in relation to language. Throughout, I have noted that my experiences were not unique, but rather that many of my experiences as a language learner of Swahili were reflected in students’ experiences of learning English. This realisation contributed to a turning point in the research, moving my focus from questions solely about the challenges of language and understanding to consider feelings of vulnerability, anxiety and shame. Moreover, the requirement to constantly re-evaluate and reflect on the role of language in my study, and my position as a language speaker and learner, has continued well beyond fieldwork and will remain every time I engage with the data in the future.

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Note (1) Pseudonyms have been used.

References Bamgbose, A. (1991) Language and the Nation: The Language Question in Sub-Saharan Africa. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Blommaert, J. (2014) State Ideology and Language in Tanzania. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Brock-Utne, B. and Holmarsdottir, H.B. (2004) Language policies and practices in Tanzania and South Africa: Problems and challenges. International Journal of Educational Development 24 (1), 67–83. Copland, F. and Creese, A., with Rock, F. and Shaw, S.E. (2015) Linguistic Ethnography: Collecting, Analysing and Presenting Data. Los Angeles: SAGE. Gardner, S. and Martin-Jones, M. (eds) (2012) Multilingualism, Discourse and Ethnography. New York: Routledge. Hornberger, N.H. and Cassels Johnson, D. (2007) Slicing the onion ethnographically: Layers and spaces in multilingual language education policy and practice. TESOL Quarterly 41 (3), 509–532. Juffermans, K. and Van Camp, K. (2013) Engaging with voices: Ethnographic encounters with the Gambian language-in-education policy. Anthropology & Education Quarterly 44 (2), 142–160. Martin-Jones, M., Andrews, J. and Martin, D. (2017) Reflexive ethnographic research practice in multilingual contexts. In M. Martin-Jones and D. Martin (eds) Researching Multilingualism: Critical and Ethnographic Perspectives (pp. 189–202). Abingdon: Routledge. McCarty, T.L. (ed.) (2011) Ethnography and Language Policy. New York: Routledge. Pavlenko, A. (2005) Emotions and Multilingualism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Roy-Campbell, Z.M. and Qorro, M.A.S. (1997) Language Crisis in Tanzania: The Myth of English versus Education. Dar es Salaam: Mkuki na Nyota. Rubagumya, C.M. (2004) English in Africa and the emergence of Afro-Saxons: Globalization or marketization. In M. Baynham, A. Deignan and G. White (eds) Applied Linguistics at the Interface (pp. 133–144). London: Equinox. Vavrus, F. and Bartlett, L. (eds) (2013) Teaching in Tension: International Pedagogies, National Policies, and Teachers’ Practices in Tanzania. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.

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

Drawing on my experiences of conducting ethnographic research in France and Bulgaria, I argue in this chapter that documenting and reflecting on language learning has a crucial part to play in breaking the silence that often still surrounds how researchers learn and use different languages for fieldwork. I begin by highlighting the fact that my PhD thesis was effectively ‘silent’ about such questions, before describing how in recent research in Bulgaria I attempted to document and analyse my language learning practices much more systematically. I then compare the approaches to language learning I adopted for these two studies, showing how my language learning practices in relation to Bulgarian were informed by what I had learned from reflecting on my experience of using French for my PhD work. Finally, I suggest that ‘demystifying’ multilingual fieldwork also requires an open discussion with the bodies that fund ethnographic research, concerning expectations about ‘linguistic expertise’. Introduction

Many researchers carry out fieldwork using a language (or languages) other than their first language.1 Some will have learned this second or additional language at school and/or university, or else ‘in the wild’ 57

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(Pavlenko, 2015) – that is, outside a classroom setting – and then, perhaps years later, embarked on ethnographic research in a place where the language is spoken (e.g. Herzfeld, 2012 in the case of Greek and Italian). For others, learning a new language is intrinsically bound up with the research project itself: the researcher starts to study the language as part of their preparations for fieldwork and they devote considerable time to language learning ‘in the field’. As Borchgrevink (2003: 113–5) noted over a decade ago, however, there is a ‘silence’ in the anthropological literature about questions relating to language learning and linguistic proficiency in ethnographic fieldwork. He explained this as an enduring aspect of the ‘mystique’ surrounding fieldwork in the discipline (2003: 97). More recently, Tremlett (2009) has also highlighted the absence of detailed accounts by ethnographers of how they learned particular languages, before discussing her own learning of Hungarian during the fieldwork she carried out for her doctoral thesis. Building on this work, I argue here that documenting and reflecting on language learning in ethnographic research has a crucial part to play in breaking the silence that often still surrounds how researchers learn and use different languages for fieldwork. I do so by discussing two of my experiences of conducting ethnographic research in a language that was not my first language.2 For my doctoral thesis, I used French to carry out anthropological research on an antiracist organisation in Paris. Between 2014 and 2016, I undertook field research using a different language, Bulgarian, in order to study the multilingual working practices of officials, lawyers and interpreters working with refugees and other migrants in and around Sofia. In the first section of this chapter, I highlight the fact that my PhD thesis was effectively ‘silent’ about the language-related issues that had arisen during my research in France, even though I had reflected on these quite often in my fieldnotes. I then describe how in my recent research in Bulgaria I attempted to document and analyse my language learning practices in a much more systematic way. In the second section, I compare the approaches to language learning I adopted for my ethnographic research in France and in Bulgaria. I show how my language learning practices in relation to Bulgarian were informed by what I had learned from reflecting on my experience of undertaking ethnographic research using French for my PhD. In the final section, I suggest that ‘demystifying’ multilingual fieldwork requires not only the documentation and analysis of language learning processes and practices by individual researchers but also an open discussion with the bodies that fund ethnographic research, concerning expectations about ‘linguistic expertise’. These reflections arise out of my involvement from 2014 to 2017 in a large research project entitled ‘Researching Multilingually at the Borders of Language, the Body, Law and the State’ (hereafter ‘Researching Multilingually at Borders’), funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). The project compared interpreting, translation and

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multilingual practices in a range of ‘border’ contexts around the world, and also explored the importance of such practices in the research process itself. Working on it led me to reflect on the meaning of ‘researching multilingually’ (Holmes et al., 2013), that is, using more than one language over the different stages of a research project; it has also made me aware of the work of linguistic ethnographers (e.g. Copland & Creese, 2015) as well as sources such as those I have cited above. In addition, the ‘Researching Multilingually at Borders’ project provided me with an opportunity to carry out research in a new (to me) country, Bulgaria, and language, Bulgarian, following periods of fieldwork in France spread out over a fifteen-year period. Given that there was a gap of almost two decades between the two experiences of ethnographic research described in this chapter, I would hesitate to describe myself as a ‘restless anthropologist’ (Gottlieb, 2012a). Nevertheless, ‘switching fieldsites’ in ‘midlife’ or ‘midcareer’ (Gottlieb, 2012b: 2–3) and, more specifically, studying and then attempting to use a new ‘field language’, within the framework of a project explicitly focused on ‘researching multilingually’ issues, has undoubtedly sensitised me to questions of language in ethnographic research. Against this background, the present chapter is a first attempt to compare my experiences of conducting anthropological fieldwork in France/French and Bulgaria/Bulgarian. Documenting and Reflecting on Language Learning in Ethnographic Research

How can we dispel some of the ‘silence’ or ‘mystique’ that still surrounds the learning and use of different languages in ethnographic research? One important way is by documenting and reflecting in an in-depth, systematic manner on our own experiences of learning and using a second or additional language (or languages) for the purposes of fieldwork (see Gibb & Danero Iglesias, 2017: 138–141). Tremlett (2009) is one of the few ethnographers who has attempted to do this by writing about such issues in her fieldnotes and in the monthly reports she sent her supervisors while she was carrying out her doctoral research in Hungary. Following her example, I will in this section describe how I documented (or did not document) language learning processes and practices in my PhD fieldwork in France and in my more recent research in Bulgaria. In so doing, I draw attention to the fact that reflecting back, many years afterwards, on my first experience of language learning as a researcher helped me to become more aware of language-related issues and to develop more effective ways of documenting and analysing these as I embarked on the research for my last project. It is worth noting, before going any further, that to provide an account of language learning for the purposes of ethnographic research is not a straightforward task, since the very terms we habitually use when referring

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to the issue are often imprecise or reflect a particular ideological conception of language. This quickly becomes apparent if we follow the advice provided by Tonkin (1984: 178) in a short article on ‘Language learning’ published over 30 years ago: ‘The first step is to break down the delusive simplicity of “learning the language”. This is not a single, albeit complex activity’. In other words, what exactly do we mean by ‘learning’ in this context? As Borchgrevink has pointed out, ‘understanding a language is a relative concept. It is simply not possible to answer unambiguously what it means to know or speak a language’ (2003: 96). The problem is even more acute since the whole notion of ‘a language’ is slippery, to say the least. As sociolinguists such as Blanchet (2016: 84–5) have shown, what are usually presented as distinct ‘languages’ are in fact ‘sociopolitical categorisations’, which are the ‘invented’ product of a historical process of standardisation. Many expressions commonly used in relation to learning a second or additional language are no less problematic. For example, Blanchet argues that the French phrase ‘maîtriser une langue (lit. to master a language)’ is in fact an ideological notion which rests on the reduction of a diversity of linguistic forms and usages to a homogenised, standardised set that can be ‘mastered’ (Blanchet, 2016: 63–5). Instead of ‘linguistic competence’, he also suggests, it is more appropriate to use the term ‘sociolinguistic competence’, in order to take account of the contextual nature of communication and a speaker’s need to adapt to different interlocutors, situations and communicative aims (Blanchet, 2016: 62–3). Although I will refer to ‘language learning’ and to named languages (‘Bulgarian’, ‘French’ and ‘English’) in the rest of this chapter, I will try to clarify what ‘learning’ and ‘the language’ actually meant in each of the cases I discuss. I begin by considering my first experience of multilingual fieldwork, namely the research I conducted in Paris for my PhD thesis, an ethnographic study of the antiracist organisation SOS-Racisme. A few years ago, I decided to go back and investigate the extent to which I had been aware of and made conscious choices about language issues in my doctoral research. To do this, I turned to two sources. The first was the thesis itself (350 pages), which I searched using ‘language’ and ‘French’ as keywords with the aim of identifying potentially relevant sentences or passages. The second was the set of four notebooks in which I had taken fieldnotes, by hand, during the first six months of my fieldwork. I had written the fieldnotes in English, incorporating words, phrases and sometimes whole sentences in French (underlined and between quotation marks) I had heard in meetings, demonstrations and other events, and which I had noted (in French) either at the time or shortly afterwards (e.g. in the metro on my way home). I re-read these notebooks, for the first time in years, and noted down, in a separate file, all the phrases, sentences and passages from the fieldnotes which related, more or less directly, to language issues, as well as brief comments or initial reflections on these

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extracts. On a very rough calculation, based on multiplying an estimated average number of words per line by the number of lines and then pages, the notebooks contain around 120,000 words in total. My compilation of potentially relevant extracts from the fieldnotes and short comments on some, but not all, of these ran to just over 5,500 words. Before starting to re-read the fieldnotes and search the thesis, I believed that I had not been aware of or explicitly addressed language issues in my doctoral research at all. I had no recollection of including any discussion whatsoever in my final PhD thesis of issues raised by conducting fieldwork in French (which is not my ‘first’ language), and I did not expect to find much on this theme in the actual fieldnotes. I was surprised, therefore, when the keyword search of my thesis identified four separate passages in which I had addressed language issues, albeit rather briefly. The first appeared in the ‘acknowledgements’ section and was the bald statement, made without providing a supporting rationale, that: ‘Unless otherwise stated, all translations from the French are my own.’ The second and third passages both dealt with how my lack of fluency in French shaped my reception by members of the local antiracist committee I joined and the role(s) I was allocated within it, but I didn’t explore the implications of this in any detail. The final comment about language in the thesis is the following one in the ‘methodology’ chapter: ‘Participant observation is thus required in order to contextualise people’s use of language and to investigate how it both sustains and is produced by collective action’. Once again, however, I didn’t ‘unpack’ this observation in a systematic way in the rest of the thesis nor did I seek to contextualise my own use of language. Even more surprising to me than the presence of these four comments in my actual thesis, however, was the frequency with which it turned out that I had noted down problems, questions or thoughts relating to language use – my own and that of other people – in my fieldnotes. The document I produced when re-reading my fieldnotes contains over 120 extracts, ranging from short phrases (the majority of cases) to the occasional whole paragraph. From these two specific ‘findings’, two more general ones can be taken: firstly, I was more aware of language issues when conducting my PhD research and writing my thesis than I thought I had been; and secondly, only a tiny amount of the material about language issues, in a very broad sense, in my (private) fieldnotes made its way into my (public) thesis. (My thesis also contains no discussion of how I took fieldnotes or any rationale for the ‘translingual’ practice I adopted.) Crucially, what was missing more or less entirely from both my thesis and the fieldnotes was an account of processes and practices of language learning and developing sociolinguistic competence in French before, during and after my fieldwork. Before starting my PhD, I had been to a francophone country (France) only twice, one long weekend in Paris and a 10-day trip, also to Paris, one year and six months respectively beforehand.

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I was in receipt of an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) studentship, which entitled me to three months for ‘language training’ and funds up to a certain limit to support this. I took private lessons from a teacher over the first few months in Paris, but my thesis does not mention this at all and an account of my language learning is similarly absent from my fieldnotes. The latter do contain the following entry a few weeks after my arrival: ‘This afternoon I think I’ll pop out to l’Alliance Française and find out about French classes’. However, no subsequent entry records what happened, and the next reference to ‘formal’ language learning in my fieldnotes is not until nearly two months later, when I mention that I was late for a meeting of SOS-Racisme due to having a French lesson immediately beforehand. Although the fieldnotes I took over the first six months regularly contain comments, often added in brackets, about my lack of confidence in speaking French and my inability often to understand what people are saying to me – and, even more so, to each other – I do not provide an account of my language learning ‘strategies’ or reflect in a systematic and detailed way on my developing competence or fluency. Becoming aware of this absence in my doctoral work led me to attempt to document and analyse language-related issues in as detailed and systematic a manner as possible during the research I carried out in collaboration with Julien Danero Iglesias for one of the case studies in the ‘Researching Multilingually at Borders’ project. The process of reflecting on my language learning and sociolinguistic competence in Bulgarian was greatly facilitated by the practical arrangements for working together Julien and I agreed at the outset and by the continuous feedback I received from him as our collaboration progressed. In developing our ‘ways of working’, we drew heavily on the advice contained in Emerson et al.’s (2011) book Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes and on the reflexive accounts of conducting ‘team ethnography’ published by Angela Creese and her colleagues (Creese et al., 2008; Blackledge & Creese, 2010; Creese & Blackledge, 2012). During the year Julien and I spent carrying out research in Romania and Bulgaria respectively, we exchanged fieldnotes on a weekly basis. These often included a section entitled ‘Researching Multilingually Issues’ in which each of us reflected on language-related issues, including language learning in my case, arising in our fieldwork. We also kept a number of journals, including one on ‘Language Learning’ and another on ‘Researching Multilingually Reflections’. My entry to the first of these ended up as a ‘language learning memoir’ (see Pavlenko, 2001) in which I reflected on my experiences of learning (or trying to learn) different languages. As well as fieldnotes and journals, Julien and I each wrote seven one-page ‘researcher vignettes’ (Creese & Blackledge, 2012: 312) over the course of our fieldwork year. In many of these we explored questions relating to language learning, sociolinguistic competence and conducting ethnographic research in a second or additional language. During our

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monthly Skype meetings, which we recorded and then transcribed, we discussed each other’s fieldnotes, journal entries and vignettes, and these conversations often led to further written reflections. Finally, we incorporated reflections on language-related issues from these various sources into the papers we prepared for three project meetings with the whole team. In short, the form of collaboration Julien and I developed resulted in an on-going process of writing, reading and discussion, over many months, about all aspects of our fieldwork, including language-related issues. Personally, I found that working in this way as part of a ‘dyad’ (Ritchie & Rigano, 2007) within a larger research team provided me with a framework that greatly facilitated reflection on my own language learning and developing sociolinguistic competence in Bulgarian. In particular, I benefitted from regular feedback from Julien in the form of comments, suggestions and advice, as well as reflections on his own language learning and ‘researching multilingually’ experiences. Without this, I think that I would have found it much more difficult to keep reflecting on language-­ related issues in a systematic and in-depth way over the course of my fieldwork. In the next section, I compare my actual practices as a language learner in my PhD research and in my most recent project, showing how my approach in relation to Bulgarian was informed by what I had learned from reflecting on my experience of using French for my doctoral work. Comparing Language Learning Processes and Practices

As I noted in the introduction to this chapter, ethnographers have rarely published accounts of how they learned new languages for the purpose of conducting field research. Of course, the language learning process usually starts before the researcher arrives in the field. However, underpinning the section on ‘learning a difficult language’ in the ESRC ‘Postgraduate Funding Guide’ (2018) is the assumption that most, if not all, language learning should take place before fieldwork. This raises important questions about the difference between language learning ‘in the classroom’ (in a different country, usually) and ‘in the wild’, i.e. in naturalistic settings in the country itself (Pavlenko, 2015). It also points to issues related to what could be termed the material conditions of possibility of learning a new language. If, as Pavlenko (2015) suggests, language learning outside a classroom involves specific learning processes, distinct from those that habitually operate within it, then access to opportunities for the former is crucial for a researcher to become more fluent in the language concerned. However, the current ESRC guidelines limit the scope for researchers to obtain funding to undertake intensive language learning ‘in the wild’, i.e. in the field setting before fieldwork itself starts. In my own case, before my doctoral fieldwork in France I bought an ‘advanced’ textbook, accompanied by two cassettes, with a view to improving my ‘school French’ through self-study in Scotland. After a

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few lessons I stopped, as I found it difficult to maintain momentum on my own. I did try to go and see as many French films as I could at the local cinema, but I did not engage in regular and systematic language learning. In contrast, I took an active approach to learning Bulgarian in the two years, and in particular the final year, before I left Scotland to begin fieldwork in Bulgaria. At the start of my PhD, I no doubt shared the ‘naive confidence’ Rodgers (2012: 10) describes, in other words a belief, encouraged by people around me, that once in Paris, I’d soon ‘pick up the language’. In contrast, when preparing my recent fieldwork in Bulgaria, I was much more concerned about my lack of ‘language skills’, influenced by my doctoral experience, attempts in the intervening period to learn other languages, as well as my attendance at an intensive course in Sofia in the summer of 2013 (partly financed by the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Glasgow). Fear was a key part of my motivation for language learning in Glasgow, prompting me to get up early each morning (usually seven days a week) and spend an hour studying Bulgarian using self-study resources I had bought online. The prospect of starting fieldwork in a year’s time, and a fear about not being able to communicate using Bulgarian, ensured that I engaged in regular self-study of the language in a way that I had not during my PhD research. I also paid for weekly two-hour Bulgarian lessons with a teacher, since there were no Bulgarian classes in Glasgow. By the time a beginner’s class started in Edinburgh, I already had a considerable amount of learning behind me so I did not enrol on it. What this highlights is the way that I learned from reflecting on language learning for my PhD research and adopted a different approach for my fieldwork in Bulgaria. As discussed in the previous section, my first experience was characterised by: the idea that my French would improve quickly once I had arrived in Paris to start the fieldwork; a failure to take fieldnotes about the processes and practices of my language learning, or even mention in my thesis that I had had a series of lessons with a private teacher (funded by the ESRC) in the first weeks after my arrival; and only sporadic attempts to engage in dedicated language learning once in the field. In contrast, my most recent experience of language learning for fieldwork was marked by the following: a constant concern, if not fear, that my level of sociolinguistic competence in Bulgarian would not be adequate to allow me to conduct fieldwork in that language (this was probably the main or over-riding concern I had in the time leading up to my departure for Sofia); an attempt, described in the previous section, to document and analyse in detail the process of language learning during my fieldwork in journal entries, reflections and fieldnotes that I shared with Julien, my collaborator on the case study; an ongoing deliberate effort to engage in language learning while in the field, through grantand self-funded private lessons during my stay in Bulgaria, combined with

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daily private study (which ranged from 1–6 hours per day, depending on my other commitments). Whereas arguably my failure to discuss language learning and issues of translation and interpretation explicitly in my PhD thesis contributed to the maintenance of a certain ‘fieldwork mystique’, my most recent experience leads me to emphasise instead language learning as ‘work’, requiring time, effort and often resources (notably, funds for courses and learning materials). Learning a new language ‘in the wild’ can be time-consuming and exhausting, and, if it involves significant periods of private study (as opposed to classroom learning) then it can also be quite an anxious and lonely endeavour. In fact, time emerged as a key issue in relation to language learning and use during my fieldwork in Bulgaria. When I was living in Sofia I spent a significant amount of time engaged in various kinds of language-­ learning activities: private lessons, vocabulary learning, watching TV news and reading newspapers with a dictionary and noting down new words to learn, and studying grammar. Although my Bulgarian improved significantly (in relation to listening, reading, speaking and writing), I was still very definitely ‘less than fluent’, even after more than a year ‘in the field’. This has made me even more sceptical than I was at the outset about the claims made by many ethnographers to have ‘learned’ a new language after six months or a similarly short period of time. Before starting my fieldwork in Bulgaria, I didn’t fully appreciate, more specifically, how long it would take me to draft letters, emails and other documents in Bulgarian to send to research participants, due to my being ‘less than fluent’ in the language. My decision to contact potential research participants in Bulgarian meant that developing a proficiency in writing and reading the language was more important initially than in speaking, whereas in many books on language learning the recommendation is to start with speaking and then focus on writing at a later stage. An awareness of the limitations of my language skills (heightened by the ‘Researching Multilingually at Borders’ project) prompted me to have all draft correspondence proofread and corrected by a ‘native’ speaker, a step that I neglected to take in my PhD research. Research Funding and Expectations of ‘Linguistic Expertise’

In the previous two sections of this chapter, I have argued that researchers can break some of the silence that still surrounds multilingual ethnographic research by publishing accounts of their own language learning before, during and after fieldwork. However, I believe that the process of ‘demystifying’ multilingual fieldwork also requires, among other developments, the encouragement of an open discussion with the bodies that fund ethnographic research about their own expectations in this connection. The aim of this final section is therefore to broaden the focus of the

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argument presented thus far to include questions about research funding and assumptions of ‘linguistic expertise’. As I have already explained, I recently carried out fieldwork in Bulgaria for the first time, having before that conducted ethnographic research in France for different projects over a fifteen-year period. In the words of two contributors to a fascinating collection entitled The Restless Anthropologist (Gottlieb, 2012a), changing fieldsites in ‘midlife’ or ‘midcareer’ in this way can be ‘professionally risky’ in that the researcher has ‘to begin, almost anew’ (Lepowsky, 2012: 52), giving up the ‘symbolic capital’ and linguistic, cultural and intellectual ‘expertise’ (Gottlieb, 2012b: 5, 6) they have acquired over the course of their previous research. In particular, researchers tempted to be ‘restless’ in terms of their fieldsites, rather than return over and over again to the same place, may struggle to obtain funding for their new project. Gottlieb (2012b: 6) summarises well the predicament in which such researchers may find themselves: Even if we want to challenge ourselves beyond our prior regional expertise, how many grants exist that support scholars to retrain for a new world area, let alone a new language? Quite the opposite: most granting agencies expect regional and linguistic expertise on the part of the applicant – the more so the older and presumably more distinguished in the world area we become.

A partial illustration of this point is provided by the following comments from one of the seven ‘peer reviewers’ invited by the AHRC to assess ‘the quality and importance’ of the application for research funding which I helped to prepare in relation to the ‘Researching Multilingually at Borders’ project mentioned above: [Gibb] is to run Case Study 3, on/in Bulgaria & Romania, but his Bulgarian is currently ‘intermediate/advanced’ (…) and he is to take a course in Sofia next month. This may be just an odd case, but it illustrates the lack of clarity about the actual activities & qualifications of the team members. In as sensitive a context as many of these are, surely absolutely established fluency is needed. Why are virtually none of the people listed (…) scholars in modern languages or area studies? (Anonymous, 2013: 3)

It is important to emphasise that the writer of these words is not a staff member at the ‘granting agency’, i.e. the AHRC, but instead an external reviewer, presumably an academic working in a university. However, the central issue raised is the one identified by Gottlieb, namely an expectation of ‘linguistic expertise’, although here the reviewer considers that ‘absolutely established fluency’ – an even higher standard – on the part of the researchers is required. Interestingly, the implication of the final sentence is that only ‘scholars in modern languages or area studies’ would be suitably qualified to undertake the proposed research.

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The Principal Investigator on the ‘Researching Multilingually at Borders’ project addressed this reviewer’s concerns (which were not shared by any of the other six reviewers) in her ‘Response to Peer Reviews’. Disagreeing with the implied assertion that only modern languages or area studies scholars would have the necessary level of fluency in the languages concerned, she argued that: One of the strengths of the proposal, in our view (…), is precisely that it brings together an international team of researchers with different disciplinary backgrounds, research experiences and language skills to investigate a shared set of research questions. A number of these relate to the design, conduct and representation of research in contexts where participants (including researchers) have different levels of fluency in the languages present. (Phipps, 2013: 3)

Such a response would have been impossible had I been applying on my own to the AHRC (or the Economic and Social Research Council, one of the principal funders of social scientific research in the UK) for funding to support a ‘stand-alone’ project involving the same research in Bulgaria. In such a case, my lack of ‘absolutely established fluency’ in Bulgarian could – and quite likely would – have counted decisively against my application. However, integrated into a large, international and interdisciplinary project investigating ‘researching multilingually’ issues (including l­ anguage learning), my proposed research – and level of fluency in Bulgarian at the time – undoubtedly became more ‘defensible’ (see also Gottlieb, 2012b: 8). At any rate, the AHRC did not consider my ‘linguistic incompetence’ a sufficient reason to refuse to fund the whole project. The reason I have included this example here is that it draws attention to the way in which funding decisions can close off or open up opportunities for language learning in ethnographic fieldwork. This is obviously the case for researchers at all stages of their career, including doctoral students, who may be able to secure only limited financial support – and time – for language learning in relation to their projects (for the UK, see ESRC, 2018: 25, 42). In particular, the peer reviewer comment discussed above shows the potential risks attached to admitting to being ‘less-than-fluent’ (Tremlett, 2009: 71) in the relevant field language(s) on an application for research funding. The kind of response they made to my attempt to be honest about my current level of Bulgarian, a year before the proposed start date of the project and almost two years before I would actually begin fieldwork in Bulgaria, appears unlikely to foster the ‘open discussion’ (Borchgrevink, 2003: 115) about language issues in ethnographic fieldwork that is long overdue. More positively, however, it serves to highlight the fact that such a discussion also needs to explore the expectations about ‘linguistic expertise’ held by funding bodies and by the peer reviewers they appoint to assess grant applications for ethnographic research.

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Conclusion

Building on the work of Borchgrevink (2003) and Tremlett (2009), I have argued in this chapter that ‘demystifying’ the multilingual nature of many fieldwork experiences can be greatly facilitated by the publication of detailed accounts by ethnographers of their own language learning practices. Furthermore, I have suggested that the development of a more open and wide-ranging discussion of issues related to language learning and use in ethnographic research should also involve consideration of the expectations of research funders (and their peer reviewers) about levels of ‘linguistic expertise’. To illustrate these points, I have drawn throughout on my experiences of conducting fieldwork in France and Bulgaria. In an interesting reflection on the different ethnographic studies he has completed over a period of 60 years, Edward M. Bruner comments that: ‘My [subsequent] fieldwork in Sumatra helped me to better understand my first fieldwork among American Indians, and vice versa’ (2012: 148). What I hope has emerged from the present chapter is that the same has been true for me, particularly in relation to questions of language learning and sociolinguistic competence in my own fieldwork. The focus on ‘researching multilingually’ issues in my last project prompted me to go back and reflect again on my doctoral research in France, and this in turn helped me to develop a different approach, both to learning a ‘field language’ and to documenting and analysing the process, for my recent fieldwork in Bulgaria. Becoming a (relatively) ‘restless anthropologist’ has, in this respect at least, been ‘healthy’ (Seligman, 2012: 128) for me too! Notes (1) I am very grateful to the following people for their detailed comments on earlier versions of this chapter: Annabel Tremlett, Hilary Footitt, Julien Danero Iglesias and the anonymous reviewers of the manuscript. (2) The first piece of research was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) (Award Number: R00429234105), the second by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) (Grant Number: AH/L006936/1).

References Anonymous (2013) Peer review of ‘Researching multilingually at the borders of language, the body, law and the state’, a research grant application submitted to the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). Blackledge, A. and Creese, A. (2010) Multilingualism: A Critical Perspective. London and New York: Continuum. Blanchet, P. (2016) Discriminations: Combattre la glottophobie. Paris: Textuel. Borchgrevink, A. (2003) Silencing language: Of anthropologists and interpreters. Ethnography 4 (1), 95–121. Bruner, E.M. (2012) Around the world in sixty years: From Native America to Indonesia to tourism and beyond. In A. Gottlieb (ed.) The Restless Anthropologist: New Fieldsites, New Visions (pp. 138–58). Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.

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Copland, F. and Creese, A. (with F. Rock and S. Shaw) (2015) Linguistic Ethnography. London: Sage. Creese, A., Bhatt, A., Bhojani, N. and Martin, P. (2008) Fieldnotes in team ethnography: Researching complementary schools. Qualitative Research 8 (2), 197–215. Creese, A. and Blackledge, A. (2012) Voice and meaning-making in team ethnography. Anthropology & Education Quarterly 43 (3), 306–324. Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) (2018) Postgraduate Funding Guide (Version 10 May 2018), accessed 20 February 2019. https://esrc.ukri.org/files/skills-and-careers/ doctoral-training/postgraduate-funding-guide/. Emerson, R.M., Fretz, R.I. and Shaw, L.L. (2011) Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes (1st edn). Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press. Gibb, R. and Danero Iglesias, J. (2017) Breaking the silence (again): On language learning and levels of fluency in ethnographic research. The Sociological Review 65 (1), 134–149. Gottlieb, A. (ed.) (2012a) The Restless Anthropologist: New Fieldsites, New Visions. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press. Gottlieb, A. (2012b) Introduction: The challenges – and pleasures – of switching fieldsites. In A. Gottlieb (ed.) The Restless Anthropologist: New Fieldsites, New Visions (pp. 1–17). Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press. Herzfeld, M. (2012) Passionate serendipity: From the Acropolis to the Golden Mount. In A. Gottlieb (ed.) The Restless Anthropologist: New Fieldsites, New Visions (pp. 100– 22). Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press. Holmes, P., Fay, R., Andrews, J. and Attia, M. (2013) Researching multilingually: New theoretical and methodological directions. International Journal of Applied Linguistics 23 (3), 285–299. Lepowsky, M. (2012) Field and home, self and memory in Papua New Guinea and California. In A. Gottlieb (ed.) The Restless Anthropologist: New Fieldsites, New Visions (pp. 49–80). Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press. Pavlenko, A. (2001) Language learning memoirs as a gendered genre. Applied Linguistics 22 (2), 213–240. Pavlenko, A. (2015) Learning languages in the classroom and ‘in the wild’: Second language learning and embodied cognition. Psychology Today, 28 January 2015, accessed 12 March 2016. www.psychologytoday.com/blog/life-bilingual/201501/learninglanguages-in-the-classroom-and-in-the-wild Phipps, A. (2013) Principal Investigator’s Response to Peer Reviews of ‘Researching multilingually at the borders of language, the body, law and the state’, a research grant application submitted to the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). Ritchie, S.M. and Rigano, D.L. (2007) Solidarity through collaborative research. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 20 (2), 129–150. Rodgers, S. (2012) How I learned Batak: Studying the Angkola Batak language in 1970s New Order Indonesia. Indonesia 93 (April), 1–32. Seligman, L.J. (2012) Traditions and transitions: From market women in the Andes to adoptive families in the United States. In A. Gottlieb (ed.) The Restless Anthropologist: New Fieldsites, New Visions (pp. 123–37). Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press. Tonkin, E. (1984) Language learning. In R.F. Ellen (ed.) Ethnographic Research: A Guide to General Conduct (pp. 178–87). London: Academic Press. Tremlett, A. (2009) Claims of ‘knowing’ in ethnography: Realising anti-essentialism through a critical reflection on language acquisition in fieldwork. Graduate Journal of Social Science 6 (3), 63–85, accessed 24 October 2016. www.gjss.org/content/claims‘knowing’-ethnography-realising-anti-essentialism-through-critical-reflection.

6 Dealing with Diglossia: Language Learning as Ethnography Dominic Esler

Tamil diglossia, the complex sociolinguistic relationship between the language’s literary and colloquial registers, has a significant impact on the experience of secondary learners, particularly in the shape of metadidactic events in which learners are directed by native speakers away from colloquial Tamil and towards the more prestigious literary form. Diglossia is also intimately connected to an ideology of linguistic nationalism of critical importance to modern Tamil identity. Integrating recent fieldwork among Tamil speakers in Sri Lanka with scholarship from sociolinguistics and anthropology, this chapter shows that an exploration of diglossia exemplifies the value that language learning can offer if it is actively incorporated within the act of ethnographic participant o ­ bservation rather than sidelined. A reflexive ethnography of language learning has the potential not just to illuminate anthropological topics of various scales, but also to make significant contributions to a language pedagogy similarly invested in the conception of linguistic ­communication as a sociocultural act. Introduction

In this chapter I propose that one way to renew our understanding of the relationship between language learning and ethnography is to treat language learning explicitly as part of, and not prior or separate to, the process of long-term ethnographic fieldwork.1 This does not mean that language learning should necessarily occur only during the fieldwork period, but that language learning is itself a key element of the wider, embodied process of learning that is participant observation. Nor does it mean that ethnographers never implicitly treat it as such in practice, although the lack of published accounts of such experiences suggests that we are unaccustomed to making such experiences public and exploring them ethnographically. 70

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To illustrate this argument, I draw on my experience of learning Tamil for the sake of my doctoral research in Sri Lanka. A critical element of my learning process has been the impact of diglossia, the complex relationship between literary and colloquial registers of Tamil. Tamil diglossia is often experienced through metadidactic events in which native speakers direct secondary learners towards literary Tamil and away from the colloquial register. As a result, the learner must develop an ability to recognize and attend to diglossia even when lacking communicative competence in literary Tamil, and to evaluate advice given about colloquial speech. Beyond the practical consequences, however, such diglossic encounters are intimately related not just to the immediate social context but also to wider, transnational, historical and political processes, within which the ethnographer-as-learner is positioned very particularly with regard to native speakers. Bringing together sociolinguistics, anthropology, and my own ethnographic research, this chapter highlights the value that language learning can offer anthropology if it is actively incorporated within the act of ethnographic participant observation.

An Introduction to Diglossia

The concept of diglossia was developed by Ferguson to explain socio­ linguistic contexts in which ‘two varieties of the language exist side by side throughout the community, with each having a definite role to play’ (1959: 232). Ferguson named these varieties L (‘low’) and H (‘high’), and proposed a number of attendant diglossic characteristics, such as differences in grammar, vocabulary and phonology; specialisation of function; a sense that the H-variety is superior to the L-variety in many respects; and a strong tradition of grammatical study of H but not L. But the crucial feature, as Hudson (2002: 7) has pointed out, is that the H-variety – which Ferguson also called the ‘superposed variety’ – is learned mainly through formal education, while the L-variety is acquired naturally as a first language. More specifically, within a diglossic language context nobody speaks the H-variety as their first language, which sets it apart from ‘the Standard-with-dialects situation, [in which] some speakers speak H as a mother tongue, while others speak L-varieties as a mother tongue and acquire H as a second system’ (Schiffman, 1997: 207). Diglossia is common in South Asia (Schiffman, 1996: 156), and Tamil has long been identified as a diglossic language (Britto, 1986; Ferguson, 1959; Schiffman, 1978, 1996). Tamil diglossia manifests itself in the relationship between a formal, literary register of Tamil, used in many forms of writing and public speaking, and the colloquial register of everyday conversation. The former is sometimes referred to as cēn (‘bright’ or ‘beautiful’) Tamil, the latter as koccai (‘vulgar’) or koḍun (‘bent’) Tamil. More prosaically, this difference is also articulated as one between eḷuttu

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(‘written’) and pēccu (‘spoken’) Tamil, although ‘written Tamil’ is often ‘spoken’ and ‘spoken Tamil’ can be ‘written’. The relationship between literary and colloquial registers of Tamil emerges at the intersection of formal education, traditions of usage, and a linguistic ideology invested in beliefs regarding the purity, authenticity and antiquity of Tamil. In this ideology, argues Schiffman (1996: 177– 178; also see Schulman, 2016: 15), literary Tamil – which has changed relatively little since the 13th century AD – is only open to linguistic borrowings from the past, and not to modern colloquial forms which would show changes in the language. In contrast, colloquial Tamil is usually treated as though it either does not exist or does not constitute ‘proper’ Tamil, and thus the lack of change in literary Tamil is taken as proof that Tamil itself has never changed. In practice, the boundary between literary and colloquial registers of Tamil is complex and even blurred in some contexts – such as the classroom (Das, 2011) – while in others the reversal of diglossic expectations is itself generative, such as the use of colloquial forms in newspapers (Cody, 2009) and modern Tamil literature (Bate, 2010: 65). In contrast to a relatively standardized literary Tamil taught to Tamilspeaking children in Sri Lanka, India, and other communities around the world (although Kandiah [1978] has written about the development of a Sri Lankan literary standard), ‘colloquial Tamil’ refers to a multitude of Tamil dialects which index characteristics such as place of origin, religion, ethnicity, class, and caste. These dialects are perceived as differently positioned with regard to literary Tamil, and linguistic status claims often revolve around a dialect’s similarity, or perceived similarity, to literary Tamil. In Sri Lanka, a certain form of Tamil spoken on the Jaffna Peninsula is often described, by its own speakers as well as many other Tamils throughout Sri Lanka, as the most ‘literary’ or ‘original’ Tamil (Das, 2011; Davis, 2012), despite the fact that many of the features that distinguish Jaffna Tamil from other colloquial dialects also distinguish it from literary Tamil. What is important is that these claims emerge from the existing diglossic separation between the different registers. Significantly, Jaffna Tamils continue to switch to literary Tamil in certain contexts, and also recommend literary Tamil to secondary learners during the metacommunicative events which I describe below. The significance of the fact that the H-variety is acquired only through secondary acquisition has been obscured in many subsequent studies, particularly those which have paid insufficient attention to the differences between Ferguson’s formulation and Fishman’s (1967) influential extension of diglossic functional specialization to contexts of societal bilingualism. Despite scholarship (Hudson, 2002; Timm, 1981) highlighting this lack of clarity, it arises in recent linguistic anthropological studies of Tamil (Bate, 2010; Das, 2008, 2011; Davis, 2012). Bate (2010), for example, prefers to employ a Bakhtinian heteroglossia, which does not

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engage with this key mechanism of diglossic language acquisition, to a Fishmanian concept of diglossia, although Bate’s description of local attitudes to political public speech – ‘The fact of it was that if you could not read you could not speak’ (2010: 28) – reflects precisely the kind of diglossic phenomenon that Ferguson was attempting to define and explain. As Schiffman (1996: 199) wrote with regard to illiterate Tamils: ‘This does not mean that they have the option of using the L-variety in H-variety domains; rather, the expectation is that they will remain silent rather than exhibit inappropriate linguistic norms.’ A similar conceptual fuzziness is found in Das (2008, 2011) and Davis (2012), whose otherwise illuminating studies use diglossia to describe divergent language ideologies and prestige conflicts between regionally or ethnically-differentiated dialects of colloquial Tamil in Canada and Sri Lanka respectively. Tamil Diglossia and Secondary Language Learning

Despite these discussions of Tamil diglossia as a research subject, no anthropologist has, as far as I am aware, explored its impact on their own experience of language learning. What is surprising about this is that secondary learners of Tamil find themselves already positioned firmly and very particularly with regard to the language and its native speakers. In this section I describe my own experience of learning Tamil, focusing on the practical ways in which I encountered and managed diglossia. This learning process began before I entered the field, continued throughout the entirety of my fieldwork, and will probably go on for many years to come. In the absence of an anthropological contribution, the most important work for me on Tamil diglossia has been Schiffman’s (1996) sociolinguistic reflections on the experience of speaking colloquial Indian Tamil in Tamil Nadu. I was fortunate to read this text – which I will return to below – at the very beginning of my doctorate, and it provided a critical framework for my understanding of the diglossic context over the following years. I began to study Tamil in London in 2011, during the first year of my doctoral studies, and a year later spent six months in the city of Jaffna in northern Sri Lanka, putting my elementary competence into practice. For most of the following two years I lived in a rural area in the neighbouring district of Mannar, where I conducted research on rice farming, caste, and Catholicism. The village in which I lived was in the northern half of the district, an area which was under the control of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam throughout most of Sri Lanka’s civil war, which ended in 2009. The population of the village, like the district as a whole, was comprised mainly of Tamils and Tamil-speaking Muslims, who are considered to be a distinct ethnic group in Sri Lanka. I want to focus on two significant ways in which Tamil diglossia has manifested itself throughout my experience of learning the language. The first has been the routine practical challenge of studying two versions of

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the same language, while also trying to pay attention to dialectal variations. I found that the primary consequence of this was the need to learn pairs or even groups of common nouns and verbs with the same meaning, as well as the appropriate contexts within which they were used. In many of these instances the difference between literary and colloquial is small, although still confusing to a beginner. Colloquial oṇḍu (‘one’), mūṇḍu (‘three’), and anju (‘five’), are onṛu, mūnṛu and aindu in literary Tamil, while iṇḍakki (‘today’) is inṛu or inṛaikku. There are also regular changes in pronouns and verb endings. In Mannar, the common word for ‘they’ is avanga; in literary Tamil it becomes avarhaḷ, while in Jaffna it is often avai or avaiyaḷ. Other pairs exhibit a greater divergence. A wedding is kaliyāṇam in colloquial Tamil, tirumaṇam in literary. A girl’s puberty ceremony is written as pūppunida nīrāṭṭa viḷā on the invitation card, but referred to as sāmattiyam in speech. Pōiṭṭuvānga, ‘goodbye’ (literally ‘go and come’), becomes senṛuvārungaḷ when a Catholic priest announces that the Mass has ended. What makes this situation more complicated is that the diglossic nature of Tamil is also reflected in the resources and formal teaching available. Having been aware of diglossia from the beginning, I was committed to learning colloquial Sri Lankan Tamil, although I initially knew little about the dialectal complexities that this term encompassed. Published materials for colloquial Tamil, particularly the Sri Lankan dialects, are very limited, and Tamil dictionaries often prioritise literary over colloquial Tamil, overlooking much dialectal vocabulary. I initially based my study on a textbook called An Introduction to Spoken Tamil (Gair et al.), originally published in 1978. Although written for use in an Englishlanguage academic context, this text contrasts Jaffna Tamil with Sinhala, Sri Lanka’s most widely-spoken language. Despite this, and the fact that I would eventually need to relearn a number of dialectal characteristics in Mannar, I found the book a great help. In the long run, I developed most of my colloquial Tamil competence outside of the classroom environment. Although there were some Englishlanguage academic or formal courses in colloquial Tamil, none were held in the UK or Sri Lanka, and those that I was aware of focused on Indian Tamil. Within the UK, only the School of Oriental and Asian Studies ran a Tamil course, but this focused on literary Tamil. In London there were also many teachers who, like their counterparts in Sri Lanka, taught literary Tamil to children who had already acquired competence in colloquial Sri Lankan Tamil at home. I spent some time working with a local teacher, and sat in on a Saturday class held at a community centre, but I found that studying literary Tamil at this stage – while still struggling with the basics of Jaffna Tamil – was often a rather confusing and unhelpful distraction. After arriving in Sri Lanka, first in Jaffna and then in Mannar, I continued to meet local teachers for individual tuition. My teacher in Jaffna spoke fluent English, and was willing to help me in any way he could,

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although he acknowledged that he was uncertain about how to teach me colloquial Tamil. In these classes we primarily worked through lists of language questions which I had prepared in advance, as well as spending some time practising pronunciation by reading aloud from literary Tamil texts. My teacher in Mannar had a more basic command of English, but had some experience of teaching secondary learners in the form of Catholic priests and brothers visiting the district from other parts of Sri Lanka and beyond. During these classes, which began with a recitation of the Hail Mary, we worked through collections of short stories for children, continuing to read aloud. I met her regularly during the first few months of fieldwork, but less and less often as time went on. Once I had settled in my field site in Mannar I was thoroughly immersed in an environment of colloquial Tamil; I became more confident about differentiating between the two registers, and slowly developed my knowledge of the local vocabulary. Although I spent little time working specifically on literary Tamil outside of my lessons, I encountered it regularly during Masses, saints’ day feasts, and other Catholic events. A number of local people – among them civil servants, people who had worked in international NGOs during and after the war, and Catholic priests and members of religious orders – had a good command of English, and in the absence of published colloquial materials I often turned to them for help. It was during such conversations about Tamil, both in Sri Lanka and at the beginning in London, that I experienced the metadidadactic events that were the second significant effect of diglossia. More specifically, when discussing Tamil through English, I found that if I asked for a translation of a word or phrase from English into Tamil, more often than not – and sometimes even when working with someone who understood that I was trying to study the colloquial language – the translation was given in the literary register. This was not the case during regular Tamil conversation, in which people spoke to me in colloquial Tamil and I improved my competence primarily through exposure and by pursuing the meaning of new words as they arose (many of which related to local agricultural issues that had no exact literary counterpart). The act of eliciting English-Tamil translations through English, on the other hand, revealed a widespread if implicit perception that literary Tamil was the appropriate register for secondary learners. These responses reflected the priority given to literary Tamil within the diglossic language ideology, as well as a native pattern of language acquisition in which the formal study of Tamil meant primarily the study of literary Tamil. During these events, my interlocutors usually did not explicitly advise me not to use the colloquial form – although the principal of a local school did once tell me that I should call the hospital vāittiyasālai rather than āspittiri – and colloquial translations did not usually arise unless I pushed the point.

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A similar although less frequent event sometimes occurred towards the beginning of my study, when I recorded, for the sake of listening practice, native speakers reading aloud from colloquial Tamil dialogues. From time to time the readers would change the language to the literary register as they were reading, or remark that what was written was simply incorrect. In my very first recording, for example, which was a recording made in London of the dialogue from Chapter One of the Spoken Tamil textbook, the two readers both replaced vēṇum, the colloquial word for ‘want’, with vēṇḍum, its literary counterpart. Although Schiffman’s observations (1996: 196–197, 201, 309) formed the basis of my initial awareness of diglossia, I found that my experience of it was rather different than his in practice. According to Schiffman, secondary learners of Tamil are often shocked to discover that native speakers in Tamil Nadu will respond to their attempts at conversation in anything other than colloquial Tamil, answering, for example, in literary Tamil or even in Hindi. In Schiffman’s experience, the only speakers who do not react in this way are those who are themselves illiterate or semiliterate and have no command over the literary register. Unlike Schiffman, I was addressed in literary Tamil only on two or three occasions, when visiting families in the urban environments of Mannar Town and Jaffna city and outside of my immediate fieldsite, and as such I am hesitant to draw firm conclusions from them. In these instances, the brief use of literary Tamil in initial greetings felt like a formal expression of respect and hospitality. The difference between these families and those of the village in which I lived was not, I suggest, one of literacy – the villagers had a strong biblical literary culture, in particular, and many wrote prayers and hymns – but may have been related to class. The urban families were relatively wealthy and more widely educated, with a better grasp of English, and they seemed, at least initially, to construct our interaction as one between teacher and student – for example asking about, and complimenting, my knowledge of everyday local culture – so these literary Tamil interactions were perhaps another example of the metadidactic events I am describing. The privileging of literary Tamil by native speakers in these different contexts, but particularly when I asked for translations from English, posed an additional challenge for the study of colloquial Tamil. On a mundane practical level, it made learning and communication more difficult. Although my interlocutors were entirely well-intentioned, their advice did not help me to improve my colloquial competence, but instead directed me towards a register of Tamil which was not used by anyone in everyday conversation, including with me. Although I was aware of the diglossic divergence between literary and colloquial Tamil from the beginning, I had to develop strategies to help me identify it in practice so that I could continue to learn through English. This meant, firstly, emphasising that I was asking about the ‘spoken language’ (pēccu moḷi), and

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sometimes also eliciting a ‘written’ (eḷuttu) translation to demonstrate the distinction I had in mind. Secondly, I found that the use of literary pronouns and verb endings, as mentioned above, offered an easy way of evaluating the register. Finally, I began to pay more attention to other people’s reactions to my own use of language. I found native speakers to be exceptionally tolerant of my speech, rarely pointing out mistakes – which had both good and bad consequences for learning – and striving to understand what I said. Using literary Tamil in conversation, although unusual, was not treated as ‘incorrect’ Tamil, and rarely was I deliberately corrected. On one occasion I used the verb uṇara, which I had recently been told by an English-speaking friend meant ‘to feel’, to ask a priest about his experience of a difficult pilgrimage in which we had both participated. Replying in English, he told me that uṇara was not suitable for spoken Tamil, and that I should use niṇaikka, which more broadly means ‘to think’. Over time, however, I grew more attentive to certain responses. Compliments such as sutta tamiḷ! (‘pure Tamil!’), I came to understand, often reflected the literary nature of the language I had used rather than a general sense of linguistic correctness. In this way, for example, I discovered that I had at some point adopted the formal pronunciation of ‘everyone’, ellōrum rather than ellārum, after it had been remarked upon several times (including a comparison of my accent with that of then-President Mahinda Rajapaksa, for whom Tamil was a second language, after he had spoken at a political rally in Mannar). In this section I have shown that secondary learners experience Tamil diglossia in particular complex ways: in the nature of available pedagogical resources and language teaching, as well as in the advice given by native speakers. The process of learning Tamil therefore is also a process of learning how to learn, which is helped greatly by an awareness of the sociolinguistic literature and the reflexive accounts of other learners. Language Ideology and Tamil Identity

Diglossia may initially be encountered as a practical challenge for the Tamil learner, but it points to much wider questions of Tamil culture and society. Diglossia is, in fact, intertwined with a complex language ideology of critical importance to the identity of Tamils in Sri Lanka, India and around the world. The most influential study of Tamil language ideology has been Ramaswamy’s (1997) discursive historical analysis of Tamil language devotion and the way in which it became the central factor in the production of the modern Tamil subject. According to Ramaswamy, Tamil language devotion emerged during the consolidation of colonial rule in India at the end of the 19th century, drawing particularly upon early comparative linguistic work by European missionaries, which established Tamil as a member of a Dravidian language and linguistic culture

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separate from the Indo-Aryans (particularly Sanskrit, the predominant language of Brahmanical Hinduism), and the rediscovery and publication of ancient Tamil texts. One outcome of Tamil devotion networks was the Tamil Purist Movement of the first half of the 20th century (Kailasapathy, 1979), which aimed to eliminate foreign elements in Tamil, such as Sanskrit and English. Tamil linguistic nationalism remains a powerful force to this day, and the concept of purification lives on both in rhetoric – such as the principal’s comment about the correct word for hospital, or the criticism that Sri Lankan Tamils sometimes voice regarding the extent of English vocabulary in the speech of Indian Tamils – and in practice. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the villagers sometimes mentioned, instructed their cadres to speak a form of Tamil without foreign words, although further research needs to be done on this topic. Bate’s (2010) study of political oratory complements Ramaswamy’s monograph by examining not only the discursive constructions of Tamil language ideology but also the actual use of literary Tamil in political speech, a phenomenon which arose in the 20th century and has continued to gain force over the past fifty years. Bate explores the ways in which contemporary politicians utilise literary Tamil and its range of rhetorical and stylistic devices to position themselves as heirs to a Dravidian tradition stretching into the distant past. While Bate demurs from utilising diglossia, and Ramaswamy skips the topic entirely, the sociolinguistic contribution has much to offer both works. According to Schiffman (1996: 198–199), it is the prior existence of diglossia that precisely creates the conditions for Tamil language devotion and mythmaking to occur: it is the set of beliefs about the antiquity and purity of Tamil that unites all members of the linguistic culture in its resistance to any change in the corpus or status of Tamil, by which of course is meant H-variety ... And it is the fact of diglossia that allows this purity to be observed – the corruption is all in the spoken language, while the purity is all in the written form.

Expressions of Tamil linguistic ideology were a frequent and important element in my conversations with native speakers, and the counterpart to the metadidactic events that I have already described. Schiffman (1996: 201) observed – and I had the same experience – that when native speakers meet a Tamil learner (particularly if this is a first such encounter), they very often express wonder, surprise and delight, even praising the learner for their ability. These responses, I found, were often buttressed by claims – made by monolingual speakers as well as those who spoke other languages – about the nature of Tamil: that Tamil is an extremely difficult language, if not the most difficult in the world (and certainly much harder than English or Sinhala), largely because its alphabet – in

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fact an alphasyllabary, in which consonants come with vowels attached – has 257 letters against the 26 of English; and that Tamil is an ancient language, if not the oldest. This widespread fascination with, and appreciation of, non-native Tamil speakers is also reflected in the popularity of videos depicting exactly that which sometimes circulate on Facebook. The most famous of these is an interview with a German woman, fluent in the Jaffna dialect of colloquial Tamil, which was watched and referenced by many people during my fieldwork. Particular admiration was reserved for having mastered reading and writing, which metonymically represented competence in literary Tamil. Another indication of the importance of these skills sometimes occurred in my conversations with Sri Lankan Tamils in the UK, who told me that their children knew less Tamil than I did; by which they meant that although the children had acquired colloquial Tamil – for many families the primary language at home – they had not learnt to read or write. For many children, to learn literary Tamil meant to attend extra-curricular classes of the kind which I too had taken part in during the first year of my doctorate. Although the question of Tamil language ideology is too large to be addressed further here, this brief discussion has demonstrated the way in which it is experienced by secondary learners through the everyday remarks of native speakers. While these remarks cannot be reduced to diglossia, diglossia is still a crucial part of the context within which they arise. A focus on diglossia simultaneously helps the Tamil learner to improve their communicative competence and to better understand Tamil culture far beyond the practical questions of language learning. Conclusion: Language Learning as Ethnography

In this chapter I have shown that by reflecting ethnographically on my own experience of Tamil diglossia, and by bringing this into communion with scholarship from sociolinguistics and the social sciences, the responses of native Tamil speakers to secondary learners are seen not merely as mundane impediments to language learning, nor as immaterial secondary explanations, but rather as reflections of underlying socio-­ historical conditions as well as a modality of social interaction with which the learner engages. The frequent metadidactic events which accompany diglossia are a fertile source of potential anthropological insight. Borchgrevink has suggested that the silence around language learning and ethnographic fieldwork is related to a widespread anxiety that publicly admitting language problems will undercut anthropological authority (2003: 113). I suggest that we need to take a step back and start by problematising the conceptualisation of, first, language learning as research method and, second, of language competence as an addendum skill which the anthropologist does or does not have.

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Among ethnographic research methods, language learning is in fact doubly silenced, being an element of fieldwork preparation that is either outsourced by anthropology departments to language departments and/or institutions or left entirely to individual researchers themselves. Despite the pervasiveness of language learning amongst ethnographers, and the fact that ethnographers often study languages for which resources and formal training are extremely limited, anthropologists frequently learn independently and rarely describe their experiences – of specific languages or language learning in general – in their published work, nor participate in the pedagogical scholarship on secondary language learning. Part of the anxiety surrounding language skills may therefore arise simply from the fact that many fieldworkers do not know how to learn a language successfully, particularly alone and, as is the case with many languages, with a minimum of resources. Beyond its practical necessities, language learning is finely entangled with many areas of fieldwork. But its framing as method has generally seemed to preclude its inclusion among, first, the other issues of representation and positionality which are considered so crucial for the reflexive perspective of contemporary anthropology, and second, those very processes of learning and embodiment which ethnographers strive to experience and explore through participant observation. Okely’s (2012) recent exploration of the subjective experiences of fieldwork offers a good example of what I am describing. While the monograph adeptly draws out the various ways in which participant observation leads to new and unexpected forms of embodied knowledge, language itself is found only at the margins, in brief mentions of learning struggles or translation dilemmas. In contrast, Herzfeld’s (2009) article on gesture and ethnographic embodiment, which considers the importance of mastering various communicative practices in the crossing of boundaries of cultural intimacy, points to the kind of small, everyday, but ethnographically relevant interactions and events which characterise the process of learning a language. Briggs’s (1986) critique of the use of the interview showed how significant methodological questions can be circumnavigated via shared assumptions about research methods. Briggs argued that the reason that the interview has not been adequately researched and methodologically interrogated, despite its ubiquity, is that it ‘encapsulates our own native theories of communication and of reality’, smuggling ‘outmoded preconceptions out of the realm of conscious theory and into that of methodology’ (1986: 3). Like the interview, language learning is obscured from view, and ‘what we find solidified is the translated understanding, not the messiness of getting to a place where a word, a phrase can be trotted out as a piece of linguistic ethnographic data’ (Phipps, 2010: 100). Meanwhile, applied linguistics (e.g. Kalaja & Ferreira Barcelos, 2003) has increasingly shown that language learning is strongly influenced by culturally-inflected beliefs, which we might trace through disciplinary and institutional practices. For example, the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council, a

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government body which funds doctoral studentships in the social sciences, supports language training extensions of between three and twelve months according to the availability of resources and the perceived difference from English (ESRC, 2018). Although this extra time can only be beneficial, it is important to acknowledge that the learning process cannot be contained within such short periods and to consider how language learning continues throughout the fieldwork proper. As I have shown, repositioning language learning as ethnography requires a new attention to linguistic interactions which we might ­otherwise ignore in our fieldnotes. The kind of reflexive ethnography of language learning that I am proposing must also be differentiated from other writings which, while similarly emphasising the importance of understanding the sociolinguistic context, still neglect the potential value offered by the ethnographer’s own experience of learning. Briggs’s (1986) eminently sensible advice for ethnographers to explore the metacommunicative context of their fieldsites, particularly to understand the suitability of research methods such as the interview, has been criticised for posing a challenge beyond the ability of the individual fieldworker. I argue that this activity can be largely fulfilled by the reconceptualization of language learning which is already being undertaken. Finally, are there ways in which ethnographers can share and build on their own practical experiences of language learning? On the one hand, this would involve strategies for language acquisition in general. For example, in a discussion of ethnographic language documentation, Hill (2006: 115) writes that ‘weird or jarring’ linguistic patterns may indicate significant sociolinguistic differences and should be explored with two rules in mind: ‘The first is to always assume that a difference is meaningful, not natural. The second is never to assume that a difference is due to inadequacy on the part of speakers.’ On the other hand, it would also involve sharing strategies for the acquisition of specific languages. As we see in the Tamil diglossic context, successful methods of learning are often counterintuitive and take time to learn independently. My study of Tamil was critically influenced not by anthropological but by sociolinguistic scholarship which highlighted the lack of a convenient pattern of second language acquisition. Simply being aware, in advance, of the absence of such patterns made a substantial difference. Note (1) The research was supported by an ESRC studentship. I would also like to thank Kim Kolor and Nayantara Premakumar for feedback on an earlier version of this chapter.

References Bates, B. (2009) Tamil Oratory and the Dravidian Aesthetic: Democratic Practice in South India. Columbia: Columbia University Press.

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Borchgrevink, A. (2003) Silencing language: Of anthropologists and interpreters. Ethnography 4 (1), 95–121. Briggs, C.L. (1986) Learning How to Ask: A Sociolinguistic Appraisal of the Role of the Interview in Social Science Research. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Britto, F. (1986) Diglossia: A Study of the Theory With Application to Tamil. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. Cody, F. (2009) Daily wires and daily blossoms: Cultivating regimes of circulation in Tamil India’s newspaper revolution. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 19 (2), 286–309. Das, S.N. (2008) Between convergence and divergence: Reformatting language purism in the Montreal Tamil diasporas. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 18 (1), 1–23. Das, S.N. (2011) Rewriting the past and reimagining the future: The social life of a Tamil heritage language industry. American Ethnologist 38 (4), 774–789. Davis, C.P. (2012) ‘Is Jaffna Tamil the best?’ Producing ‘legitimate’ language in a multilingual Sri Lankan school. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 22 (2), E62–E82. Economic and Social Research Council (2018) Postgraduate funding guide. Accessed 15 February 2019. www.esrc.ac.uk/files/skills-and-careers/studentships/postgraduatefunding-guide-for-accredited-doctoral-training-centres/. Ferguson, C.F. (1959) Diglossia. Word 15, 325–340. Fishman, J.A. (1967) Bilingualism with and without diglossia; Diglossia with and without bilingualism. Journal of Social Sciences 23 (2), 29–38. Gair, J.W., Suseendirarajah, S. and Karunatilaka, W. S. (2005) [1978] An Introduction to Spoken Tamil. Colombo: S. Godage and Brothers. Herzfeld, M. (2009) The cultural politics of gesture: Reflections on the embodiment of ethnographic practice. Ethnography 10 (2), 131–152. Hill, J.H. (2006) The ethnography of language and language documentation. In W. Bisang, H.H. Hock and W. Winter (eds) Essentials of Language Documentation (pp. 113–128). Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Hudson, A. (2002) Outline of a theory of diglossia. International Journal of Society and Language 157, 1–48. Kailasapathy, K. (1979) The Tamil Purist Movement: A re-evaluation. Social Scientist 7 (10), 23–51. Kalaja, P. and Ferreira Barcelos, A.M. (eds) (2003) Beliefs about SLA: New Approaches, Dordrecht, Boston and London: Kluwet Academic Publishers. Kandiah, T. (1978) Standard language and socio-historical parameters: Standard Lankan Tamil. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 16, 59–75. Okely, J. (2012) Anthropological Practice: Fieldwork and the Ethnographic Method. London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic. Phipps, A. (2010) Ethnographers as languge learners: From oblivion and towards an echo. In P. Collins and A. Gallinat (eds) The Ethnographic Self as Resource: Writing Memory and Experience into Ethnography (pp. 97–110). Oxford and New York: Berghan Books. Ramaswamy, S. (1997) Passions of the Tongue: Language Devotion in Tamil India, 1891– 1970. London, Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: University of California Press. Schiffman, H.F. (1978) Diglossia and purity/pollution in Tamil. In C. Maloney (ed.) Contributions to Asian Studies, Vol. II: Language and Civilization Change in South Asia (pp. 98–110). Leiden: E.J.Brill. Schiffman, H.F. (1996) Linguistic Culture and Language Policy. London and New York: Routledge. Schiffman, H.F. (1997) Diglossia as a sociolinguistic situation. In F. Coulmas (ed.) The Handbook of Sociolinguistics (pp. 205–216). Oxford: Blackwell. Schulman, D. (2016) Tamil: A Biography. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Timm, L.A. (1981) Diglossia old and new: A critique. Anthropological Linguistics 23 (8), 356–367.

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

This chapter examines language use, learning and unlearning in practice and in research in the context of asylum seeking. Extending the focus of language learning beyond the idea of second or third language acquisition to one that incorporates languages of practice in the ethnographic context, the chapter explores how the possibility and place of linguistic unlearning are central to the research process: pragmatically as a research practice to overcome linguistic and communicative barriers and epistemologically to defamiliarise the familiar. Similarly, ‘small talk’ as language in practice is problematised to explore some of the linguistic challenges that can arise in ethnographic research in a second language, in a context that is dominated by politics and where relations are unequal and uneven. The chapter concludes with reflections on positionality, relating to roles, long-standing relationships with research communities, and what this means for changing language in practice and research. Introduction: The Place of Language in Ethnographic Research

Ethnographers distinguish themselves from other social scientists by their method of data collection by prolonged immersion to gain invaluable insights. Language learning must be central to achieving this, but is very rarely, if ever, actually talked about. Borchgrevink (2003) is critical of the silence within social anthropology that fails to acknowledge the use of interpreters in fieldwork and the issues around power and voice that this raises, and of researchers themselves who fail to confront their language competencies in their research sites. Methodological ‘go-to’ 83

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books are equally lacking, with little reference to the place of language learning in conducting research or in the writing up of field notes (for example, Emerson et al., 1995; Hammersley & Atkinson, 2007; Van Maanen, 2011). There are some exceptions in accounts of qualitative research. Temple has written about the role of language in research from the perspective of language learning and in cross-cultural research (1997), and about how language is used to construct representations of people in written and oral accounts (2005). Other studies explore the practical and structural issues of conducting research in a different language to the researcher’s ‘first language’ or ‘mother tongue’, raising considerations about language experience, translation of data and the role of the researcher as translator/interpreter (Edwards, 1998; Edwards et al., 2006; Temple & Edwards, 2002). More recently, scholarly contributions offer a much-neglected but much needed refocus on language learning in qualitative research. Gawlewicz (2016) explores the hierarchical experience of language, and questions how assumptions of language learning play out in fieldwork, revealing a nuanced interplay around identifications between researcher and participants in the field. Gibb and Danero Iglesias (2017) provide a thoughtful and considered analysis of the place of language learning in ethnographic contexts, arguing for a more rigorous documentation of language learning and how fluency may affect the research process. Both accounts are instructive in laying foundations for foregrounding language as an important feature of identity politics in the field and making language learning (and unlearning) epistemologically and methodologically visible in the research process. While these different contributions identify gaps in understanding the place of language learning in ethnographic research, much of their focus remains on the acquisition of a second (or third) ‘foreign’ language. While this is important, it risks reinforcing the idea of the ‘foreignness’ of research participants and raises a number of questions: what of those contexts whereby the geographic site may also be the ‘local context’ for the researcher? What of other language genres that need to be learned in the field to enable research and overcome communicative and linguistic obstacles? What of the role of language in facilitating research relationships and how we learn to speak the language of social intimacy in the field? Finally what of positionality of the practitioner-researcher in multilingual settings? These are questions I grappled with as a language scholar who then had to change my language as a practitioner working in the field of asylum seeking, and then who had to further reflect and change my language as a researcher. In exploring these questions, I hope to contribute to the debates in two ways. First, by extending the focus beyond the learning of a second (or third) ‘foreign’ language to understanding how a practitioner-turned-researcher can move from language use in practice to language use in research in order to better analyse and understand the

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pragmatic and emotive setting of seeking asylum. Second, and building on this, the chapter explores the place of learning to speak small talk in multilingual and highly politicised contexts as well as everyday encounters, to better understand how language learning can be central to navigating uneven social relationships. In so doing, this chapter centres on different genres of language in field sites that have come to be heavily inscribed with power-laden and unequal politics. Ethnographic Research with Asylum Seekers and Refugees in Glasgow

The fieldwork on which this chapter draws began in 2007 and ended in early 2011, involving participant observation with six Francophone African refugee and migrant associations in Glasgow. Each had established itself in Glasgow following the introduction of dispersal policy under the 1999 Immigration and Asylum Act, and members were mostly, but not exclusively, asylum seekers and refugees. Dispersal is the enforced relocation of people claiming asylum to a handful of other UK cities, and whilst the geographic focus of my research is Glasgow, this was not a single geographic place waiting to be entered. Instead, it can be better understood as multi-sited physical and symbolic spaces (Gupta & Ferguson, 1997), constantly being negotiated by myself as an ethnographer and others in the field. These are spaces dominated by punitive policies and regressive legislation, riven with rules and regulations and shaped by denial, disbelief, suspicion and fear, all feeding off a sense of frontier anxiety. Such politicised contexts and situations, and indeed the communicative encounters taking place therein, are characterised by status differentials and unequal power relationships. The scholarship on community interpreting recognises this where very similar concerns around status differentials and power asymmetries advance our understanding about how the voice of the non-English speaking interlocutor comes to be minimised or even silenced (Collard- Abbas, 1989; Shackman, 1984). This urban ethnography was largely concerned with local migrant communities across the city of Glasgow, the routine of association life, and how members account for their association experiences. Fieldwork did not take place within a bounded space where everyone lived together, nor did members necessarily see each other every day. Indeed my own frequency of contact and interaction mirrored that of many members. My fieldwork over a 30-month period involved most of my Saturday evenings ‘hanging out’ at association meetings in members’ homes, taking on various roles (note-taker, secretary, interpreter for invited guests and sometimes babysitter). At these meetings, members, guests, friends, and visitors discussed, debated, argued, organised, worried about and celebrated who they were in Glasgow. I also spent

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time with individual members outside of the association setting. This would be mostly in members’ homes in the high rise flats in dispersal neighbourhoods that criss-crossed the city, but also spending time at community drop-ins, social events and family celebrations, and at individual appointments. However, my engagement in these field sites started much earlier than 2007. From 2000 until 2010 I worked as French community interpreter in Glasgow, (working from English, my first language, into French and vice versa), mainly for people seeking asylum and refugees working in various public service contexts (primary care and acute health care, courts, immigration lawyers, Home Office, advocacy organisations, citizen advice bureaux, social work, education, community development and integration networks). This role brought me into daily contact with hundreds of asylum seekers, dozens of workers from different refugee-related agencies, a wide range of public service providers and NGOs supporting asylum seekers and refugees, as well as various local-level organisations, including church drop-ins, community centres and activist groups. Interpreting laid important foundations for my ethnographic immersion in the field of asylum. I worked hard at understanding the intricacies of the asylum process in the UK, building my language competencies through vocabulary work and general research, developing my own set of resources of published translated guidance and information for asylum seekers, refugees and organisations providing services. Already ‘being there’ meant I had in fact been engaging in much talk about the many different aspects of association life as well as the political structures (dispersal policy ad immigration legislation, asylum support and accommodation) and social institutions (family life, housing, education, religion) framing individual and collective experiences of life in Glasgow. Because of my professional immersion for ten years, and the extension of this through my ethnographic research, a specific fieldwork language genre emerged in my practice, and then in my research, which I describe as: ‘asylum speak’.

‘Speaking Asylum’ through Words and Actions From field notes (12 June 2010) Guy has been leading the discussion so far. He is going through the usual points of order (banking, subscriptions, news, up and coming events…). He then introduces Hélène. During the meeting, I noticed she has been sitting slightly apart from the rest of the group at a table, the rest of us are perched on chairs in the living room, closer to the discussion. I recognise her; she has been the focus of a relatively high profile local campaign following her detention in Dungavel Immigration Removal Centre. She has been sitting so quietly, her shoulders hunched over not really making eye contact, not joining in the banter and chat, not rising to the showboating of some members, regaling the group with tales of what they had been up to and their importance in the

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Cameroonian community. Guy then says he is so happy Hélène is here, her asylum had been refused, she had been destitute, then detained in Dungavel for a few months but is now out on section 4 and it seems she might have her asylum case reviewed under Legacy. The group claps and welcomes her; some members praise God that she is safe. However, Guy reminds us, the battle is not over, there are still brothers and sisters living in dire circumstances. Some members ask him to explain ‘Legacy’, and he says he will after. He reads aloud an email he has received about a vigil at Brand Street, and he urges us all to attend and show our support. Hélène thanks everyone for their support and begins telling us some of what she had been through, members sit listening, shaking their heads and sighing. Some women wipe at tears, saying this is so shameful, asking aloud why the Home Office does this to people.

‘Speaking asylum’ means understanding the nuances and intricacies of immigration policy and legislation (one’s ‘asylum’; Legacy); the different stages of the asylum process, the mechanics of each stage and the agents involved (Legacy, Brand St,) the implementation of welfare support (section 4); the appeals process; and about how people try to survive the asylum process (destitution, detention). This is not an unambiguous language to speak nor is it an unambiguous linguistic space to occupy. It requires a nuanced understanding of language use in research with different interlocutors, as well as the political and ideological positions of those interlocutors, often occurring in contexts of highly asymmetrical relations of power (Pratt, 1991). ‘Speaking asylum’ is a messy business; it does not occur in places where there is a homogeneous competency or grammar shared identically and equally among all the interlocutors. As Gawlewicz (2016) argues, assumptions about experiences of language learning should be avoided if we are to understand the relationship between language and power. ‘Speaking asylum’ occurs in places where linguistic competency is incredibly uneven, revealing the politics of language in the field (Rodgers, 2012). Associations were made up of mainly, but not exclusively, asylum seekers and refugees; there were members who were in Scotland as international students and on work visas, instead occupying a, relatively speaking, more privileged positon of being international students and migrant workers. They had not learned to speak asylum because they did not need to. This unevenness is exacerbated by constantly changing immigration legislation and policies, which challenge competencies and demands of its speakers so that learning this particular language of practice becomes an ongoing endeavour. As a language learner, just when you think you reach ‘fluency’, a new policy or set of rules are introduced and the learning has to start again. My own move from practitioner to ethnographer revealed to me a particular understanding of how to ‘speak asylum’. In terms of how I used language, over time a new vocabulary and way of talking crept into my work as an interpreter and researcher. ‘Speaking asylum’ involved

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elements of language switching and mixing, of multilingual lexical adjustments (for example le Home Office; le GP; le housing, mon social worker; mon appeal). My field notes were mainly written in French peppered with English words and fieldwork involved constant language mixing and switching. Words are used in short-hand and as signifiers for much wider and complex processes relating to points at which people found themselves in the asylum process and their welfare entitlement (for example je suis asylum; je suis section 4; je suis destitute; je suis legacy case; je vais signer à Brand Street). Temple (2005) describes a tidying up process in the translation of data, and how as a result tidied up accounts change how we see people. However, learning to ‘speak asylum’ offers an alternative strategy; even when grammatically or syntactically incorrect, learning and using language as it occurs in the field with participants in the spoken and written form means their words – and worlds – are privileged. ‘Asylum speak’ is both verbal and written. As a language genre, it has its own codes, symbols and signifiers that need to be learned, for example JR (judicial review); ARE (Appeals Rights Exhausted) ETD (Emergency Travel Documents); Section 4, 9, 55, 95 (references to articles in different legislation relating to welfare support); HP, DL, ILR, (forms of leave to remain); SEF (Statement of Evidence form); NAM (New Asylum Model); AIT (Asylum and Immigration Tribunal); ARC (Application Registration Card); CO (Case Owner); CIO (Chief Immigration Officer); FT (fasttrack processing). And in the field, this language constantly moves to and fro between paper and spoken words in discussions with Home Office representatives, advocacy support organisations, and in association meetings when talking with members. Each time, ‘speaking asylum’ necessitated lexical adjustments including adapting pronunciation, sometimes sounding like ‘bad French’ as if intentionally mangling French pronouns with English words for comic effect! Importantly, speaking this language is a pragmatic aspect of fieldwork and of community interpreting. However, in interpreting studies it remains a vastly under-researched and poorly acknowledged aspect of interpreting practice, where the interpreter-as-machine conduit model continues to dominate, as do interpreting ‘verbatim’ approaches versus those designed to promote wider cultural communication and understanding (Flores, 2005; Temple & Edwards, 2002). Such approaches fail to recognise the nuances of language use in practice while often requiring precisely the kind of ‘unlearning’ of the target language discussed above. I had studied French at school then at university to degree level and worked in Scotland and France in different roles in the commercial sector, returning to study at various points in my career. Through study, work and friendships, I have learned how to speak French in different genres, registers, contexts and with different publics. Interestingly this linguistic ‘unlearning’ of ‘correct French’ I had so painstakingly learned over

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these years was in itself a form of new learning, making my practice as researcher (and interpreter) more effective. It had what can be described as a bridging or connecting effect between the people in the research, the field site and me as the researcher, and reinforced my own insider status with both research participants and other people I came across during the research (for example, community development workers in integration networks and Home Office asylum caseworkers). It might be argued that these words would have some varied level of meaning to someone not immediately working in the field of asylum. But I would describe these as instances of ‘speaking asylum’, of using words in a meaningful way, of saying enough to know what is being referred to. This is not simply in terms of a place or a personal set of circumstances, but also in the way in which these places and processes take on a much greater meaning for the person speaking the words and the person hearing them, revealing the uneven social relationships in place. Again here, the importance of political context to understanding the place of language use in practice and how this translates into language use in research more generally needs to be emphasised and acknowledged. ‘Speaking asylum’ is pragmatic and emotive. The pain and trauma of the asylum process for many meant that words would often be replaced by knowing silences and glances, of nodding heads and resigned looks; of using words that carried a weight of meaning and of not having to explain over and over again. When someone spoke of being on voucher support, there was tacit understanding that he or she was, to use the appropriate bureaucratic language ‘appeals rights exhausted’ (ARE). During fieldwork when members shared stories about friends who had been detained or who were destitute, when we listened we could understand not only the details but also feel the effects of their words. ‘Speaking asylum’ required a process of, paradoxically, knowing when to be silent, because in occupying these spaces we had also learned about the lived effects of these bureaucratic and administrative categories, labels and processes on individuals in the everyday. Sometimes this experience simply did not need to be articulated through words. In this sense speaking became an embodied practice that was often necessary in the field to resist the dehumanising effects of the language of asylum policy. As an emergent language genre, ‘asylum speak’ and the practices of ‘unlearning’ described in this chapter highlight the importance of feelings, personal experiences, histories and memories. In moving beyond the conventional notion of language learning as being about speech and writing, ‘asylum speak’ and the practices involved could be understood as a form of translanguaging (Wei, 2011; 2018). Just as communication was functional and pragmatic, affective and embodied, not all talk was asylum or association talk, and small talk as another specific language genre played a vital role as I moved from practitioner to researcher, navigating the complexities and nuances of language use in practice and language use in research.

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Learning the Language of ‘Small Talk’

By 2000, when I began working as a French interpreter, I had been learning and working in French in one form or another for 13 years. Although my own language learning continued well after my undergraduate and postgraduate studies, it was my work as a community interpreter that was to dominate my language learning for the next 13 years. But it was not all plain sailing. In my role as a researcher and community interpreter, my understanding of French was sufficient for certain topics, such as the asylum process, family life, emotions, where the finer nuances and connotations of words and phrases are vital. However, at times, my French seemed lacking and this generally fell into two areas. First, in how I communicated some of the conceptual ideas I was grappling with. At times, I can admit this led to misunderstandings: I had learned the jargon, so I believed, but not how to communicate this in a meaningful way. For example, when seeking fieldwork consent from association members I would explain what I wanted to do (observer, assister) which invariably led to questions as to ‘Why?’ and ‘What did I expect to see?’ and ‘Like a spy?’ leading to even more confusion and sometimes suspicion. I learned that I needed to say much, much more. Looking back over field notes, in margins I had written notes to myself ‘observer?’ and later ‘explain observation better!’ This made me mindful that the sort of misunderstandings that happen in a foreign language do in fact happen within a language all the time. I experienced similar difficulties when explaining the research to an English speaking association and as Agar (1994: 15) points out ‘learning a second language and learning more about your own language are – in principle – the same thing’. One of the positive, if unanticipated, effects of feeling less than fluent when it came to talking research was that it made me work much harder at justifying my methodological choices to participants. A second, very important aspect of this ethnographic fieldwork was that speaking French facilitated ‘small talk’, those ordinary topics of conversation that establish each of us as ‘normal’ (Hammersley & Atkinson, 2007; Oakley, 1981). Engaging in participant observation research involves establishing and maintaining social relationships with people and ‘small talk’ is considered a key aspect of this. However, the value of ‘small talk’ is often missing from accounts of ethnographic research with asylum seekers and refugees. This may be due to language barriers, but also to the wider set of external circumstances affecting asylum seekers and refugees: there are often more pressing topics for discussion. Nevertheless, in the case of this ethnography, ‘small talk’ provided much needed social intimacy and normality in extremely difficult personal circumstances and conditions. I believed from the outset that it was very important to find common ground to normalise communication and social interaction: not all talk needs to be ‘asylum talk’ or even ‘association talk’. While

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‘speaking asylum’ was an almost permanent feature of all talk, ‘small talk’ allowed for alternative narratives and social connections to develop and consequently we were able to talk about a wide range of topics related to the research context and life more generally, practice social proximity and make a virtue of reactivity (Oakley, 1981). Through ‘small talk’, information about me, my background became part of the research process: my nationality (as a Scottish woman with an Italian name speaking French), where I grew up, and my family’s own immigrant background. ‘Small talk’ often turned to language learning and that although I was not a ‘native speaker’ of French I was able to communicate fluently. I was often asked how (and where) I had learned to speak French and how long it had taken me to reach my levels of ­competency. When I explained, and shared stories of my linguistic incompetencies along the way, participants often responded by sharing their experiences of struggling with English in Glasgow. This kind of reciprocity of experience was not only a methodological tool, it also highlighted the kinds of differences and similarities in the experience of language learning. Gawlewicz (2016) warns of making assumptions in this regard; and I would add here the importance of foregrounding the structural, social and political factors underpinning language learning. While I recognise learning French was my choice and largely structured around educational institutions, the same could not be said of asylum seekers in Glasgow who did not have these same options. Even so, from the feminist standpoint, this willingness to share experiences and knowledge is considered central to diminishing barriers and equalising relationships (Oakley, 1981). Nevertheless, a shared spoken language is not entirely unproblematic: language accumulates particular social, cultural and political meanings. Equally, our social locations influence our experiences and the way we describe these (Edwards, 1998; Edwards et al., 2006). Nor is language a neutral medium, it is only one marker of similarity among many other markers of difference (Edwards, 1998; Rhodes, 1994; Twine, 2000), including what are seen as cultural norms and expectations. Just as having to develop the linguistic competency to effectively communicate in practice, competency in doing ‘small talk’ should not be taken as a given. From field notes (9 February 2008): I arrive at 8pm. The meeting is due to begin at 7.30pm, but still at 8pm only Julien, who is hosting, is present. Julien lives alone, although I knew he had recently married and that his new wife was going to be joining him soon. I comment on his wedding photo on the windowsill and he smiles. He asks me if I was married. I say yes. ‘Children?’ ‘Not yet,’ I reply. ‘How long have you been married?’ ‘Thirteen years.’ ‘And no kids…?’ (He’s shaking his head, I’m feeling awkward). He invites me to take a seat. I briefly mention how cold it was (it was February) and he agrees and laughs, yes, Scottish weather! And

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wonders aloud if he will ever get used to it. I assure him he would. In the living room, both armchairs are positioned in front of the television, football is on and Cameroon is playing. I ask what he is watching and he tells me the Africa Cup of Nations. We sit and watch the game. Drinks have been set out on the dining table, he says to help myself, that the women are bringing the food later. We sit in silence. Minutes tick by slowly. I like football but feel completely inadequate, not knowing how to talk about the game in French. An hour passes in almost complete silence, then other (male) members begin to arrive. The buzz in the room about the game changes: banter, armchair refereeing, shouting at the TV set for ill-judged decisions, laughter interspersed with questions about work and life generally. When some female members arrive they go straight into the kitchen, call me in and the conversation turns to their children, school life and weekend activities.

Annoyed at my lack of ability to talk about football in French, I went home and wrote up notes on ‘talking football’ that would allow me to converse more fluently should a similar situation arise (forward; striker; offside; defender; score; clear it away…!). I found myself watching football at home with my field notebook to hand, writing phrases in English to then later translate. Admittedly, this all now seems rather excessive, saying more about my inexperience as a researcher trying so hard to prepare for the unexpected, even though it was not a completely wasted endeavour with different international football tournaments happening over the course of fieldwork! Reflecting on my ‘default’ response to ‘do vocabulary work’ after this encounter, I realise that central to my methodological approach was to try to normalise field encounters and this meant learning as wide a range of language genres as possible to facilitate this process. I have already discussed this in relation to ‘asylum speak’, but it kept returning in the form of ‘small talk’ topics. This can be understood as an extension of how my language learning to date as an interpreter and researcher, meticulously drafting vocabulary lists for the different contexts I worked in and constantly revising these, was essential in bridging the gap between being an interpreter and being a researcher. ‘Small talk’ as a reflexive methodological tool offers an important and under-theorised dimension to the sociological methods literature generally, and to studies involving research with asylum seekers and refugees specifically who are no different in their desire to talk about the ordinary everyday stuff of life. That as researchers we might also need to learn how to ‘do small talk’ in a second or third language is an under-researched and poorly acknowledged aspect of ethnography, despite its value of normalising social relationships. In many ways, it is important to help in our understanding of the politics and place of language in the field, as Rodgers (2012) argues, not just to gain access but also to understand what different language dynamics reveal about the field we research.

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Language Learning and Positionality in the Field

Earlier in this chapter I explored how my position as a community interpreter was in many respects my passport into the field (Hannerz, 1980) and was central to ‘speaking asylum’. This prior knowledge (of individuals, their personal stories, and of service providers, agencies and asylum processes) communicated through language affected my field relationships, my approach to fieldwork and data analysis. I was a trusted interpreter, a ‘face on the scene’ – ‘it’s Teresa, we know her!’ – all of which played a central role in facilitating my ‘extension’ into the participants’ world. Talking asylum and engaging in small talk privileged access and facilitated communication between myself and the participants, and went some way to redress power imbalances. However, my own familiarity with the field sites combined with my positionality as interpreter-researcher was not without its own complexities. There were instances of mistrust of my shift in role from interpreter to researcher and participant in association life. At different points during the ethnography, I was told that some members thought I was a ‘Home Office spy’, having seen me interpret at the Home Office and then attend an association meeting on a Saturday night. They had, I was told, ‘put two and two together’. This serves as an important reminder about the ambiguous place of language in practice and research in contexts of uneven power relationships. In these moments, I was reminded that no matter how hard I worked to maintain and project an independent and objective professional persona, I simply could not control how others saw me. To overcome these misunderstandings, I relied heavily on ‘small talk’ and the language of social interaction to build social relationships and trust. On occasion, I was actively excluded from ‘small talk’ and association talk when participants switched from French to Lingala or Swahili. Although I could not know this for sure, this might have been a deliberate strategy to exclude me from their discussion. During fieldwork at one community event, I was sitting with some Congolese women who were talking about another French interpreter who had begun learning Lingala, much to the consternation of this group who felt ‘it was not her business to speak their language’. When I suggested that perhaps she wanted to be able to say some basics, and that I too had learned how to say hello in Lingala, ‘mboti na yo’ (although whenever I did it was always met with a big smile and a response which I never understood!) But they shook their heads firmly, ‘No, no no … she wants to know what we talk about when we speak Lingala’. This idea of ‘whose business it is’ to speak a certain language at a certain point is a fascinating one. In as much as the place of language learning in ethnographic scholarship is missing, so too are accounts of where actively trying to learn a language might equally be seen as problematic and appears to be a valid question in ethnographic research if

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we are indeed to challenge the ‘fieldwork mystique’ (Borchgrevink, 2003; Gibb & Danero Iglesias, 2017). Arguably, asking this question around entitlement to learn a language provides one way to assert power, particularly important for people considered in marginalised positions socially, politically, culturally and linguistically. It also challenges the asymmetries of the particular political, historical and cultural relationships between languages and people. Asylum seekers and refugees are often called to speak at the behest of others, notably Home Office representatives, but also of researchers; this assertion of Lingala being ‘their’ language speaks in some way to a reassertion of language competencies, that are not (should not?) be open to everyone. Conclusion

There are undoubtedly varied and complex aspects of language learning in the field, and doing research in the language of participants creates a fascinating and challenging fieldwork context that can stimulate communication and help researchers work around shifting positions in the field. Bound up in my own experiences have been the effects of multi-layered language learning and competency as a researcher, interpreter and insider-­ outsider. This chapter adds to our understanding of how language use in practice and research changes for the practitioner-turned-researcher. I found that learning to ‘speak asylum’ as an interpreter was in itself a form of translanguaging and language training that was vital to becoming an effective researcher, and as important as being able to speak French. This raises interesting epistemological concerns around how ‘speaking asylum’ helped me navigate my own position in the field with a variety of communities and publics with language as a tool for access, of practice and as a symbol of insider-ness. It is in reflecting on the place of language in the moment of interaction that I have both learned and unlearned about language in practice and research, and about how different language ‘competencies’ are required to overcome linguistic and communicative barriers, producing a range of effects in the field. This suggests further exploration of the idea or possibility for language unlearning in other settings where there is a shift from practitioner to researcher, or where these roles become blurred. Moreover, this speaks to unexplored questions in interpreting scholarship around the pragmatics of language use in practice to facilitate communication beyond the interpreter-as-conduit model. Finally, this chapter offers a way to move beyond a limited account of the place of language in fieldwork that emphasises either second language acquisition or the translation of data. Writing this chapter has led me to think in a more focused way about how language use changes in practice and in the field, about acknowledging the learning process in and of itself and recognising its ongoing nature. It has also revealed to me,

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and to avoid the risk of reproducing ‘foreignness’, how necessary it is not to limit understandings of multilingual practice to the spoken language of an ‘other’. What I hope to have demonstrated is that language use in practice is an ambiguous place that is riven with hierarchies and privilege. Taken together, all of this reinforces that as ethnographers we need to be highly responsive to complexities and nuances of language learning and use across our field sites, be open and honest about the place of language in our work and apply a reflexive logic to how we understand and talk about this. Multilingual encounters are moments where we are reminded we should not necessarily always privilege language competencies or presume benefits of shared language. One way forward is to recognise language as something fluid and adaptable, and ‘unlearning’ as a necessary strategy for defamiliarising the familiar and for providing a way of working through the power, hierarchies and structures of inequality between the ethnographer and her research participants. References Agar, M. (1994) Language Shock: Understanding the Culture of Conversation. New York: Perennial. Borchgrevink, A. (2003) Silencing language: Of anthropologists and interpreters. Ethnography 4 (1), 95–121. Collard-Abbas L. (1989) Training the trainers of community interpreters. In C. Picken (ed.) ITICO Conference Proceedings (pp. 81–85). London: ASLIB. Edwards, R. (1998) A critical examination of the use of interpreters in the qualitative research process. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 24 (2),197–208. Edwards, R., Alexander, C. and Temple, B. (2006) Interpreting trust: Abstract and personal trust for people who need interpreters to access services. Sociological Research Online 11 (1) (accessed 2 November 2016) www.socresonline.org.uk/11/1/edwards.html. Emerson, R.M., Fretz, R.I. and Shaw, L.L. (1995) Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Flores, G. (2005) The impact of medical interpreter services on the quality of health care: A systematic review. Medical Care Research and Review 62 (3), 255–99. Gawlewicz, A. (2016) Language and translation strategies in researching migrant experience of difference from the position of migrant researcher. Qualitative Research 16 (1), 27–42.  Gibb, R. and Danero Iglesias, J. (2017) Breaking the silence (again): On language learning and levels of fluency in ethnographic research. The Sociological Review 65 (1), 134–149. Gupta, A. and Ferguson, J. (eds) (1997) Anthropological Locations: Boundaries and Grounds of a Field Science. Berkeley: University of California Press. Hammersley, M. and Atkinson, P. (2007) Ethnography – Principles in Practice (3rd edn). Abingdon: Routledge. Hannerz, U. (1980) Exploring the City. New York; Guildford: Columbia University Press. Oakley, A. (1981) Interviewing women: a contradiction in terms. In H. Roberts (ed.) Doing Feminist Research. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Pratt, M.L. (1991) Arts of the contact zone. Profession 91, 33–40. Rhodes, P.J. (1994) Race-of-interviewer effects: A brief comment. Sociology 28 (2), 547–558. Rodgers, S. (2012) How I learned Batak: Studying the Angkola Batak language in 1970s New Order Indonesia. Indonesia 93 (April), 1–32.

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Shackman, J. (1984) The Right to Be Understood: A Handbook on Working With, Employing and Training Community Interpreters. Cambridge: National Extension College. Temple, B. (1997) Issues in translation and cross-cultural research. Sociology 31 (3), 607–618. Temple, B. (2005) Nice and tidy: Translation and representation. Sociological Research Online 10 (2) (accessed 2 November 2016) www.socresonline.org.uk /10/2/temple.html. Temple, B. and Edwards, R. (2002) Interpreters/translators and cross-language research: Reflexivity and border crossings. International Journal of Qualitative Methods 1 (2), 1–12. Twine, F. (2000) Racial ideologies and racial methodologies. In F. Twine and J. Warren (eds) Racing Research, Researching Race: Methodological Dilemmas In Critical Race Studies (pp. 1–34). New York and London: New York University Press. Van Maanen, J. (2011) Tales of the Field. On Writing Ethnography (2nd edn). University of Chicago Press: Chicago. Wei, L. (2018) Translanguaging as a practical theory of language. Applied Linguistics 39 (1), 9–30. Wei, L. (2011) Moment analysis and translanguaging space: Discursive construction of identities by multilingual Chinese youth in Britain. Journal of Pragmatics 43 (5), 1222–1235.

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

Mandarin Chinese has been regarded as one of the most influential symbols of the cultural unity and cohesion of Chinese civilisation; however, a rather different picture unfolds when one is in China. Besides the presence of local variations of Mandarin as well as non-Mandarin dialects throughout the country, even the writing system, praised for its unchanged features across places where different dialects or languages are spoken, is not so homogeneous as it is often claimed to be. Building on my experience as a researcher travelling between Mainland China and Taiwan, this chapter will shed light on the challenges a researcher may face when conducting ethnographic fieldwork in a society celebrated for its cultural and linguistic continuity, yet divided by the presence of subordinated groups which use language as a way to assert their political identities. To reach this objective the chapter will look at language not as a mere coding system and manifestation of the culture of a nation but rather as a realm where power and politics intersect to serve the interests of a dominant group, and which may have an impact on the research process and outcomes. Introduction

As a student in the Department of Oriental Languages and Civilisation at the University of Venice in the early 2000s, I became familiar with one of the world’s most ancient civilisations by studying its main traditional cultural features, such as arts, literature, philosophical thought, religions and language. The last of these is definitely one of the most fascinating aspects of Chinese civilisation. Traceable back to the third millennium BCE, it has been regarded as one of the most influential symbols of the 97

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cultural unity and cohesion of this ancient civilisation (Norman, 1988: 1). This is particularly relevant if we consider the writing system. Indeed, Chinese ideograms are acknowledged to be a stable and unaltered system, independent of phonetic changes which may occur in different places and throughout history. During my university studies, I was trained to regard language as a coding system and a manifestation of the cultural environment of a social group. I acquired information about the existence of dialects and minority languages. In a history course, I learnt about the colonial history of Macao and Hong Kong, and the special relations between Beijing and Taipei. Yet, framed as secondary themes within history and society classes, it was hard to gain an in-depth understanding of how these sub-groups could use language to claim their political identities in opposition to the official discourse promoted by Beijing. Furthermore, with increasing work and study opportunities in a previously sealed environment (the People’s Republic of China, or PRC), most of my work and study experiences remained limited to the territory governed by Beijing, reinforcing, in this way, a knowledge of Chinese culture and society as it manifested itself in Mainland China (the PRC). When I decided to move to Taiwan (Republic of China, ROC) thanks to a scholarship opportunity, however, a different social, political, and linguistic reality unfolded before my eyes, despite an easily identifiable cultural continuity across the Taiwan Strait. If linguistic diversity reflects the language policies introduced in the last century by the governments ruling each side of the Taiwan Strait, social and political differences could be explained in light of the opposing political ideology each government built on during the Cold War era. On top of this, a ban on social and economic exchanges across the Taiwan Strait from 1949 until the end of the 1980s further increased the linguistic, social and political distance, which still exists to this day. If, after the lifting of the ban in 1987, social and economic integration across the Taiwan Strait has increased exponentially, allowing more hybridity and fluidity between the two societies (Harding, 1993), the whole picture is problematised by the political interests which are at stake in cross-Strait dialogues. Once in Taiwan, through the process of re-learning a language I had previously mastered and adapting to the new environment, I discovered that the image of China I had built through my university studies was an abstract and apolitical entity which reflected the position of the PRC, but did not consider the other Chinese identities which may or may not recognise their inclusion into the PRC. Consequently, I began to take a critical look at how these themes are addressed in courses on Chinese culture and civilisation in Western academia. Against this background, the aim of the following chapter is to explore two main themes: the issues arising when conducting ethnographic work across social and political realities that are not sufficiently

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problematised within Western academia; and the strategies that seem to be the most appropriate for dealing with the linguistic problems engendered by fieldwork experience in this specific context. My main objective, throughout the chapter, is not only to problematise the process of doing ethnographic research in a cultural and social context where the operative language is not a researcher’s mother tongue, but also to shed light on other implications that arise when language acquisition occurs in a teaching environment lacking a degree of reflexivity about how politics and power relations could shape the use of language in a society and how this could also impact the whole research process. This chapter is framed within socio-linguistic debates looking at language not just as a coding system, but also as a manifestation of social processes and political ideologies. In other words, the chapter discusses the complex ways in which power, knowledge production and language intersect during ethnographic fieldwork to shape the way research is framed and develops. Theoretical Framework: Language, Politics and Power

Earlier theories of language, developed in the context of European Enlightenment, saw a close relation between language, community and place. Building on the notion of the Herderian Triad, these theories associated language to a specific national community to the point that an ideal model of society was seen as mono-lingual (Blommaert & Verschueren, 1992: 362). This conceptualisation clearly reflected the social and political changes that occurred in Europe in those years. Indeed, with the emergence of nation-states, language was used as a means to ‘give identity and boundedness to each community’ (Canagarajah, 2013: 21). Yet, more recently, literary and cultural critiques have opened new paths of interpretation. Language is not anymore seen solely as a neutral feature of national identity, but it is critically investigated in its power to shape inclusion and exclusion and patterns of domination (Bermann, 2005: 4). Language is not just a coding system and part of the cultural heritage of a given society; it may also reveal significant details about political interests and the relationships of domination and subordination between social groups within that society (Diaske et al., 2016; Phillipson, 2007). As Edelman (1984: 46) points out, although language is not perceived as political at all, it is a manifestation of power and politics as it ‘structures perceptions of status, authority, merit, deviance, and the causes of social problems’. In a similar vein, Grillo (1989: 8–9) i­dentifies two dimensions where power manifests itself through language: at the macro-level it is possible to explore how language is used by and can influence major institutional formations; at the micro-level it is important to assess how language is used by people in interpersonal relations to exert their power. For instance, the

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fact that certain languages are more acknowledged than others by the international community reflects the status a nation may hold in the hierarchy of power between nation-states. This affects people’s everyday lives, as individuals who can speak global or majority languages have considerable advantages over people whose mother tongue is not a major language (Craith, 2007: 2). In a study exploring the status of a few major languages within the European Union, Phillipson (2007: 70) asserts that there is a ‘European linguistic apartheid’, a de-facto hierarchy of languages favouring the exclusion of minority mother tongues from schools and public services. Similarly, within a national community, language policies favouring certain languages may tell us about the status of social groups speaking minor languages. Obviously, this is not just a one-way process, as social groups may also have a degree of negotiating power with respect to their governments. Taking the case of non-English languages within the United Kingdom, Grillo (1989: 106) argues for instance that Welsh, Irish and Scottish communities may use their native language as a way to define their national identity against the administrative, legal, social and economic dominance of the English language. Applying these reflections to the specific case of the Chinese language, it is important to take into consideration how power and politics may significantly affect language choices at the national level and how social groups may respond to these. Narrowing down to the specifics of the cross-Strait case, this chapter will explore the reasons behind linguistic differences between the PRC and Taiwan and the impact this diversity may produce when scholars conduct research on both sides of the Strait. Two Systems, Many Languages?

Taiwan and Mainland China, divided (or brought together) by a stretch of sea, the Taiwan Strait, share certain ethnic, cultural and linguistic features. They are both populated by a majority of ethnic Han people, they are characterised by a prevalent Confucian culture and their official national language is Mandarin Chinese. Overall, after a liberalisation of social and economic exchanges across the Strait, the two sides have never been as integrated as they are today (Harding, 1993; King, 2011). Yet, on closer view, it is clear that the two societies differ extensively from each other, despite these shared general cultural and linguistic features. As a matter of fact, the two sides of the Taiwan Strait are not only ruled by different governments, holding antagonistic views with regard to each other’s legitimacy over the Chinese nation and territory, but they also have gone through dissimilar processes of economic, social and political development, as a consequence of at least one hundred years of separate histories. These contradictions emerge clearly when looking at the use of the official language in its written and spoken forms, across the Taiwan Strait.

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On both sides of the Taiwan Strait, Mandarin Chinese is the official language. It is used for official dialogues, economic and cultural exchanges, as well as social interactions. If we look at the usage of Mandarin Chinese across the Taiwan Strait, it may be hard to frame it within existing linguistic theory. A condition named ‘diglossia’, when different languages or different variations of the same language are spoken by a national community, has been identified in Mainland China and in Taiwan, due to the co-existence between Mandarin Chinese, local dialects and the languages of various ethnic minorities (Norman, 1988: 250). However, the fact that there are not substantial differences between the way Mandarin Chinese is spoken in Taiwan and in the PRC makes it hard to apply this concept to the use of Mandarin Chinese across the Taiwan Strait. Neither could the use of Mandarin Chinese in the cross-Strait context be framed within what Ferguson (1966: 310–311) has defined as a minor language or a language with a special status, or what Craith (2007: 10) has referred to as a minority language or a dialect, since on both sides of the Taiwan Strait Mandarin Chinese is not only the official language but also the language of the hegemonic group, imposed on other ethnic and social minorities for decades. It is also difficult to look at Mandarin Chinese as an international or intralingual language (Ammon, 1991, cited by Craith, 2007: 3), mainly because Taiwan only has de facto recognition as a state and it is difficult to address the cross-Strait case as an international relationship. The truth is that, in its spoken form, there are not crucial differences between Mandarin Chinese in the PRC and in Taiwan. Yet, since Mandarin Chinese is written in an ideographic script, a division between spoken language and written form exists. In this way, despite a degree of continuity of oral Mandarin Chinese across the Taiwan Strait, difference exists in terms of written characters: while in Taiwan a traditional form was preserved linked to ancient characters, in Mainland China a simplified form of Chinese characters was introduced with the establishment of the PRC. This differentiation is a consequence of decisions taken by the two ruling governments after the national territory was split into two parts, the ROC governed by the Nationalist government in Taiwan and the PRC governed by the Communist government on the mainland. Thus, while in Mainland China the Communist government pushed for a detachment from traditions and, among other reforms, introduced a simplified version of Chinese characters, which would favour the advance of literacy in society, in Taiwan the Nationalist government launched several assimilationist policies intended to transform the island into a protector of Chinese traditions and values. Traditional characters, still officially used on the island today, are a legacy of these policies and have gradually become an important element in asserting Taiwanese identity in contrast to the PRC.

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The picture became even more complex after a shift of power that occurred in Taiwan in the late 1980s. With native Taiwanese people acquiring increasing control over national politics, a process of Taiwanisation led to greater recognition and tolerance of local languages (Scott & Tiun, 2007: 57). Consequently, local dialects and aboriginal languages, previously banned, acquired increasing recognition on the island (Scott & Tun, 2007; Norman, 1988: 251; Ramsey, 1987: 107). Clearly, the political implications of these new trends are not welcomed by Beijing as they challenge the status of Mandarin as the national language and, above all, they threaten the ideal of ‘one China’ (Scott & Tiun, 2007: 59). From this example, it is clear that language should not only be interpreted as a coding system or a manifestation of culture; it is also a realm reflecting the interests of states and relationships of domination and subordination between social groups. It is important, when learning the language and culture of a civilisation, to take into consideration these matters, as they may shape the whole understanding of that society. In the next section I am going to explore my experience with the Chinese language, especially in its written form, as a student, worker and researcher. One Language, Two Systems

During my university studies I learnt to read and write the simplified version of Chinese characters. In Western academia, the teaching of simplified characters has become more prevalent as a reflection of the economic development of the PRC on a global scale. My guess at the time was that, once I had acquired a reasonable knowledge of Chinese characters in either their traditional or simplified form, switching to the other system would be unproblematic. Furthermore, I was confident I could overcome this problem easily thanks to a couple of courses on ancient Chinese that I took during my university studies. Yet, when I moved to Taiwan for the first time, faced with daily frustrations in recognising or writing even the simplest characters, I realised that to switch from one system to the other was not as straightforward as I had thought. My mind was shaped into the simplified characters system and I faced difficulties in understanding the logics of the traditional one. I was obliged to attend beginner lessons, despite the fact that my oral language skills were too advanced for this. These technical problems also impacted on other practical spheres of my daily life. For instance, in an era in which mobile phones were a major device for communication, I found it hard to send text messages as I was used to the Pinyin input method, commonly used in Mainland China, but not in Taiwan. Struggling with these practical issues, my whole confidence in using the Chinese language decreased considerably, as I could not recognise

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several ideograms on the news and on the street or when communicating via computer or sms with my friends and informants. This intersected with some differences in oral language. A number of expressions that are common in Mainland China are not used in Taiwan and vice-versa. This includes nouns, such as tomatoes (xihongshi in the PRC, fanqie in Taiwan), potatoes (tudou in the PRC, malinshu in Taiwan), as well as words that could generate rather unpleasant situations if used improperly; for instance, the term xiaojie, which in Taiwan is used to refer to a service assistant, may be offensive in the PRC, where it could mean prostitute. The crucial point is that language, along with behavioural standards, may function as a symbol of national identity and could be used as a way to define the limit between those who belong and those who do not belong to the Taiwanese nation. For instance, using the word fuwuyuan, meaning service assistant in the PRC, may arouse some contempt from Taiwanese people, who would associate it with a manifestation of Mainland Chinese identity, which is stigmatised in Taiwan. Also, behavioural patterns which are peculiar to Mainland China are not applicable in Taiwan and vice-versa. For instance, being polite and gentle towards your interlocutor, an approach that generally is rewarded in Taiwan as it was influenced by Japanese culture in the first half of the 20th century, is not so effective in the PRC. As Cargile and colleagues (1994: 227) point out, as a social phenomenon language may contribute to establishing differences between social groups when terminology, norms and conventions, which are developed and accepted within a given group, tell its members what is ‘right’ and what is ‘wrong’ within that community, and therefore who belongs and does not belong to the group. This is particularly important in the cross-Strait context. If I could overcome my insecurities related to oral Chinese relatively quickly, it took years to gain a degree of confidence with reading and writing skills. Even after several years immersed in the traditional character system of Taiwan, my mind still finds it easier to identify simplified characters. Obviously, it was not only a matter of switching from one to another written or spoken code. The presence of linguistic differences, indeed, is only one of the several consequences of dissimilar political ideologies across the Strait, which may also include different standards of behaviour, cultural practices, national identities. These may in turn imply dissimilar ways of conducting fieldwork. For instance, my identity as a foreigner who could speak Mandarin Chinese was perceived differently across the Taiwan Strait. In Taiwan, a context characterised by freedom and democracy, my identity as a foreigner, along with my language skills, proved crucial in facilitating my access to informants, organisations, data and resources. Above all, as I was expected, as a foreigner, to face more difficulties with the language,

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my informants and interlocutors consistently showed great concern and patience towards me. Thus, this condition as insider (determined by my ability to speak their language) and outsider (as a consequence of the recognition of the fact that Chinese was not my first language) helped me considerably during my fieldwork in Taiwan. However, this high degree of freedom and easy access to data and people, which characterised my fieldwork activity in Taiwan as a foreigner, did not occur in Mainland China. As a matter of fact, in the PRC my language skills did not help in a consistent way. Other important factors, such as personal relations, the legacy of the responsibility system, the political sensitivity of certain themes, could affect the success, or lack thereof, of encounters with my informants – to the extent that, in certain situations, especially outside the university environment, my language skills would turn out to be useless and my foreign identity would be perceived as a problem. For instance, seeing my frustration due to the difficulty of setting up an interview with a government official at the provincial level, one of my Chinese colleagues reminded me that in this context, my identity as a foreigner could also hamper the success of my attempts. The fact that my research interest, cross-Strait migration for marriage, could cross the line of politically sensitive subjects such as cross-Strait relations, could also contribute to the different challenges I faced as a foreign researcher in Taiwan and in Mainland China. From the perspective of Taiwan, cross-Strait marriage migration is treated as a cross-border phenomenon and it is believed to have an impact not only on the island’s demographic, social and economic structure, but also on its future as a sovereign nation (Friedman, 2010; Yang & Lee, 2009). Despite the sensitivity of the subject, my research interest never became a problem when searching for data and for informants in Taiwan. In the PRC, under the one-China policy framework held by Beijing, Taiwan is regarded as a province and cross-Strait marriage migration is regarded as an internal, yet special, form of migration. As I was trying to investigate how cross-Strait families were included in the project of national re-­unification and whether they could have an impact on crossStrait peaceful development, it turned out to be difficult to have meaningful exchanges with my informants in Mainland China. The literature abounds with accounts explaining the challenges faced by scholars when trying to access data in the PRC, especially when a topic is regarded as politically sensitive (e.g. Xu et al., 2013; Liang & Lu, 2006; Polumbaum, 2014). Similarly, during my interviews, any time I asked about the relationship between politics and cross-Strait families, I did not get a reasonable answer beyond some arguments about the fact that marriage is about love and people and not about politics. Compared with the availability of information and informants in Taiwan, it was not easy to adjust to the sealed environment of Mainland China.

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Clearly, while the technical problems I faced with written and oral language at the beginning gradually faded away as I became more involved with my research, several other concerns gradually emerged related to the political nuances peculiar to cross-Strait relations. As I suggest in the next section, this experience as a researcher between Mainland China and Taiwan may also help to raise some broader reflections on how knowledge production about China and the Chinese language within Western academia had been shaped by these logics. Language, Power and Politics

Mainstream scholarship related to Chinese language and culture often lacks a critical dimension concerning how power relations affect the lack of visibility of certain ethnic or political groups within China. These logics also apply to the cross-Strait case. In a context in which the PRC, as a rising economic power, has greater recognition at the global level, the identity and perspective of Taiwan are often overlooked by mainstream literature on Chinese culture and society. In such conditions, as Dirlik (2004: 20) predicted, Mainland China has become a model for understanding Chinese culture at the expense of many other Chinese identities. It has not been always like this. After the establishment of the PRC in 1949, when ‘Communist China’ became a sealed environment for most Western scholars due to its isolation (Polumbaum, 2014), knowledge production about Chinese society was based on studies carried out in cultural, political and social contexts that had little to do with the PRC. As a matter of fact, as the literature demonstrates (e.g. Thurston & Pasternack, 1983; Polumbaum, 2014: 191), many researchers used Hong Kong and Taiwan, or the PRC émigrés to these areas, as important sources for understanding China. Things changed after 1971, when Taiwan withdrew from the Security Council of the United Nations and lost its recognition as the legitimate government of China, and the centre of attention, and of most global economic and diplomatic exchanges, has gradually shifted to the PRC (Han, 1995: 173; Li, 2006; Bairner & Hwang, 2011). Since the open-door policy promoted by Deng Xiaoping in the late 1970s, foreign researchers have gradually acquired access to an amount of information and sources previously inaccessible, and Chinese scholars have also had access to foreign universities offering important perspectives about doing research in the PRC (Polumbaum, 2014: 191; Thurston & Pasternak, 1983). With these changed conditions, nowadays there is a large amount of data on the PRC, available in both Chinese and English, to the point that the new challenge, for most scholars, is to keep up-to-date with this rapidly expanding scholarship (Polumbaum, 2014). On the other hand, most recent production on China and Chinese society reflects the social, economic and cultural context of the PRC.

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Similarly, the development of a debate on methodological issues scholars may face during fieldwork often reflects the problems experienced in the PRC. For instance, if we examine contemporary literature on ethnographic work in Chinese cultural contexts, there is a great availability of material on the methodological and practical issues related to the political and social reality of the PRC (e.g. Cui, 2015; Dai et al., 2012; Hsiung; 2014; Klotzbuecher, 2014; Liang & Lu, 2006; Polumbaum, 2014; Smith, 2006; Turner, 2010; Xu et al., 2013). The context of Taiwan is often left unexplored. The emergence of Taiwan studies as an autonomous discipline is a recent phenomenon. As Ohlendorf (2011: 218) explains in her work on the evolution of Taiwan Studies worldwide, the PRC was the first country in the world to institutionalise a field called Taiwan Studies with the purpose of supporting Beijing’s nationalistic rhetoric about the island. This led to the evolution of Taiwan Studies globally, often as a distinct field from China Studies and, in certain aspects, subversive of the authority of Beijing. Yet, Taiwan studies still remains a niche subject. I was the product of a system which prioritised, without problematising it, the model of the PRC. Thus I learnt simplified characters and I familiarised myself with the historical, social and political issues of the PRC, leaving unexplored the other identities which remained under the shadow of Mainland China. Yet, once I moved to Taiwan, being constantly immersed in discussions about Taiwanese identity and national sovereignty issues, I became more sensitive to the perspective of Taiwan and, eventually, I interiorised it. I gradually realised that the emphasis on shared cultural background or economic integration, typical of mainstream scholarship on Chinese studies, may be misleading, as there are several points of division within China, in general, and between the two societies that live across the Taiwan Strait, in particular. These include Taiwan’s struggles for recognition against the hegemonic power of the PRC and the fact that many among the Taiwanese population do not identify with the PRC and, instead, push for recognition of Taiwan’s independence. The permanence of a traditional character system in Taiwan, as well as the different methods of phonetic transcription, are a consequence of a long-term history of cross-Strait relations as well as more recent concerns about national identity and sovereignty in Taiwan. In short, I was not trained to think about an important dimension of the language I learnt, namely the political interests shaping language choice in China and Taiwan as well as language diffusion on a global scale. In terms of language learning, as a student of Oriental Languages and Civilisations, I was trained to regard language as a coding system and a manifestation of the cultural environment of a social group; I was not trained to think about it as a manifestation of power and politics. What this highlights is the importance of reflecting on and making explicit the logics of knowledge production, as this may help to shed

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light on issues and identities that otherwise would remain invisible in academic work. Conclusion

Drawing on my study and work experience between China and Taiwan, this chapter has shed light on the difficulties and issues that can arise for researchers when working in a context characterised by cultural and language continuity, on the one hand, yet tainted by issues of national identity and sovereignty, on the other. As I have shown, I initially approached the Chinese world as a student of Oriental Languages and Civilisations and I uncritically acquired the position of the PRC with regard to my understanding of Chinese society and culture. Yet, my decision to move to Taiwan opened up a new awareness with regard to what I learned throughout my studies. The shift between simplified and traditional writing systems, as well as the different methods of phonetic transcription, constitutes the first challenge a foreign scholar may face when moving across the two societies. Yet, this is just the tip of an iceberg, a practical issue, which reflects other more important features, related to power and politics, and which need to be taken into account when conducting research across the Taiwan Strait. In my first move from the PRC to Taiwan I faced the challenge of re-learning certain practical aspects of a language I thought I had already mastered. Yet, new concerns, questions and problems soon emerged with regard to knowledge acquisition. Not only did the social and political reality of Taiwan have little in common with the ‘China’ I learnt at university, but I also realised that the ‘subjectivity’ of Taiwan had remained unproblematised throughout my university studies in Italy. More recently, as a researcher exploring the phenomenon of crossStrait migration for marriage, I felt the urge to go back to Mainland China in order to understand more about the sending society’s context. This entailed a number of new challenges. Going back to the PRC, the world through which I accessed Chinese culture and language the first time, proved relatively easy in technical terms. However, having lived for several years in Taiwan, it was difficult to recognise and adapt to the behavioural standards and language nuances peculiar to Mainland China. Moving between these two societies means adjusting each time to the cultural and linguistic standards that each social and political reality offers. In conclusion, I faced three main problems while doing research between the PRC and Taiwan: the challenge of switching from simplified to traditional characters; the realisation that knowledge about Chinese language and culture in Western academia is based on the model of the PRC and leaves other social and political realities invisible; the fact that,

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as language intersects with politics and power, it is crucial to understand these logics in order to make them explicit as part of knowledge acquisition as well as while conducting research. It is clear, from this account, that language for an ethnographer should not only be seen as a technical and cultural feature of a society, but also as a manifestation of the complex ways in which power, knowledge production and language intersect. References Bairner, A. and Hwang, D.J. (2011) Representing Taiwan: international sport, ethnicity and national identity in the Republic of China. International Review for the Sociology of Sport 46 (3), 231–248. Bermann, S. (2005) Introduction. In S. Bermann and M. Wood (eds) Nation, Language and the Ethics of Translation (pp. 1–10). Princeton: Princeton University Press. Blommaert, J. and Verschueren, J. (1992) The role of language in European nationalist ideologies. Pragmatics 2 (3), 355–375. Canagarajah, A.S. (2013) Translingual Practice: Global Englishes and Cosmopolitan Relations. London: Routledge. Cargile, A.C., Giles, H., Ryan, E.B. and Bradac, J.J. (1994) Language attitudes as a social process: a conceptual model and new directions. Language and Communication 14 (3), 211–236. Craith, M.N. (2007) Language and power: accommodation and resistance. In M.N. Craith (ed.) Language, Power and Identity Politics (pp. 1–20). New York: Palgrave and Macmillan. Cui, K. (2015) The insider-outsider role of a Chinese researcher doing fieldwork in China: the implications of cultural context. Qualitative Social Work 14 (3), 156–169. Dai, J., Chiu, H.F.K., Hou, Z.J. and Caine, E.D. (2012) Conducting community research in rural China: addressing the methodological challenges of recruiting participants in rapidly changing social environments. Asia-Pacific Psychiatry 4, 95–103. Diaske, K., Barakos, E., Motobayashi, K. and McLaughlin, M. (2016) Languaging the worker: globalized governmentalities in/of language in peripheral spaces. Multilingua 35 (4), 345–359. Dirlik, A. (2004) Transnationalism, the press, and the national imaginary in twentieth century China. The China Review 4 (1), 11–25. Edelman, M. (1984) The political language of the helping professions. In M. Shapiro (ed.) Language and Politics (pp. 44–60). Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Ferguson, C. (1966) National sociolingustic profile formulas. In W. Bright (ed.) Sociolinguistics: Proceedings of the UCLA Sociolinguistics Conference, 1964 (pp. 309– 324). Paris: Mouton. Friedman, S. (2010) Marital immigration and graduated citizenship: Post-naturalization restrictions on Mainland Chinese spouses in Taiwan. Pacific Affairs 83 (1), 73–93. Grillo, R.D. (1989) Dominant Languages: Language and Hierarchy in Britain and France. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Han, S.H. (1995) Time to welcome Taiwan back into the United Nations. Asian Affairs: An American Review 22 (3), 172–180. Harding, H. (1993) The concept of ‘Greater China’: Themes, variations and reservations. The China Quarterly, 136, 660–686. Heinrich, L. and Martin, F. (2006) Introduction to part II. In L. Heinrich and F. Martin (eds) Embodied Modernities: Corporeality, Representation, and Chinese Cultures (pp. 115–125). Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press. Hsiung, P.C. (2014) Doing (critical) qualitative research in China in a global era. International Sociology 30 (1), 86–102.

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King, W. (2011) Taiwanese nationalism and cross-strait marriage. Governing and incorporating mainland spouses. In G. Schubert and J. Damm (eds) Taiwanese Identity in the 21st Century: Domestic, Regional and Global Perspectives (pp. 176–193). Abingdon: Routledge. Klotzbuecher, S. (2014) ‘Embedded research’ in collaborative fieldwork. Journal of Current Chinese Affairs 2, 65–85. Li, C.P. (2006) Taiwan’s participation in inter-governmental organizations: An overview of its initiatives. Asian Survey 46 (4), 597–614. Liang, B. and Lu, H. (2006) Conducting fieldwork in China. Observations on collecting primary data regarding crime, law, and the criminal justice system. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice 22 (2), 157–172. Liao, Y.H. (2007) The exclusionary Taiwan immigration laws. Paper presented at the International Conference on Border Control and Empowerment of Immigrant Brides (September 29–30, 2007), accessed 20 December 2015. www.apmigrants.org/articles/ publications/Migrant%20Monitor/Migrant%20Monitor%202008.pdf. Ministry of Interior (2010) Jiushijiujian shangban nianguo renjiehun dengji zhiwaiji yu dalu xianggang pei’ou renshu tongji [Statistics of marriages with a foreign, mainlander and Hong Kong spouse until the first half of year 2010, 99 年上半年國人結婚登記之 外籍與大陸港澳配偶人數統計]. Taipei: Department of Statistics of the Ministry of Interior. Retrieved from www.moi.gov.tw/stat/index.aspx, 20 January 2012. Momesso, L. (2013) Cross-Strait marriage migrants between Taiwan and China: Gendering personal and collective strategies. PhD thesis, School of Oriental and African Studies, London. Momesso, L. (2015a) Between official and concealed: cross-Strait marriage migrants’ strategies of resistance. In A. Lipinsky (ed.) Immigration Societies - Taiwan and Beyond (pp. 171–193). Vienna Taiwan Studies Series Vol. 1. Berlin: LIT. Momesso, L. (2015b) Change and permanence in contemporary Chinese families: A case study of marriage across the Taiwan Strait. In H. Ehlers et al. (eds) Migration – Geschlecht – Lebenswege (pp. 51–76). Münster: LIT Verlag. Momesso, L. (2016) From someone, to no-one, to a new-one: A subjective view of Taiwan’s immigration policies in the context of multiculturalism. In I. Cheng and J. Damm (eds) Taiwan: Self Versus Other. Berlin: LIT. Momesso, L. and Cheng, I. (forthcoming) A team player pursuing its own dreams: Rightsclaim campaign of Chinese migrant spouses in the migrant movement before and after 2008. Follow-up of the Conference on Social Movement in Taiwan after 2008 (SOAS, London, 16–18 June 2014) for edited book publication. Norman, J. (1988) Chinese. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ohlendorf, A. (2011) The construction of Taiwan identity in the global field of Taiwan Studies. PhD thesis, School of Oriental and African Studies, London. Phillipson R. (2007) English in Europe: Threat or promise? In M.N. Craith (ed.) Language, Power and Identity Politics (pp. 65–82). New York: Palgrave and Macmillan. Polumbaum, J. (2014) On location: Reflections on fieldwork in Chinese journalism studies. Asian Journal of Communication 24 (2), 189–201. Ramsey, S.R. (1987) The Languages of China. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Scott, M. and Tiun H.K. (2007) Mandarin-only to Mandarin-plus: Taiwan. Language Policy 6, 53–72. Shih, S.M. (1998) Gender and a new geopolitics of desire: The seduction of mainland women in Taiwan and Hong Kong media. Signs 23 (2), 287–319. Smith, J.N. (2006) Maintaining margins: The politics of ethnographic fieldwork in Chinese Central Asia. The China Journal 56, 131–147. Turner, S. (2010) Challenges and dilemmas: Fieldwork with upland minorities in socialist Vietnam, Laos and southwest China. Asia Pacific Viewpoint 51 (2), 121–134. Thurston, A.F. and Pasternak, B. (eds) (1983) The Social Sciences and Fieldwork in China: Views From the Field. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

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Xu, J.H., Laidler, K.J. and Lee, M. (2013) Doing criminological ethnography in China: opportunities and challenges.Theoretical Criminology 17 (2), 271–279. Yang, W.Y. and Lee, P.L. (2009) Dalu peiou de gongminquan kunjing yiguozu yu fuquan de gongke [The citizenship dilemma of mainlander spouses in Taiwan: The conspiracy of nationalism and patriarchy, 大陸配偶的公民權困境一國族與父權的 共 謀]. Taiwan Minzhu Likan [Taiwan Democracy Quarterly, 臺灣民主季刊] 6 (3), 47–86.

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

In this chapter I make the case for researchers to look at the moments that make them feel anxious about their language in fieldwork (e.g. being inarticulate, uncomfortable or embarrassed). I write this chapter from the perspective of a researcher who learnt (and is still learning) Hungarian and whose attempts at understanding and speaking Hungarian provide plenty of awkward or embarrassing moments to reflect upon. Such moments highlight my evolving relationships with others and wider aspects of power and hierarchy in the fieldwork setting. The chapter calls for researchers who learn another language for fieldwork to reflect on breakdowns in communication as sites of potential breakthroughs, which can become key to understanding fieldwork. At the same time, I hope this chapter can speak to all researchers, as embarrassing moments and communication breakdowns are certainly not confined to language learners, although perhaps learning another language can crystallise communication breakdowns in more obvious ways.

Introduction: Who Knows What?

Despite this chapter’s focus on my communication skills in Hungarian, one of the most embarrassing moments in my early fieldwork relates to me not being able to perform in my first language, English. In 2004 I was carrying out ethnographic research on the everyday lives of Roma and 113

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non-Roma1 children in school and family settings in a fairly poor suburb of an otherwise prosperous town in Central Hungary, the Alföld region (all reflections here are taken from my daily fieldnotes and monthly reports). One pupil, Mark,2 who was around 12 years old at the time (and from a Roma background), had asked me to help him to pronounce Madonna lyrics from her well-known song La Isla Bonita for an upcoming school talent show (called Ki Mit Tud? – ‘Who Knows What?’). He then asked me to perform with him as he felt a bit shy. On the day the room was set up and parents and teachers filed in. I started to feel worried. The atmosphere seemed more serious than I had anticipated, and while we’d practiced the words, Mark and I had never properly practiced the song. Despite growing up in the UK and being a young girl in the 1980s, I somehow hadn’t paid much attention to Madonna. I didn’t really know La Isla Bonita at all apart from to hum along to. The room went silent, the music started and Mark’s nerves got the better of him so he stood back leaving me in the middle of the ‘stage’, which in reality was a couple of cleared desks, so in fact I was standing very close to the expectant faces of parents and teachers. I tried to sing, I turned bright red, I stumbled over the lyrics. I was only saved by Mark himself, who saw I was totally inadequate and got over his nerves to start singing, in a most beautiful voice, one I hadn’t fully appreciated in our practice.3 It was a very memorable experience. To seal my mortifying performance, a teacher grabbed me and, rubbing my arm in sympathy, said ‘Nevermind, my dear, nevermind’ (‘Sosebánd, drágám, sosebánd’). The excruciating embarrassment I felt made me quickly realise two things that were important for that school’s culture. First, it taught me about the importance placed on performance. A certain notion of ‘talent’ was under scrutiny. It was the teachers who decided on what constituted ‘talent’ since they formed a panel of judges for the competition. Second, I noticed that the parents were not permitted to vote, which I then realised was indicative of their relationship to the school: they turned up, were expectant of a ‘good show’, but had little other involvement. It’s worth pausing a moment to consider the wider context of such a talent show in the Hungarian setting. The title of the talent show, Ki Mit Tud? (‘Who Knows What?’), is a title often used for school talent shows in Hungary and is the same as the title of an immensely popular talent show on the Hungarian National Television that ran from the 1960s to the mid 1990s. The television show, on socialist-run state media, was used as a means for the government to note any particular ‘movements’ that might be gaining currency: Beyond representing the glory of socialist culture, television competitions like Ki Mit Tud? served not only to scout new talent and to produce famous public figures to feed the rapidly growing entertainment industry, but also to keep an eye on cultural currents in the population and opinions

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about them. In the socialist parlance of the day, strongly manifested currents were called ‘movements’. (Taylor, 2008: 120)

The public was allowed to vote for their favourite acts in the TV show Ki, Mit Tud? – meaning that Hungarians felt they could ‘participate in shaping the direction in which cultural life would develop’ (Taylor, 2008: 120) – something they were not permitted to do in most other circles of life in communist Hungary. While it was clear that the school talent show was a way to showcase talent, the difference with the TV show was that it was down to the teachers as to who was deemed to be considered as ‘talented’. Parents, as non-voters, were positioned (and positioned themselves) as rather serious, non-interactive audience members. Following up the role of parents in my fieldwork – trying to see how parents themselves viewed the school – I realised that they (whether Roma or non-Roma) constructed school as a very formal space in which there was not much room for negotiation. Roma parents could then feel doubly disadvantaged when, at times, ‘Gypsy’ stereotypes suddenly came into play which made them feel even more alienated from the setting. This relates to the wider culture in Hungary – parents often do not feel consulted when it comes to their children’s education, and Roma parents can feel particularly stigmatised and marginalised in school settings (Sliwka & Istance, 2006). Through my intense embarrassment, I strongly experienced the heavily expectant atmosphere of a ‘good’ performance as well as the power relations in the room. In the school’s version of Ki Mit Tud? it was not really ‘who knows what’, but who was permitted to do what, when, where and why/how. As McDermott writes when looking at ‘ability’ and ‘articulateness’: The issue is not so much who can do what, but what is there that can be done and under what conditions[…] It is not speaker abilities that we need to understand. For a sociocultural account, we must describe (a) the situations that bring speakers and hearers together, (b) the particular relational jobs available for them to work on together, and (c) the language resources, exuberant and deficient, the people have available for talking about what they are doing together. (McDermott, 1988: 41)

This chapter aims at a McDermott-style sociocultural account of second language learning in fieldwork, focusing on moments I saw as communication breakdowns, which on reflection can actually say a lot about ‘what there is that can be done and under what conditions’ (McDermott, 1988). The chapter achieves this by reflecting on two major learning points: the first section details how, in my early stages of fieldwork, I realised that understanding and speaking Hungarian was not enough and I actually needed to learn how to participate in Hungarian in Hungary. The second section is then a reflection on my participation in relation to others

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as a language learner during ethnographic fieldwork. In both sections I use moments of intense emotion (anxiety, fear, embarrassment) as useful in-roads – breakdowns to provide breakthroughs in my understanding of ethnographic fieldwork. But first I look at the theoretical framework that helps to inform my reflections. Theoretical Framework: Learning a Language, Fear and Fieldwork

There is an acknowledged lack of literature on how researchers learn a second language for research and how this affects the research process (Borchgrevink, 2003; Tremlett, 2009; Gibb & Danero Iglesias, 2017). However, there are three disciplines I can draw upon to help me think through my focus on anxiety and language learning in fieldwork: Anthropology, Modern Foreign Languages (often called ‘MFL’) and Sociolinguistics. In this section I give an overview of how they can help me frame the reflections later in the chapter. It is accepted in anthropology that a student’s first experience of fieldwork is seen as a rite of passage (Kloβ, 2016: 22). Whilst ethnography may appear to some as ‘a rather pleasant, peaceful, and instructive form of literary journalism or travel writing’, those who have undertaken in-depth, intense, long-term fieldwork know that it is more of an ‘intense epistemological trial by fire’ (Van Maanen, 2011: ix–x). ‘Tropes of hardship’ are now a recognisable part of fieldwork narratives (Hovland, 2009) and writing about difficulties and reflecting on particular incidents is embodied in the ‘confessional tale’ (Van Maanen, 2011). The challenges of fieldwork are written about extensively: Coffey’s (1999) work on locating the self has been used by many ethnographers who readily identify with the ‘fragmentation of our lives’ that comes with prolonged fieldwork, transforming ‘our perspectives of who we are, and where we belong into chaos’ (Coffey, 1999: 35). As Agar put it: ‘An ethnographer is like a drunk pretending to walk a straight line in a dark room with a gale-force wind blowing through it’ (Agar, 1980: 44). However, despite this wide acknowledgement of the challenges of fieldwork, silence still remains on certain issues. Okely writes about the need to get away from a kind of mystique of ‘immersion’ in fieldwork, citing a contemporary whose apparent ‘authentic, exotic’ fieldwork in ‘isolation’ had actually also included extended luxury holidays in places like Goa (Okely, 2009: 1). Ethnographers, often scared that they are not living up to a myth of the ‘good’ anthropologist, often fail to write about certain situations: for example, sexual harassment, assault and rape during fieldwork (Kloβ, 2016: 12), racially motivated attacks on the researcher (Smith, 2009), or the politics of collaborative fieldwork with research assistants (Cons, 2014. See also Medland, this volume). More generally there are reports from PhD students of finding it hard to admit to or gain support

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for problems involving mental health issues or other feelings of embarrassment, frustration or fear when carrying out ethnographic research (Pollard, 2009; Hovland, 2012). Furthermore, and most relevant for this chapter, there is silence about learning another language for research: after all, the ‘good’ ethnographer should surely have language skills as a basis, not an aspiration. Admitting otherwise could well open the way for criticism from other academics. Burawoy (2003) points out that academic criticisms of the work of predecessors have often included comments about the researcher’s linguistic incompetency. Thus Freeman criticised Margaret Mead for her ‘stumbling efforts’ at ‘the formidable Samoan tongue, with its multiple vocabularies’; whilst Boelen’s (1992) revisit to Whyte’s Street Corner Society led him to accuse Whyte of not knowing Italian (Burawoy, 2003: 656–657). Silence around language learning, also detailed by Borchgrevink (2003) and Tremlett (2009), continues today. Gibb and Danero Iglesias (2017) have recently urged ethnographers to ‘break the silence (again)’ about language related issues in their work. In the field of Modern Foreign Languages (‘MFL’) there is a whole tradition of examining what helps and what hinders the process of language learning. This literature has tended to view anxiety as an ‘affective filter’ (Krashen, 1982) that hinders language learning. Labelled ‘Foreign Language Anxiety’ (‘FLA’), the well-regarded paper by Horwitz et al. (1986) (on which the first author has recently written a reflection – see Horwitz, 2016) led to a test that teachers could carry out on their students to determine their levels of anxiety. The symptoms sound dire: panic, tenseness, trembling, perspiring and sleep disturbances that lead to a ‘freezing’ in class; the inability to recall words or phrases; a deep self-consciousness; fear of speaking at all or even attending class and never progressing (Horwitz et al., 1986: 129–131). Any foreign language learner will recognise the symptoms described here, along with the heart palpitations, increase in errors and inability to find words, all of which more recent studies have confirmed (see Dewaele & MacIntyre, 2014: 239). Nonetheless, what this literature does not fully recognise, and what I experienced, was that anxiety can occur alongside intense moments of pleasure. Dewaele and MacIntyre (2014) do begin to examine whether anxiety is always negative by looking at the positive emotions that can also be experienced during foreign language learning. Dewaele and MacIntyre distributed questionnaires to 1,746 language learners and found that anxiety and enjoyment were not necessary two competing emotions in the experience of language learning. As they argue, ‘it is likely that enjoyment and anxiety will cooperate from time to time, enjoyment encouraging playful exploration and anxiety generating focus on the need to take specific action’ (2014: 262). This is very helpful for me, as in my experience, the positive and negative aspects of learning Hungarian are not separate

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entities, but often merge together. Anxiety, I have learned, is a necessary part of my learning and reflecting on certain moments helps my understanding of my fieldwork. The literature from MFL, as Pavlenko’s (2008) work shows, still remains in its infancy when it comes to understanding the emotions involved in learning languages and multilingual communication. Furthermore, MFL is also focused on students in a classroom, which is very different to the language learning I encountered: a mixture of classroom, fieldwork and personal relations in no linear order (Tremlett, 2009). In this chapter, it is sociolinguistics that helps me to move my reflection from ‘language learning’ to ‘language in practice’, looking specifically at moments of mis-understanding or inarticulateness through my fieldnotes and recorded interactions. Through examining inarticulateness in interactions, second language learning moves from linguistics of speakers (what I can/can’t do in Hungarian) to linguistics of participation, i.e. negotiating with others and the evaluation of the relationship with myself and the people I am with. In other words, I am concerned with the social relationship between myself and the research participants, following the way linguistic ethnography has treated meaning, ‘as an active process of here-and-now projection and inferencing, ranging across all kinds of percept, sign, and knowledge’ (Blommaert & Rampton, 2016: 27) and looking at how such active processes speak to wider discourses and practices. As Rampton has noted, many researchers centre their analysis positively on the different communicative strategies that people use to ‘accomplish understanding’ (2013: 3). However, this idea of accomplishing understanding rests on a nascent image of the competent (native) speaker, something that is acknowledged to be an ideal (Leung et al., 1997). Instead, what we need to think about is not what is said, but what is left unsaid. Rampton draws on McDermott’s account of ‘inarticulateness’, in which moments others would consider a breakdown in communication may actually lead to ‘breakthroughs’ in which ‘words flow, new things are said, and the world is temporarily altered’ (McDermott, 1988: 40, quoted in Rampton, 2013: 3). Both Rampton and McDermott analyse inarticulate moments that occur amongst their participants. In contrast, in this chapter I focus on myself as the ethnographer, asking what learning Hungarian and the inarticulate, anxious, embarrassing moments in my fieldwork reveal about my relationship to language and the people and places involved in my research. From ‘Learning’ to ‘Learning to Participate’

In the summer of 2013 I was on a fieldtrip visit to the town in Hungary where I had lived in 2000 and had also spent periods of time during subsequent years.4 This 2013 trip was a follow-up project5 from

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previous research with some of the participants who had been children in my initial ethnographic research project carried out in 2004/56 that had included photo projects and interviews as well as ethnographic observations and ‘hanging out’. I was tired one evening and had no plans but to write my fieldnotes and have an early night. I went down to the toasted sandwich kiosk near where I was staying. It was the same place I used to eat at when I was first in Hungary in 2000, and it even had the same types of sandwiches on offer. I smiled to myself as I remembered how I’d had a real learning experience trying to order something as simple as a cheese toastie. I had badly pronounced cheese – ‘sajt’ (shoy-t) in Hungarian – as ‘shite’ (when writing home, I made this into a bit of a joke about eating ‘shite sandwiches’), and the owner always had problems understanding me. On the one hand I had been ashamed by how terrible my Hungarian was, on the other hand, I had felt annoyed that the owner hadn’t even seemed to attempt to understand – there are only a few sandwiches on the menu, why couldn’t he guess which one I was asking for? My experience of speaking Hungarian in those early days was so frustrating, it seemed that no one had ever heard someone speaking Hungarian like me before (badly, with a terrible accent) and even the simplest phrases would be greeted with blank faces. I remember being so embarrassed one time when even my attempt at ordering a ‘hot dog’ (the same word is used in Hungarian but with Hungarian pronunciation) was not understood – and this was at a hot dog stand that only sold hot dogs. There were two big learning points for me in these early moments of embarrassment and frustration. First, after a few weeks of awkwardly trying to order a ‘shite’ sandwich from the kiosk across the street, I had started to notice that other customers spoke quite loudly to the sandwich maker, who, if his head was turned towards the hot press, would never respond. I suddenly got it: he was partially deaf. Whereas I had felt embarrassed, frustrated and cross, I now felt embarrassed and ashamed. I had been so busy focusing on ‘me me me’ – my Hungarian, my self-­ consciousness at speaking and me not being understood – that I’d failed to notice other communication idiosyncrasies. By making sure I spoke when the man faced me, speaking up a bit and forming my mouth well, I could say any version of ‘shite’ I wanted, and I’d always get a cheese sandwich. Secondly, (and now we are back by the hot dog stand), when spoken in a southern English accent, the word ‘hot’ sounds quite like the number six, ‘hat’ in Hungarian. It had probably sounded like I wanted ‘six dogs’ at that hot dog stand. No wonder they looked a bit blank and double-checked my order. Learning to listen and observe rather than always being focused on ‘whether I could speak and be understood’ was a humbling and grounding process that taught me a lot about participating versus learning. Through my experience of speaking Hungarian I realised that competence was not about my ability to learn Hungarian, but my ability to participate in

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Hungarian. I now move to looking at what that meant for my relationships with participants in my fieldwork. Relationships with Participants as a Foreign Language Learner

One of my first big lessons was to adjust myself to being a researcher in the school (in 2004) with children I already knew well since my first visit to Hungary 2000–2002. In my previous time in Hungary I had always taken the role of a kind of ‘fun youth worker’, organising games, teaching, food and discos for children in a local community centre. I quickly realised that in order to observe as a researcher in school, I had to change my role and be much more passive. The children tested this passivity; for example one child, Laci (who I knew from the community centre), came up to me in puppet class and said, with a straight face ‘pina’ (‘cunt’), ‘pöcs’ (‘dick’) ‘lyuk’ (‘hole’). I understood, but didn’t want to laugh or draw attention to his naughtiness and disrupt the classroom. With a completely straight face I said I wasn’t interested in rude words. He tried a few times, coming up close to my face saying ‘pina, pina, pina’. After a while he got bored of my non-reaction and went back to the puppet class. I worried at the time that I would never be able to be a passive observer in school and build the right kind of rapport because of my perceived ‘foreignness’ and so I would never be a good ethnographer who could ‘discover the dimensions of meaning which informants employ to distinguish the objects and events in their world’ (Spradley, 1979: 60). I also realised that, as Van Maanen (2011: 4) pointed out (citing Berreman, 1962): ‘Rapport with certain informants may preclude it with others’, and I certainly couldn’t risk losing rapport with teachers through being too friendly or jokey with children in school time. I had not always been anxious about my ability to build rapport in my fieldwork. ‘Rapport’ is well recognised and discussed in the anthropological literature as central to ethnographic fieldwork. ‘“Rapport” is a codeword for the quality of the relationships the ethnographer has with the folks,’ writes Agar, ‘without rapport people wouldn’t let you into their world or talk to you about it’ (1986: 57). I had enjoyed learning about rapport in my PhD training, because by that time I’d already spent a few years living in Hungary so I thought that I’d already been through the initial hurdles of gaining familiarity and the ‘warmth required to generate “rapport”’ (Oakley, 1981: 33). I believed I had got over some of the ‘strangeness’ associated with new fieldwork places and that I was able to communicate in Hungarian at a basic level. However, as the next example shows, ‘rapport’ was not something I could take for granted or assume I had control over or, indeed, was all about me. After about two months of being at the school, a boy from the fourth grade, Attila (from a non-Roma background), came up to me while I was standing with the second grade teacher, Vera, in the playground. Attila

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asked me if I knew what was for lunch. I said I didn’t and he said that he did, and it would be ‘mole soup and after that mole stew’ (‘vakond leves és utána vakond pörkölt’). I asked him what kind of animal a ‘vakond’ is, and he said it has tiny eyes and lives under the ground. I remembered that vakond meant mole, and I laughed and said (in Hungarian) ‘wow, mole soup and mole stew that must be tasty’, asking ‘is this a Hungarian custom?’ I smiled at Attila and Vera and the three of us laughed. I felt really good that we could all share a joke and that my Hungarian was good enough to do this. However, my bonhomie at this feeling of warm rapport was diminished that afternoon, when I overheard Vera tell the story to teachers in the playground in the afternoon break. I went over to the teachers and stood there smiling as I caught the end, just as Vera was saying ‘….and the poor girl said to me, “is it a Hungarian custom or what?”’ The teachers began to crack up laughing. I laughed too, but I also blushed and felt crestfallen. Vera had made it about me being a ‘foreigner’ who didn’t understand and might think Hungarians eat strange ‘mole soup’, building her own rapport with her colleagues, at my expense. A few weeks later I was in the staffroom and the teacher Vera came in. She asked me what I had done that morning and I told her about the lectures I went to at the Teacher Training College. I said that sometimes they were hard to understand but then again, I said, sometimes I didn’t understand the children as they speak so fast. She laughed and we started talking about how Attila often comes up to me in the playground and offers me all sorts of information. Vera turned to the teacher sitting next to her, Ancsa, and started to re-tell the ‘mole soup’ story. Except she didn’t say ‘mole’ (‘vakond’) but a different animal, so I corrected her and took over the story, saying how I had not understood what ‘vakond’ meant and how I’d been confused and asked Attila whether this was some kind of Hungarian tradition. Ancsa and Vera really laughed. I laughed, and it felt good, and then I laughed more as I realised I had taken up the same version of the story Vera had told, that had hurt and annoyed me. But when I had the opportunity to make the joke my own to cause some laughter and rapport, I did, and it worked. Many years later, when carrying out a follow-up project in 2013, I had the chance to catch up with Laci, the young boy from the earlier example who had tried to provoke me with rude words in the school setting. Laci was now 15 years old and his mother Eszter had become seriously ill. We went to visit her together. As we stood in her bedroom with her emaciated body lying on the bed and some of Laci’s older brothers and uncles standing around, I told Eszter how much she had meant to me in my time in Hungary, and how much I’d enjoyed talking to her. Laci suddenly retold the story of the rude words he tried to tell me in school that time, saying how I hadn’t understood and how I hadn’t reacted, but listen to me now, speaking Hungarian. Everyone in the room burst out laughing, and Eszter

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smiled, asking me to sit by her. It wasn’t the sort of story I would have thought to tell someone on their death bed, but it made me realise how much I could never really know about how I am positioned as a ‘foreigner’ and how ‘rapport’ works or how participants would interpret interactions. On the one hand, Laci’s story highlighted my ‘foreignness’ – after all, this was the story he remembered, even after all these years of knowing me through my repeated visits to the town. On the other hand, it was this story that became a moment of closeness at a very intimate moment in his family’s life. It made me realise that relations to people from our fieldwork are remembered, re-used and embedded in the researcher’s and the participants’ lives in ways we just can’t anticipate. As Rampton points out, rapport cannot just be seen as an affiliation between ‘us’ (the researchers) and ‘them’ (the researched) but is more about the ‘tensions and dilemmas of citizenship, collegiality, friendship, even kinship, that emerge during research’ (Rampton, 2016: 2). Conclusion

Competence in languages can be seen as a fieldwork aspiration: ‘For a foreign researcher, a new language tantalises with the possibility of complete and transparent representation, if only the right words can be found’ (Krzywoszynska, 2015: 312). This chapter has shown that rather than focusing on ‘competence’, a focus on ‘incompetence’ can be very fruitful for looking at the ways we position ourselves when carrying out research and how we are positioned by others. This approach shifts attention away from finding the ‘right words’ to reflecting on moments in interaction, taking McDermott and Tylbor’s view that participation or ‘collusion’ is how we shape our worlds: the collusion claim recognises the powers of conversationalists to use local circumstances to shape their knowledge into mutually perceptible and reflexively consequential chunks. (1986: 125)

It is important to understand incompetence as a moment of ‘collusion’, an ‘intimate integration of politics and communication’ (Rampton, 2013: 9). As this chapter has shown, understanding my incompetence led me to recognise that my words are only ‘half mine’ and ‘they must be brought to completion by the group’ (McDermott, 1986: 130). Incompetence for me was always signalled by heightened emotions: ‘Being a foreign, mute, clumsy body in the field can be embarrassing and frustrating’ (Krzywoszynska, 2015: 312). Such emotions can signal important points in the research process: the emotion of feeling, particularly when coupled with disciplined intuition, should be seen as sitting equally alongside seeing and hearing as

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ethnographic senses that matter […] Such analytical harnessing of feelings can range from informing simple awareness, to the ‘clicking’ into place of previously diffuse concepts, to highly instructive emotional experiences. (Trigger et al., 2012: 516, two references omitted)

The moments I have focused on are those that caused me a lot of anxiety in my fieldwork, either because of embarrassment, incompetence or frustration at certain interactions or performances. Such emotive moments when speaking another language are rarely the focus of ethnographic accounts (Pavlenko, 2008). But as I have explained here, I have found them very useful in learning about the culture and environment I was researching: for example the embarrassment I felt performing in the school talent show Ki Mit Tud? was, aside from my terrible singing, partly engendered by a sudden awareness of the importance placed on performance, and of the differential power relations between parents and teachers. Or feeling crestfallen at being disallowed my rapport-building role in the ‘mole stew’ story showed me how teachers themselves were trying to build rapport with each other, and indeed, how I could. Or how my ‘foreignness’ was a story that could be used many years later for a bonding moment in an otherwise deeply painful family setting. Furthermore, these incompetent moments made me think about how I viewed ‘the field’, signifying a deeper, ontological shift that saw me build a realisation about the importance of focusing on the relations and language use in fieldwork. This shift engendered a heightened awareness of power relations, the flux of representations and how the relationship between self and society plays out (or is emphasised) in embarrassing moments. As McDermott writes: ‘Every utterance has its biography and cuts its own figure, and, if we are careful enough to describe its points of contact with ongoing events, we can learn a great deal about the powers of the talk that constructs, maintains, and resists the order of those events’ (McDermott, 1988: 38). Through explicitly examining episodes I would mostly rather leave out of a published account, I have confronted that unease, a part of a critical reflection that orients ethnography towards its commitment to the everyday in which communication breakdowns and the heightened emotions that accompany such breakdowns can actually afford breakthroughs in our understanding of the complexities and triumphs of accessing the everyday. Notes (1) Roma minorities are said to make up about 4–6% of the population of Hungary, although this is recognised as an underestimation (see Schafft & Kulcsár, 2015). I use ‘Roma’ here as a broad umbrella term for many groups as ‘Gypsy’ can be seen as pejorative. However ‘cigány’ (‘Gypsy’) was used by local people in the town where I carried out my research, including people from Gypsy backgrounds, who did not always recognise the term ‘Roma’ for themselves.

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(2) In accordance with ethical guidance I have changed the names of all research participants in this chapter to protect anonymity. (3) Years later, Mark went on to be in the TV singing competition Megasztár (TV2, 2003–2012), similar to the UK show Pop Idol (ITV, 2001–2003) and is now a professional singer. (4) By the time I had started fieldwork for my PhD in 2004, I had already spent two years in Hungary, first as a volunteer on the ‘European Voluntary Service’ scheme (2000–2001) and then as a leader for my own devised intercultural project called ‘Crossing Boundaries’ funded by the European Commission’s ‘Future Capital’ scheme (2001–2002). (5) This research was carried out using a British Academy Small Grant for the project ‘Representations of social mobility in a study of Roma and non-Roma young people from low socio-economic backgrounds in Hungary’ (2012–2014, SG112414). (6) Part of my PhD studies at King’s College London, funded by an ESRC +3 studentship for the project ‘Social Integration of the Roma in Hungary: Public Discourses and Local Practices’ (2003–2007).

References Agar, M. (1980) The Professional Stranger: An Informal Introduction to Ethnography. New York: Academic Press. Blommaert, J. and Rampton, B. (2016) Language and superdiversity. In K. Arnaut, J. Blommaert, B. Rampton and M. Spotti (eds) Language and Superdiversity (pp. 21–48). Abingdon: Routledge. Borchgrevink, A. (2003) Silencing language. Of anthropologists and interpreters. Ethnography 4 (1), 95–121. Burawoy, M. (2003) Revisits: An outline of a theory of reflexive ethnography. American Sociological Review 68 (5), 645–679. Coffey, A. (1999) The Ethnographic Self. London: Sage. Cons, J. (2014) Field dependencies: Mediation, addiction and anxious fieldwork at the India-Bangladesh border. Ethnography 15 (3), 375–393. Dewaele, J.M. and MacIntyre, P. (2014) The two faces of Janus? Anxiety and enjoyment in the foreign language classroom. Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching 4 (2), 237–274. Gibb, R. and Danero Iglesias J. (2017) Breaking the silence (again): On language learning and levels of fluency in ethnographic research. The Sociological Review 65 (1), 134–149. Horwitz. E.K. (2016) Reflections on Horwitz (1986) ‘Preliminary evidence for the validity and reliability of a foreign language anxiety scale’. TESOL Quarterly 50 (4), 932–935. Horwitz, E.K., Horwitz, M.B. and Cope, J. (1986) Foreign language classroom anxiety. The Modern Language Journal 70 (2), 125–132. Hovland, I. (2009) Fieldwork identities: Introduction. Anthropology Matters Journal 11 (1), 1–4. Hovland, I. (2012) Regulating emotions and aiming for a PhD: Excerpts from Anthropology Matters. The International Journal of Higher Education in the Social Sciences 5 (1), 69–90. Kloβ, S.T. (2016) Sexual(ized) harassment and ethnographic fieldwork: A silenced aspect of social research. Ethnography 0 (00) 1–19 Published online before print April 6, 2016, doi: 10.1177/1466138116641958. Krashen, S. D. (1982) Acquiring a second language. World Language English 1 (2), 97-101. Krzywoszynska, A. (2015) On being a foreign body in the field, or how reflexivity around translation can take us beyond language. Area 47 (3), 311–318. Leung, C., Harris, R. and Rampton, B. (1997) The idealised native speaker, reified ethnicities, and classroom realities. TESOL Quarterly 31 (3), 543–560.

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McDermott, R. (1988) Inarticulateness. In D. Tannen (ed.) Linguistics in Context: Connecting Observation and Understanding (pp. 37–68). New Jersey: Ablex. McDermott, R. and Tylbor, H. (1986) On the necessity of collusion in conversation. In S. Fisher and A. Dundas-Todd (eds) Discourse and Institutional Authority: Medicine, Education and Law (pp. 123–139). New York: Ablex. Oakley, A. (1981) Interviewing women: a contradiction in terms. In H. Roberts (ed.) Doing Feminist Research (pp. 30–40). London: Routledge. Okely, J. (2009) Response to Amy Pollard. Anthropology Matters Journal 11 (2), 1–4. Pavlenko, A. (2008) Emotions and Multilingualism. Cambridge: Cambridge Unviersity Press. Pollard, A. (2009) Field of screams: Difficulty and ethnographic fieldwork. Anthropology Matters 11 (2), accessed 24 April 2017. www.anthropologymatters.com/index.php/ anth_matters/article/view/10 Rampton, B. (2016) Fieldwork rapport and the positioning of sociolinguist(ic)s. Working Papers in Urban Language & Literacies Paper 195, accessed 24 April 2017. www. kcl.ac.uk/sspp/departments/education/research/Research-Centres/ldc/publications/ workingpapers/abstracts/WP195.aspx Rampton, B. (2013) Micro-analysis & structures of feeling: Convention & creativity in linguistic ethnography. Working Paper in Language & Literacies, Paper 77, accessed 14 March 2016. www.kcl.ac.uk/sspp/departments/education/research/ldc/publications/ workingpapers/the-papers/WP115-Rampton-2013-.pdf Schafft, K.A. and Kulcsár, L.J. (2015) The demography of race and ethnicity in Hungary. In R. Sáenz, D.G. Embrick and N.P. Rodríguez (eds) The International Handbook of the Demography of Race and Ethnicity (pp. 553–573). Dordrecht: Springer. Sliwka, A. and Istance, D. (2006) Parental and stakeholder ‘voice’ in schools and systems. European Journal of Education 41(1), 29–43. Smith, K.L. (2009) Is a happy anthropologist a good anthropologist? Anthropology Matters Journal 11 (1), 1–10. Spradley, J. P. (1979) The Ethnographic Interview. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. Taylor, M.N. (2008) The politics of culture: Folk critique and transformation of the state in Hungary. Unpublished PhD thesis from The City University of New York, accessed 9 May 2017. http://gradworks.umi.com/32/96/3296977.html Tremlett, A. (2009) Claims of ‘knowing’ in ethnography: Realising anti-essentialism through a critical reflection on language acquisition in fieldwork. The Graduate Journal of Social Science (GJSS), Special Issue Lost (and found) in Translation 6 (3), 63-85, accessed 9 May 2017. http://gjss.org/issues/06/03 Trigger, D., Forsey, M. and Meurk, C. (2012) Revelatory moments in fieldwork. Qualitative Research 12 (5), 513–527. Van Maanen, J. (2011) Tales of the Field. On Writing Ethnography (2nd edn). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

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

During my doctoral fieldwork, I found myself learning the Aymara language across national borders and this made me increasingly aware of differences between the Peruvian, Bolivian and Chilean Aymara. Ethnographic material I systematically collected in Arica and Parinacota allowed me to reflect on my communication, and language interpretation, by questioning cultural assumptions I carried as a researcher. Consequently, I had to rethink English language concepts and, in the process of translation, prioritise local categories to avoid miscommunication. Hence here I argue that miscommunications between Spanish and Aymara speakers from the Chilean highlands were not random and sometimes signaled postcolonial resistance strategies that remain in play at this frontier, historically resonating with broader ethnicity processes and Andean indigenous movements. Introduction

Chile’s northernmost frontier, known as Arica and Parinacota Region, sits strategically between Peru and Bolivia following the War of the Pacific (1879–1883).1 Despite a history of terror and violence disguised by sparse landscape (Frazier, 2007), the tri-national border articulates different peoples and various ecologies through the Pacific coast to the Andean highlands. I have undertaken multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork over 10 years in Arica, the regional capital, and Guallatire, the rural highlands. 126

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According to my research, the artificial borderline known as Concordia marked not only the ways this territory is conceived as part of a nation but also how border subjectivities are constructed and shaped by social movements, including the state, making history a contested commodity (Benavides, 2004; Rappaport, 1994). In this context, I argue below, Aymara language plays a key role as an agent of cultural difference and can be strategically used for publically demanding indigenous recognition and exercising resistance. Classic anthropology in the Andes has been criticised mainly due to ethnographers exoticising and essentialising subjects while studying remote societies because of their predominantly white, male, imperial and Western gaze (Canessa, 2005; de la Cadena, 2015; Pratt, 1993; Weismantel, 2001). Nevertheless, the study of our own culture and society at the margins, historically conceived as anthropology of the periphery in Latin America (Cardoso de Oliveira, 1999; Restrepo, 2006), can lead towards understanding national identities and the role they play in shaping language ideologies, understood as explicit or implicit representations that construe the intersection of language and human beings in a social world (Woolard, 1998: 3). Following this, my ethnographic reflection focuses on intersections of an indigenous language (Aymara) with a national language (Spanish) which is then translated into a global language (English) to expose the intricate relationship between language and representation. Until recently, the highlands of Arica and Parinacota were understudied in anthropology, but recent scholarship has focused on the current state of indigenous affairs (e.g. Ayala, 2019; Carrasco & González, 2014; Carreño, 2012; Chamorro, 2013; Choque, 2018; Eisenberg, 2013; González et al., 2014; Gundermann et al., 2009; Jofré, 2012, 2014; Urrutia & Uribe, 2015). The indigenous population is a minority of Aymara, alongside an emerging amount of Quechua. Note that two thirds of this population live in cities but continue to move translocally to their communities of origin (Carrasco & Gonzalez, 2014). Despite recent state changes by which the indigenous population is officially counted in Chile – meaning a shift from cultural self-ascription towards self-recognition (Gundermann et al., 2005) – in the Arica and Parinacota Region numbers of Aymara have doubled in 10 years (INE, 2002, 2012).2 It could be argued that processes in ethnic identity construction, such as ethnogenesis and re-ethnification, were triggered by the launch of democratic institutions and development policies following the military dictatorship, buttressed by national and international legislation in force from 1993 through to 2008 (Gundermann, 2013). In addition, the Chilean government has shifted towards neoliberal multiculturalism, which has propped up the patrimonialisation of indigenous heritage (Ayala, 2014, 2019; Boccara & Ayala, 2011). However, although the legal state apparatus has played a key role in the formation and disavowal of the etnias originarias (aboriginal ethnic groups),3 indigenous peoples still struggle

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for economic redistribution in northern and southern Chile (Richards & Gardner, 2013), pushing for historical acknowledgement and cultural recognition. In this chapter, I argue that what might be perceived in fieldwork as language miscommunications provide crucial ethnographic moments for understanding cultural difference. These misunderstandings expose rich textures intertwined within the social fabric and often are reciprocal. Misunderstandings become apparent while doing ethnography and, once revealed, can lead us to further understand cultural difference, recognition and resistance. I present the language context in which I was introduced to the Chilean Aymara and my immersion as a nonnative speaker, followed by a discussion of theoretical concepts and ethnic categories operating in the construction of the Aymara cultural landscape. Then I analyse how indigenous representatives and government officials interact at a series of meetings for a mining project, where indigenous participation was required to comply with environmental impact assessments. Please note I have changed some names and places to preserve confidentiality. The Aymara Language

My interest in learning the Aymara language4 began during my undergraduate thesis, developing into a requirement which was needed to conduct doctoral fieldwork in 2007. Until 2008, I could not find a teacher in Arica, the northernmost Chilean city, so I made the 60-minute border-crossing to Tacna, Peru, to undertake weekly Aymara classes with a yatichiri (teacher) at the Institute of Indigenous Technology (INTI). My teacher was originally from Puno, the highlands of Lake Titicaca bordering Peru and Bolivia, and now lived in Tacna, at the Peru-Chile border. During a conversation, he said the Aymara from Chile were losing their mother tongue and had to relearn it, unlike their Peruvian and Bolivian neighbours. Thanks to my yatichiri, I became aware of how important native language is for the continuation of ethnic identity within other national or dominant identities and the dynamics set by minority language rights (May, 2012), especially when considering the cultural revitalisation that the Chilean Aymara are experiencing. Although Aymara language is not a single indicator of ethnicity, it is considered to be a predominant one by native speakers (Albó, 2000). Despite it having been exclusively an oral language, revitalization efforts had grown since an Aymara grafemario (grapheme alphabet) was established by all Aymara-speaking countries in 1996, shaping the process of learning the language and making it more accessible. Today, the 49,945 Aymara represent 23% of the total indigenous population in Chile (INE, 2002) concentrated in the northern regions of Arica and Parinacota and Tarapacá (84.4%), while the rest is mainly in the regions of Antofagasta (5%), Metropolitana (5%) and elsewhere (4.6%)

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(MOP, 2012). According to a few sociolinguistic studies in the area, most highland communities are fluent in both Aymara and Spanish, also known as Castellano, although today few bilingual speakers prevail, as opposed to the coastal areas where high immigration has affected traditional family structures along with native language acquisition and competence within the speech community (Gunderman et al., 2009). Constantly crossing the Concordia’s frontier obliged me to imagine how these territories were disputed after the War of the Pacific, creating arbitrary boundaries to separate nations, states, languages, and institutionalising border practices; a process that continued when in 1975 the military strategically placed approximately 40,000 landmines at the border, which have been gradually removed since 2008 (CNAD, 2008). After months visiting the city of Tacna and learning an Aymara variation from Puno, also in Peru, in 2008 I attended classes at Arica’s newly launched National Academy of Aymara Language, where I was taught another variation from Oruro, Bolivia. Eventually, I was to face a third variation in the field spoken near Chungara Lake and along the Chilean highlands (cf. Briggs, 1993).5 Due to the nature of the northernmost frontier, which divides the Aymara between Peru, Bolivia and Chile), language became another agent of confrontation and resistance. It was banned by the Chilean state during its occupancy, known as the chilenización (1884–1929) that was imposed mostly through military, religious and educational means (Bengoa, 2004; Choque, 2015; Díaz et al., 2013; Ruz & Díaz, 2011; Tudela, 1994). Nevertheless, in the highlands of Putre, the indigenous leaders of the time articulated dual resistance strategies, such as those historically performed by Antonio Mollo. Mollo was an Aymara leader and head of the opposition to the Chilean occupation around 1901. He used new legal state apparatus to register land ownership while, at the same time, opposing it to secure collective land tenure and indigenous ownership. The strategy allowed Mollo to articulate various identities including ‘Aymara Indian’ or ‘Indigenous citizen’ to confront and confuse local authorities, until he was killed in 1926 (Jofré, 2014). It was only after the military dictatorship (1973–1989) that an official statement about this violent occupation was made by the Human Rights Commission (also known as the Truth and New Treatment Commission) partly acknowledging what happened with the northern territories when transitioning to Chile. Such a struggle has been equated to the one experienced during the military regime, a moment in which Aymara language was also prohibited and referred to as a ‘deaymarisation’ (Bengoa, 2004). However, since 2008, the relearning of native languages such as Aymara and Quechua in the north and of Mapuzungun in the south, has been part of a general concern regarding loss to Chilean Spanish (Gundermann et al., 2011), also allowing the reemergence of indigenous social movements demanding recognition (Richards, 2016).

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This was the context of my experience learning the Aymara language at the National Academy in Arica between 2009 and 2010. I undertook two courses for beginners in the evenings at a public school. The courses lasted for eight-to-ten weeks and twice-a-year for basic, medium and advanced speakers, and were taught to about a hundred people each time. Classes were given by two teachers, male and female, in accordance with the traditional chachawarmi, an Aymara leadership practice. Most pupils were urban descendants from previously-rural communities who were relearning their mother tongue because they had lost it to Spanish or could speak but not read or write in Aymara. My case was the opposite: reading and writing but hardly speaking the language. Relearning the native language was generally viewed as part of a cultural revitalisation and an activity that would impact the growing awareness around Aymara identity. In these night classes I met some descendants of the Guallatire community with whom I would work for years to come. Guallatire is a few kilometres away from the Bolivia border and historically belonged to the ayllu or traditional social structure of the Hatun Caranga, today in Turco (Durston & Hidalgo, 1997). During my first visit to highland Guallatire in 2008, I was told the place was ‘almost abandoned’. There was then a single permanent resident, known locally as ‘the veteran’, who subsequently passed away in 2013. He was the first resident I encountered in the field. The last official Chilean census, however, stated that it had 37 households (INE, 2002).6 Later, I understood the rural district was actually formed by 28 hamlets known in Spanish as estancias or caseríos and seasonal camps known as anta (Aymara) or majada (Spanish) as well as temporary huts known as chujlla uta in Aymara. Some of the abodes were around a day or less walking from the main town. On top of this seasonal and translocal mobility through dwellings, most families moved to-and-from urban areas in Arica and Putre. At least one third of the hamlets were permanently occupied but I could not gauge that from my initial stay in town, which during the day seemed ghostly quiet. That first night, as I warmed next to the fire at the veteran’s, we started a conversation in his kitchen. He remained sitting on a wooden bench, cooking next to the fire. Although he spoke Spanish as I did, it was hard to communicate with him because he was partly deaf and spoke as if translating from Aymara. Staring at me while I talked, he would raise his hand up to his ear and slightly incline towards me to indicate he was listening. I would reciprocate by nodding and signaling with body and facial gestures to show that I too was listening, even though I could not fully understand his words. Due to my basic knowledge of Aymara, we mostly spoke Spanish, catching on to just a few Aymara words. I had anticipated a language barrier in the field, and this nonverbal communication made me more aware of this inevitable fact. With time, however, it would become apparent that this essentialist expression of the ‘Aymara Indian’

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in Guallatire was different, though not exclusive, to other representations of ethnic identity, such as the ‘Indigenous citizen’ strategically performed by some Aymara leaders.

The Aymara Resistance

I continued to visit the Guallatire highlands while collaborating as a researcher with the National Forestry Agency (CONAF) at the Lauca Biosphere Reserve, which protects the Lauca River watershed, shared by Chile and Bolivia. In 2008, I helped to develop a cultural heritage mapping project or catastro (CONAF 2009). Once I began organising different types of heritage using categories based on national and regional guidelines (Barraza, 2003), I faced a common ethnographic challenge: translation, from Spanish to Aymara, and vice versa, and then into English for my dissertation. Along with mapping community boundaries, the ways of naming local heritage became crucial for understanding the cultural meanings and significance some places had in the highland landscape. I initially anticipated underlying linguistic tensions between Aymara and Spanish, as they intersect the social space between a marginal and a dominant language. For instance, most toponyms were appropriated by the military when mapping with the Geographic Military Institute (IGM), resulting in local denominations that changed their Aymara pronunciation into a Spanish one by marking the final syllable, as occurs in the word Chungara as Chungará or Tarapaca as Tarapacá. This rule does not exist in Aymara but is common to Spanish (Callo, 2007). Such a powerful linguistic practice is thus projected onto the local landscape; Chungara Lake demarcates the entrance to Chile at the Bolivian border, while the Tarapaca Region alludes to the route followed by a mythical being from highland to coast (Bouysse-Cassagne, 1997; Chacama & Espinosa, 1997). Another example is the renaming of territorial markers such as Andean markers or apachetas to numbered hitos fronterizos or boundary posts, contributing to the loss of meaning within the cultural landscape. While I collaborated with the project, I engaged with local perceptions of heritage and landscape, and encountered issues with naming and translation pointing directly to Spanish colonisation. For instance, when asked about local understandings of heritage (translated as either herencia or patrimonio), people first pointed out religious patrimony, such as iglesia (church) and campanario (bell tower), instead of indigenous heritage. This showed how the concept in Spanish was religiously charged and gendered; the church and bell tower are conceived as feminine (la iglesia) and masculine (el campanario). Today only one local family remains Catholic and the rest have moved into Evangelicalism. The last time they celebrated

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the local festivity was four decades ago, therefore most ceremonial places were not in use, with some eroded down to their foundations. Similarly, landscape (translated as paisaje) was another complex concept to work with. Lacking a better conceptual terminology (with no equivalent in Aymara), I referred to it by using entorno (meaning ‘surroundings’) and integrating local denominations of places that shared a mixed heritage of native and nonnative roots. Thus I was introduced to traditional practices and places remembered by what happened there, producing contested landscapes (Gordillo, 2004; Ingold, 1993) that merged together colonial times, local mining, the War of the Pacific and the military regime. Although the choice of words used looks random at first, it really shows the ways in which language permeates cultural history, particularly marginalising some words and prioritising others. Despite the efforts of ‘deaymarisation’ by the Chilean state, through this work it became apparent that the construction of an Aymara cultural landscape engaged a complex linguistic endeavor in order to rethink the categorical divide between nature and culture or time and space (de la Cadena, 2015), including our understanding of the nation built on cultural categories using military, religious or gendered constructs (Canessa, 2005). My ethnography came to fruition towards the end of my doctoral fieldwork in late 2009. The contested language terrains between marginal and dominant perspectives fleshed out a resistance platform the Aymara were articulating around a mining project planned within the Biosphere Reserve. The breakthrough came at a participación ciudadana (citizen participation) meeting in Putre for the extraction of gold and silver by a transnational corporation. This meeting was part of the consultation process established by government agencies. I attended the session as an external observer because an indigenous representative asked me to technically advise the local community. This mine is located in a transitional zone or ecotone between two Andean watersheds: Lauca and San José. Mining explorations occur on a water divide that historically marks the boundary between Guallatire in the altiplano and Tignamar in the sierra. At present, access to the mine is gained through the highland road that cuts by hamlets belonging to the community of Guallatire. Of four hamlets, only two are permanently inhabited, one is seasonally inhabited on a recurring basis, while the closest to the mining area has been abandoned since 1980. Despite the fact that these hamlets would be directly impacted by the mining project, they were not considered as part of the environmental impact assessment because the land tenure and the water rights are registered under the ownership of the community of Tignamar. Alongside these participatory meetings there were other alternative meetings organised by the Network in Defense for the Environment of Arica and Parinacota (REDMA). This network is part of an

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environmental coalition formed around 1998 to protect the water of the Lauca watershed, which is under the administration of CONAF since 1965. I went to one of the meetings held at the office of the Aymara National Council (CNA). Urban representatives from indigenous communities and other organisations including the main students’ association attended in preparation for this citizen participation meeting. After a long struggle to get an autonomous space, the Aymara were finally granted an office by the CONADI, located next to the football field where the teams of the Liga Andina (Andean League) played. It was here that I learned indigenous representatives were actually playing out, as if strategising for a football match, one of the various forms of resistance they could employ against the mining company. Multi-sited participant observation thus helped to unravel why indigenous discourse sounded disconnected, especially from that of local authorities, as well as of the consulting companies at the participatory meetings I had been going to. At the office, indigenous representatives first gave an update about the response to the information meeting that had been held a week before and, in preparation for the next day, went through the names of who might be attending or not. They were aiming for 25 community representatives and indigenous leaders to adopt a common strategy to reject any proposal coming from the government agency or the consulting company working for the project. The messages they wanted to pass along were clear: ‘No entrar en diálogo para no validar nada’ (‘Do not establish a dialogue in order to invalidate their argument’) and ‘¡Es una lucha moral!’ (‘It’s a moral struggle!’) (Fieldnotes from Arica, December 2009). The preparatory meeting was a unique opportunity to agree on a non-dialogue strategy coming from the urban leadership to convince the rest of the community representatives in the audience. This encrypted code indeed operated like a message of resistance, which would explain why there was no real dialogue or communication (Rappaport, 1994; Scott, 1990). Instead, there was precisely miscommunication consistently happening at the participatory meetings as part of a strategy by indigenous leaders in secret agreement. Once aware of the strategy, it became evident to me how it was being implemented. At the citizen participation meeting in Putre, about 50 people were present. Government representatives introduced to the indigenous audience the process by which the project had entered the SEIA. An indigenous representative who had attended the pre-meeting claimed there had already been a violation of rights, according to the Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention 169. Although explorations for the mining project had been underway since 1996, this meeting marked the beginning of the consultation process that needed to take place due to the recent ratification of the Convention in 2008, despite its original declaration by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) in 1989.

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The floor was then opened to the public. The first interventions made were about water extraction; a man exclaimed: ‘You will kill the wetlands.’ Another man said, ‘In all those places, the water flows as if it were our own veins’ (Field notes from Putre, December 2009). The metaphor of water was generally used by indigenous peoples when dealing with environmental concerns. The audience was not directly confrontational as expected, rather, as these phrases show, they seem to speak in a different language than the one used by the government officials who only used technical language. In contrast, indigenous and community leaders arrived and sat accordingly while they listened to official speeches. When it was their turn, they did not speak in Aymara, but stood up and turned their backs to the governmental authorities and consultants at the front – instead talking to the other community representatives. Thus, the Aymara leaders only engaged with other indigenous participants who were in the room, which was fully packed. By failing to ensure a space for indigenous recognition, state-led participatory consultation actually created a space of confrontation for indigenous resistance. Indigenous representatives were using different strategies of resistance against the legal and economic system now imposed by the Chilean state. The new, state-led regime for policymaking in protected areas was resulting in the appropriation of traditional rights to access land and water, and allowing transnational companies to enter the Biosphere Reserve using a new model for environmental planning. But the Aymara were fighting back. That was the main reason why they needed as many people as possible to antiparticipate while, at the same time, follow the process and submit technical demands proven against the mining project to the COREMA, as the official consultation time-line ended 60 days later. The only possible legal action after that deadline was to file a recurso de protección (protection resource) with an international lawsuit that could be voted down in court, as in fact happened later in 2011. Despite all the Aymara’s efforts, mining explorations were approved in November 2010 but the mining project itself still remains on standby. Conclusion

In this chapter, my aim has been to discuss how ethnographic knowledge about language can show the ideological system of beliefs (Woolard, 1998) shared by identity politics and resistance strategies of the Chilean Aymara. My ethnographic material exposed colonial and postcolonial spaces of confrontation given the political contingency of the Aymara from Chile’s northernmost frontier. Despite the state’s effort to portray the Andean highlands as an ‘almost abandoned’ place, my work shows that indigenous peoples, marginal territories and minority languages have been central to the making of the Chilean state, a history that is shared with other Andean countries (Benavides, 2004).

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At least two language and resistance strategies were identified through my work: the environmental coalition and the non-dialogue. On one hand, the environmental coalition strategy used a discourse based on indigeneity against the Chilean government and the state apparatus by claiming original occupancy of traditional native territories appropriated at the national level. They also argued these territories were protected under international regulations, like those of the Labour Organisation and the United Nations. The environmentalist group drew on a modern understanding of human rights coming from both indigenous and nonindigenous quarters in order to question why unclaimed land rights were appropriated by the state and tendered to transnational corporations without a proper process of consultation. This group took into account traditional knowledge and indigenous governance, maintaining its organisation at the community level rather than based on family or on individuals. Some members of the environmental coalition, however, disperse and participate with nonindigenous members in social movements, mostly based in the regional capital of Arica. Others only actively engage and participate with the coalition because they believe that the highland water ecosystem should be protected and oppose all extractive industries. On the other hand, the non-dialogue strategy explained a secret arrangement by the indigenous leaders who participated at meetings but were in disagreement with the system. As I found at a parallel Aymara Council meeting, the message was agreed upon prior to the official state-led meeting. Later, when the participatory meeting took place, the message was sent out to the rest of the community and appeared as a lack of communication or disconnected discourse that made no sense to outsiders. Indigenous stereotypes such as the ‘Aymara Indian’ were displayed to deceive outsiders by intentionally misrepresenting themselves as if they could not operate within modern frameworks of understanding, something they could do when performing as ‘Indigenous citizens’. Such strategy resonates with other forms of historical resistance such as the dual legitimacy performed by the head of the Peruvian opposition, Antonio Mollo, during the Chilean occupation of the highlands (Choque, 2015; Díaz et al., 2013). Even though not using Aymara directly, both strategies used language to mark cultural difference, whether to engage in a dialogue or choosing not to. It could be argued that the non-dialogue strategy was a historical or colonial one, in contrast to the environmental coalition that was a contemporary or postcolonial strategy dating to 1998 when, according to most participants, the movement emerged to oppose water extraction from the Lauca area. In terms of language and resistance, this political strategy takes a more radical stance than the environmental coalition and was performed by indigenous leaders who were mostly, but not necessarily, Aymara speakers. The non-dialogue strategy was more subtle

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and also performed by native and nonnative speakers, although language tensions have created boundaries between Aymara and Spanish speakers. According to my yatichiri, these boundaries have affected ethnic awareness of Aymara people between Chile, Peru and Bolivia. After the political transition of 1990, transformations including the passing of new legislation have allowed the reemergence of alternative identities in Chile, which are also gaining terrain in terms of cultural recognition. Current identity formations in the tri-national border have been bolstered by democratic processes and development policies coming from both national and international frontlines. At the same time, these formations have revitalised indigenous social movements based on historical and ethnic consciousness (Rappaport, 1990, 1994), marking the continuity of a confrontation which has long prevailed at the margins but is central for state-making. Indigenous languages play a key role in this contested terrain as they can be used as agents of cultural awareness. In this context, indigenous recognition continues to be a struggle because the terms under which the state has misrecognised indigenous peoples and their rights do not consider cultural values or local priorities for economic redistribution (Richards & Gardner, 2013) or to critically engage cultural diversity at the national level. Therefore the historical debt of the Chilean state persists, along with the conundrum that the politics of indigeneity presents for a country where multiculturalism is widely promoted in discourse while hardly performed in practice. Notes (1) My gratitude goes to the organisers of the workshop held in Glasgow in April 2016: Robert Gibb, Julien Danero Iglesias and Annabel Tremlett, as well as Angela Creese for her comments on my paper. Many thanks to my husband Liam Miller and his family who hosted us when visiting Glasgow. My current research was partly supported by the Anillo Project (SOC 1405) ‘Social changes and long-term climate variability in the Atacama Desert’ from PIA-CONICIYT, and the Department of Anthropology, Universidad de Chile. This chapter was based on my doctoral research from the Anthropology Department, University of Toronto, and funded by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Some of the ethnographic material also appears in my dissertation. Special thanks to the community of Guallatire who allowed me to work with them. (2) According to the National Institute of Statistics (INE), in 2002, 25,615 people recognised themselves as Aymara, about 13.59% of the regional population and in 2012, 49,945 people which equates to 23.38% of the population of Arica and Parinacota. (3) In Chile, Indigenous Peoples are conceived as ethnic minorities and legally referred to as etnias originarias (aboriginal ethnic groups) by the Indigenous Law 19,253, in place since 1993. (4) A few Aymara words appear in this work. They were transcribed using the rules of the grafemario or grapheme alphabet (Callo, 2007) and translated with an Aymara dictionary written by a native speaker from Guallatire (Mamani, 2002). (5) Aymara speakers in Chile recognise three main variants, of people living between Visviri and Caquena, Parinacota and Surire, and Surire and Cancosa.

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(6) The results of the most recent census were made public in April 2012, but have been questioned due to its many irregularities, which is why I cite the 2002 census.

References Albó, X. (2000) Aymaras entre Bolivia, Perú y Chile. Estudios Atacameños 19, 43–73. Ayala, P. (2014) Patrimonialización y arqueología en San Pedro de Atacama (Norte de Chile). Estudios Atacameños 49, 69–94. Ayala, P. (2019) Chile, Archaeology and Indigenous Communities of. In C. Smith (ed.) Encylopedia of Global Archaeology (pp. 1–18). Cham: Springer. Barraza, J. (2003) Manual de Patrimonio Cultural y Natural Arica y Parinacota. Arica: FONDART Regional, Consejo de Monumentos Nacionales. Benavides, H. (2004) Making Ecuadorian Histories: Four Centuries of Defining Power. Austin: University of Texas Press. Bengoa, J. (2004) La Memoria Olvidada: Historia de los Pueblos Indígenas de Chile. Compilación del Informe de la Comisión de Verdad Histórica y Nuevo Trato. Santiago: Publicaciones del Bicentenario. Boccara, G. and Ayala, P. (2011) Patrimonializar al indígena. Imaginación del multiculturalismo neoliberal en Chile. Cahiers des Amériques Latines 67, 207–228. Bouysse-Cassagne, T. (1997) De Empedócles a Tunupa: Evangelización, hagiografía y mitos. In T. Bouysse-Cassagne (ed.) Saberes y Memorias en los Andes (pp. 157–212). Lima: IFEA. Briggs, L. (1993) El idioma aymara. Variantes regionales y sociales. La Paz: Ediciones ILCA. Callo, S. (2007) Kamisaraki. Diccionario Aymara-Castellano, Castellano-Aymara. Tacna: Gráficos de Perúgráfika. Canessa, A. (ed.) (2005) Natives Making Nation: Gender, Indigeneity, and the State in the Andes. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. Cardoso de Oliveira, R. (1999) Peripheral Anthropologies ‘Versus’ Central Anthropologies. Journal of Latin American Anthropology 4(2)–5(1), 10–30. Carrasco, A. and González, H. (2014) Movilidad poblacional y procesos de articulación rural-urbano entre los aymara del norte de Chile. Si Somos Americanos, Revista de Estudios Transfronterizos 14 (2), 217–231. Carreño, A. (2012) Prólogo. Gabriela Blas: El racismo de las instituciones y la crónica de un delito anunciado. In A. Irrarázabal El caso de Gabriela Blas: Un juicio contra la cultura Aymara (pp. 3-7). Dos por Ciento de Fondo de Cultura de Gobierno Regional de Arica y Parinacota, Agrupación Machax Marax. Arica: Emelnor Impresores. Chacama, J. and Espinosa, G. (1997) La ruta de Tarapacá: Análisis de un mito y una imagen rupestre en el Norte de Chile. Actas del XIV Congreso de Arqueología Chilena Tomo 2 (pp. 769–792). Copiapó: Museo Regional de Atacama. Chamorro, A. (2013) Carnaval Andino en la ciudad de Arica: Performance en la frontera norte chilena. Estudios Atacameños 45, 41–54. Choque, C. (2015) Conflictos sociales y políticos y su judicialización en una comunidad andina, norte de Chile (1867–1925). Estudios Atacameños 50, 215–227. Choque, D. (2018) From boundary to development: The trajectory of Indigenous alliances and disputes for addressing development issues in northern Chile. PhD thesis, University of Sydney. CONAF (Corporación Nacional Forestal) (2009) Catastro de Recursos Culturales en las Unidades del Sistema Nacional de Áreas Silvestres Protegidas de la Provincia de Parinacota, Región de Arica y Parinacota. Arica: CONAF. CNAD (Comisión Nacional de Desminado Humanitario) (2008) Memoria Anual, Ministerio de Defensa Nacional. Sanitago: Onagrama Editores. De la Cadena, M. (2015) Earth Beings: Ecologies of Practice across Andean Worlds. Durham: Duke University Press.

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Díaz, A., Ruz, R. and Galdames, L. (2013) En los intersticios de la chilenidad. Antonio Mollo y las identidades en conflicto en los Andes. Putre, 1900-1926. Chungara 45 (3), 473–492. Durston, A. and Hidalgo, J. (1997) La presencia andina en los valles de Arica, siglos XVI– XVIII: Casos de regeneración colonial de estructuras archipielágicas. Chungara 29, 249–273. Eisenberg, A. (2013) Aymara Indian Perspectives on Development in the Andes. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press. Frazier, L. (2007) Salt in the Sand: Memory, Violence, and the Nation-State in Chile, 1890 to the Present. Durham: Duke University Press. González, H., Gundermann, H. and Hidalgo, J. (2014) Comunidad indígena y construcción histórica del espacio entre los Aymara del norte de Chile. Chungara 46 (2), 233–246. Gordillo, G. (2004) Landscapes of Devils: Tensions of Place and Memory in the Argentinean Chaco. Durham: Duke University Press. Gundermann, H. (2013) Procesos étnicos y cultura en los pueblos indígenas de Chile. ALPHA 36, 93–108. Gundermann, H., Vergara, J. and Foerster, R. (2005) Contar a los indígenas en Chile: Autoadscripción étnica en la experiencia censal de 1992 y 2002. Estudios Atacameños 30, 91–115. Gundermann, H., Vergara, J. and González, H. (2009) El proceso de desplazamiento de la lengua aymara en Chile. Cuadernos Interculturales 7 (12), 47–77. Gundermann, H., Canihuan, J., Clavería, A. and Faúndez, C. (2011) El Mapuzugun, una lengua en retroceso. Atenea 503, 111–131. INE (Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas) (2002) Censo Nacional de Población y Vivienda. www.ine.cl/canales/chile_estadistico/home.php, accessed 1 September 2014. Ingold, T. (1993) The temporality of landscape. World Archaeology 25 (2), 24–174. Jofré, D. (2012) Arqueología, monumentos y comunidades en la Biósfera Lauca: Posibilidades de la práctica de la arqueología social en el norte de Chile. In H. Tantaleán and M. Aguliar (eds) La Arqueología Social Latinoamericana: de la Teoría a la Praxis (pp. 383–401). Bogotá: Ediciones Uniandes. Jofré, D. (2014) Guallatire: Negotiating Aymara Indigeneity and Rights of Ownership in the Lauca Biosphere Reserve, Northern Chile. Doctoral Dissertation, Department of Anthropology. Toronto: University of Toronto. Mamani, M. (2002) Diccionario Práctico Bilingüe Aymara Castellano. Zona Norte de Chile. Antofagasta: Emelnor. May, S. (2012) Language and Minority Rights: Ethnicity, Nationalism and the Politics of Language. London: Routledge. MOP (Ministerio de Obras Públicas) (2012) Guía de antecedentes territoriales y culturales de los Pueblos Indígenas de Chile. Santiago: ANDROS Impresores. Pratt, M. L. (1993) Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation. London: Routledge. Rappaport, J. (1990) The Politics of Memory. Native Historical Interpretation in the Colombian Andes. Cambridge University Press. Rappaport, J. (1994) Cumbe Reborn: An Andean Ethnography of History. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Restrepo, E. (2006) Diferencia, hegemonía y disciplinación en antropología. Universitas Humanística 62 (julio-diciembre), 43–70. Bogotá: Colombia. Richards, P. (2016) Racismo. El modelo chileno y el multiculturalismo neoliberal bajo la Concertación 1990–2010. Santiago: Pehuén. Richards, P. and Gardner, J. (2013) Still seeking recognition: Mapuche demands, state violence, and discrimination in democratic Chile. Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies 8 (3), 255–279. Ruz, R. and Díaz, A. (2011) Estado chileno y comunidad indígena. Presión y conflicto sobre tierras de uso colectivo en el espacio precordillerano de Arica: Putre 1880–1935. Estudios Atacameños 42, 173–188.

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Scott, J. (1990) Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts. New Haven: Yale University Press. Tudela, P. (1994) Chilenización y cambio ideológico entre los aymaras de Arica (1883–1930). Intervención religiosa y secularización. Revista Chilena de Antropología 12, 65–87. Urrutia, F. and Uribe, M. (2015) Identidad cultural, memoria social y archivos parroquiales (siglos XVIII-XIX): Reflexiones etnológicas a partir de una experiencia en Belén (Arica, Norte de Chile). Diálogo Andino 46, 79–94. Weismantel, M. (2001) Cholas and Pishtacos: Stories of Race and Sex in the Andes. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Woolard, K. (1998) Introduction. In B. Schieffelin, K. Woolard and P. Kroskrity (eds) Language Ideologies: Practice and Theory (pp. 3–50). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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

In this chapter, I look at my learning of Romanian and how my competence in this second language has influenced my research. I learned Romanian for an Erasmus stay in Romania and, in the first part of this chapter, I show why I tried to reach the level of a ‘native’ speaker in this language and how this objective slowly became an obsession. In the second part of the chapter, I look at how my competence in this language has influenced my research and my understanding of the situations I was studying in different countries where Romanian is spoken: in Romania, it impacted the way I negotiated access and how I presented myself during interviews and observations; in Moldova, Ukraine or Serbia, it strongly influenced my perception of the realities I was observing, for example, as I was unwittingly silencing groups whose language I did not speak. Introduction

I first started learning Romanian as an undergraduate student in politics, and being able to speak like a ‘native’ Romanian speaker soon became my main aim, if not obsession. I had decided to go to Romania for an Erasmus exchange and as I wanted to study a ‘Romanian’ subject for my coursework, I thought that I needed to learn Romanian in order to be able to understand relevant sources and materials produced in Romania. It was an unspoken assumption for me, my colleagues and my supervisor, that if I was going to Romania, I should be able to use and read Romanian materials. Once in Romania, I learned the language, in the classroom and ‘in the wild’ (Pavlenko, 2015) and, slowly, I aimed at speaking Romanian like a native using my own and unclear definition of what a native had to 140

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sound like. Since then, I have used Romanian for ethnographic fieldwork in different countries where this language is spoken. In the first part of the chapter, I want to reflect on the reasons why I attempted to speak Romanian like a native. It is only recently that I have been made aware of the numerous discussions in the social sciences around the notion of the ‘native speaker’ (Schmitz, 2013) and been able to reach the conclusion that the ‘native speaker’ is an invention that is associated with a long history of exclusion (Davies, 1991; Bonfiglio, 2013). As I show in this chapter, ‘speaking like a native’ was more about my personal and political positioning. In the second part, I look at how my acquired nearly-native competence in Romanian has had an influence on my research: depending on the contexts and countries where I was carrying out research, it impacted the way I negotiated access and how I presented myself during interviews and observations. However, it also strongly influenced my perception of the realities I was observing, for example, as I was unwittingly silencing groups whose language I did not speak. Learning to Speak Romanian Like a ‘Native’

I started learning Romanian because I needed it for my Master’s dissertation at the Free University of Brussels (ULB). As already mentioned, I had decided to go to Romania for an Erasmus exchange. Among other reasons, I had chosen Romania because of the language: I knew that Romanian is a Romance language and I supposed that it would be easier for me – with French as my first language – to learn it rather than a Slavic language. Before arriving in Romania at the end of August 2004, I learned some initial Romanian words and phrases with the help of a self-study method, called Assimil (Ilutiu, 1996). The method that I used comprised 90 daily short lessons that I tried to follow every day for three months before my departure. When I arrived in Romania, I knew a few words and expressions that helped me find my way for the first few days I spent in this country that was previously unknown to me. For example, immediately after landing at Bucharest airport at midnight, I had to negotiate the price of a taxi to the city centre where I had been given accommodation. After entering the taxi, I was not sure whether I had agreed to a price of ‘12’ or ‘20’ euros since to my ear the two numbers in Romanian sounded similar. It turned out that I had agreed to the latter. This was not exactly a good price but I felt relieved and proud when the Erasmus coordinator told me a few days later that another Erasmus student had once paid 140 euros for the same ride. Entering the coordinator’s office, I had asked in some approximate Romanian if it was the office in which I had to be and the coordinator complimented me on the effort I had made to learn a bit of Romanian before the start of the Erasmus year. The price I negotiated and the compliment I received boosted my confidence, and probably my ego

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too, and confirmed to me that it had been a good idea to start learning the language of the country in which I was going to spend a year. After a few days, I started a one-month intensive Romanian language class with other Erasmus students from all over Europe. The classes were for complete beginners and I had already learned most of the basic grammar thanks to my self-study method. However, since I had previously learned alone and without any complementary audio device, I now could learn how to pronounce words correctly and hear for the first time the melody and the rhythm of Romanian as it is spoken in Bucharest. Throughout the first year, I worked on my Master’s dissertation about nationalism in Romania, using sources in French, English and Romanian even though I was still ‘less than fluent’ (Tremlett, 2009: 65) in Romanian. I could read and translate written sources and materials for my dissertation. It seemed to be enough for the purpose of the research. I carried out interviews in French and in English and wrote the dissertation in French. It could be said that, after one year in Romania, I had learned mainly to speak English with other Erasmus colleagues – English being the lingua franca among Erasmus students (Jenkins, 2009). However, it might be more appropriate to say that I had learned to speak a variant of English that my colleagues and I had called ‘Latin English’. The ‘English’ spoken with my Erasmus colleagues, who came mostly from Italy, France and Spain, was made of words taken from Italian, French and Spanish that were then pronounced in an English sounding way and that would probably have been hard to understand for any ‘native’ speaker of English who had never learned a Romance language. A few Romanian words that we had picked up were also added to this Latin English in which we were communicating. It was only during the year that followed, when I decided to enroll in a Master’s programme in Romania, that I developed my competence and fluency in Romanian. Even though the language of instruction of the Master’s course was French, most of the social interaction outside the classroom took place in Romanian. At university, Romanian was the lingua franca and, as one of the few foreigners enrolled in the Master’s programme, I had to adapt. My desire to speak ‘good’ Romanian and then Romanian like a ‘native’ developed slowly during these two years in Romania. Firstly, I was influenced obviously by some sort of challenge that I had imposed on myself and I started gradually to look down on ‘tourism language’ – these basic and functional language skills that allow someone to greet, order a coffee or follow directions in a language. Even though such skills can strengthen intercultural dialogue (Phipps, 2006), they were not enough for me as someone who considered themselves more than just a ‘tourist’ – a word that in French can also be used in a derogatory way for someone who does not really care about anything in general. Secondly, I was also influenced by the people I met. For example, one of my Romanian friends

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in Bucharest married a non-Romanian whom she had met when he was an Erasmus student in Bucharest two years before me. Sharing the same kind of Erasmus ‘bubble’ experience as mine, he had decided to ‘go native’. He apparently avoided most contact with ‘non-Romanians’ and would speak only Romanian if he heard that there were French-speaking people around him. Hearing him talking in Romanian, I remember being impressed (and also quite jealous) by the way he sounded to me like a ‘native’ Romanian. His ‘native-like’ Romanian, and the ease with which he spoke it, became what I aimed for. This experience illustrates that being a ‘native speaker’ is, as Davies puts it, all about ‘membership’ (2003: 99). Nevertheless, influenced by my friend’s husband, my desire to pass for a native could be explained as much by my own reaction to certain political and personal positionings as in terms of membership. It was firstly a reaction to questions I would be sometimes asked in Romania 10 years ago, like ‘Why are you here when you have the opportunity to be somewhere else (much nicer)?’ or ‘Why do you bother learning a language like Romanian?’ All these questions showed that, for most of my interlocutors, the situation in Romania was so bad, economically and socially, that they could not understand why someone coming from a Western European country would like to live there if they were given the choice. It was secondly a reaction to the fact that while Romanians are generally expected to speak the language of the place to which they move, the same is not usually true when it comes to a Westerner speaking Romanian in Romania. It was, thirdly, also a reaction to the experiences of some people I met and with whom I became friends. For example, I was once told by someone in Bucharest right after Romania joined the European Union in 2007 that when she checked her passport at the ‘EU citizens’ line at the airport, she felt finally like a ‘human being’. In other words, my desire to pass for a native speaker became more and more driven by a feeling of respect towards those people I met who had a different life from mine and had maybe not had as many opportunities to travel and develop as me, just because I had been lucky enough to be born into a middle-class family in a Western European country. There was also probably, with hindsight, the personal ambition of a competitive young student who wanted to position himself as an intelligent, serious-minded, cosmopolitan and multiculturally competent person who is not mired in Western snobbery or stereotypes about Central and Eastern Europe. What started first as a mark of respect gradually became an obsession and I put much effort on an everyday basis into learning Romanian, mainly by watching TV, listening to music, reading newspapers and speaking with my (patient) ‘native’ friends. At the end of two years in Romania, it seemed that I could pass for a ‘native’ in everyday situations, at the market or in a taxi, for example. To avoid questions, I would sometimes use the name of my Romanian flatmate to make reservations or only give a Romanianised version of my first name. I felt rather confident in my level

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of Romanian and felt quite happy and proud that I could go unnoticed in the streets of Bucharest. Once, while I was waiting for a friend in front of a concert hall in the city, someone came to me and asked for change. When I replied to her in Romanian, she apologised and explained that she had thought I was a ‘foreigner’. For the whole of the short conversation, I put on my most beautiful accent and felt relieved when the conversation ended and I got away with my lying by omission. Researching in Romania Ten Years Later

In January 2015, more than 10 years after arriving for the first time in Romania, I came back to the country for a 10-month period of ethnographic fieldwork investigating the multilingual practices of those working at borders. The research was carried out in the framework of a project called ‘Researching Multilingually at the Borders of Language, the Body, Law and the State’ and one of its case studies on Working and Researching Multilingually at State (and European Union) Borders.1 Even though my first impressions when I arrived were of coming home, I had a hard time in the first months to adapt again and to get back to what I considered my ‘native’ Romanian. As I wrote then in a field note that I was going to share with my colleague working at the same time in neighbouring Bulgaria: I try my best, I put on my most beautiful local accent, and then here they come, the words that you cannot remember […], the words that you actually have no clue about […], or the words that you know but did not hear […], or even those words with these letters that are suddenly so difficult to pronounce properly […]. Even my friends tell me so […] but mostly find it ‘cute’ […] even when the word I use to say that my Romanian is ‘rusty’ (ruginită) sounds more like the name of a village (Ruginoasă). […] I am not anymore that ‘native speaker’. And it is not only about words, it is also about behaviour: I don’t speak like a ‘native’ and I don’t behave like a ‘native’. There is a new set of rules that I do not know anymore, like how and when I am supposed to give a tip, but I also may seem to act strangely when, to make sure that I do not pass for a ‘foreigner’, I seem to be an unfriendly silent person. I just do not seem to belong here anymore. (February 2015)

Nevertheless, the months passed and I got used to living again in Romania. Documenting my language learning and practice for the first time, for the purpose of the research, I felt that my former obsession changed progressively into a game. For the first time, I read and thought about what it meant to be a ‘native’ speaker. Looking into this concept and understanding what lies behind it, I started to be more relaxed. In contrast to Schmitz (2013) – who explains that he disagrees with those who would consider him a ‘failed native’ because ‘true’ natives can hear his accent when he speaks in the language of the country in which he has

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lived for many years − I discovered that I could also do things that supposedly only ‘natives’ can do, like recognising other non-natives. I also did not mind using ‘slang’ or ‘obscenities’, which are often seen as only reserved for natives (Davies, 1991: 166). Still, contrarily to the first years I had spent in Romania, I was confident for the first time with the fact that I am not a ‘native’. As I explain in the following excerpt of a field note that I wrote in March 2015, there are things about which I cannot do anything: When I had dinner at the Horezu Pub next to my flat with a […] friend, I remember what Davies said about how non-native speakers have gaps in background and culture of a language (the author was for example referring to songs and stories for children that non-native have never heard of). My friend is a quarter Polish, a quarter Ukrainian and half Romanian, but she’s French and has only been in Romania for 6 months for her Erasmus exchange. When we were in Belgium, we would always speak French and the first time we met in Bucharest in January, she spoke to me in French, but I told her that I wanted to speak Romanian because I did want to improve. The good thing is that she helps me when I don’t know words and that I can also hear some of her mistakes […]. But when we discussed about the pub where we were, she informed me that Horezu was actually a city in Oltenia where you could buy nice ceramics and pottery. She wondered that I had never heard of it while it is apparently very famous. For me, Horezu was the name of the bird that is on the logo of the bar and they were using nice ceramics as plates only because they were serving traditional Romanian food. This is the part of knowledge a ‘native’ indeed has, and it makes me think that, even if I know well Romania, my knowledge of that kind of things is in a way dependent on, for example, the Lonely Planet I have: Horezu is not mentioned in the Lonely Planet, and tourist guides are, in a way, my first source of information for that sort of cultural information. (March 2015)

This example shows that my friend could easily claim more ‘authencitiy’ (Shenk, 2007) with regards to Romanian than me. However, as I will try now to show with the following examples, my ‘not-completely-native’ competence of Romanian also brought some advantages. In Romania, one of the first steps of the field work consisted of writing letters to institutions and organisations in order to negotiate access and secure interviews with their workers and officers. I had expected to write such letters in two or three hours but it eventually took me one full day to finish them. There are two main points arising from this that I wish to highlight. Firstly, I have never learned how to write formally in Romanian, since I mostly learned it with colleagues outside of the classroom. Writing a formal letter (upon which would depend future access for my research) suddenly seemed very tricky. It all started with how to address the person at the beginning of the letter. I looked for the different ways of addressing people formally, mainly using the internet and Google, but I was very

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confused. I was also not fully convinced when I found out that such letters had to end with long ready-made phrases which I had never seen or heard in Romanian before. Secondly, I wrote the letter, in what I thought was a very formal manner. I used a dictionary, Google Translate and Google in general to see which expressions were used most often. I asked a friend then to check the text, but as she was tired and not really in the mood, she just read it once, made one or two small changes and told me that it was fine. Her comment was that it was all ok but that sometimes it would not sound like ‘a Romanian’ would have phrased it. While, at first, I wanted to ‘sound’ as Romanian as possible and my letter to be written in ‘perfect Romanian’, it seemed to me that leaving it like this could be an advantage for me and the research. Indeed, if the letter did not sound ‘Romanian’ all the time, I thought that this could trigger the curiosity of the person to whom it was sent and it could help to obtain more (positive) answers. It is impossible for me to say if this strategy was in the end successful, but some of the replies I received from the institutions and organisations that I contacted did mention the language that I had used. For example, one of the replies I received from a non-governmental organisation (NGO) started with a compliment on my Romanian. As I wrote then in a field note, I had the impression that: such compliment is only made to a person whom you know is not a Romanian ‘native speaker’. Even if my name does not sound Romanian at all, it does not say everything and I think that the only way for them to find out I am not Romanian and did not use an interpreter is that not everything in my letter sounds Romanian. The fact that the collaborator at [another NGO] also told me at the beginning of our first meeting that I spoke beautiful Romanian seems, I believe, to show the same. (February 2015)

Later during the year, I contacted a new NGO and the reply I was given mentioned explicitly that the person ‘would be very happy to meet [me], at least only to figure out how [I] learned Romanian so well. Because, for sure, [I] did not use Google Translate to write the message.’ In fact, I had used Google Translate but I did not tell my interlocutor this when we first met. Looking at these examples, it seems that ‘not going native’, and going against what I had tried to do when I was learning Romanian when first in Romania, gave me some advantages. Still, if one looks at the reason why I tried to ‘pass for a native’ in the first place, a tension could be seen here. Indeed, I introduced myself in a Romanian that I knew ‘would not sound’ like the Romanian spoken by a native speaker. In other words, contrary to the rationale I have developed here for my desire to speak Romanian like a native, I unashamedly played the card of the ‘foreigner that had learned the language’ and used the fact that I was a researcher from a ‘Western’ university in my negotiation to obtain access.

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Looking at two other settings in which I conducted research in Romanian, as I will now show in the next two sections, it can be noted that I did not always have such an opportunity to utilise my ‘native-not-sonative’ competence in Romanian and that this had an interesting impact on the research I carried out. Researching in Romanian in Moldova

In the autumn of 2006, I started working on a PhD dissertation on issues relating to languages and minorities in the Republic of Moldova. Spending a weekend in Chișinӑu, the capital of the Republic of Moldova, in 2004, I had been struck by the presence of Romanian and Russian everywhere in the city. You could hear both languages on the streets, you could see them in store windows or on advertising panels. The presence of these two languages in the city and in the rest of the country can be explained by the history. Moldova has always been at the margins of larger and multinational states and the population is composed of about three quarters of Moldovans living alongside many different minorities, of which Russian-speaking Ukrainians and Russians are the most numerous. Since independence in 1991 successive governments have attempted to create a nation. Defining the content of the national body has been at the centre of Moldovan political and public life. It has passed through a struggle over, among other issues, the name of the language spoken by the majority of the inhabitants of the country, the interpretation and teaching of history, as well as monuments and public holidays. What it means to be ‘Moldovan’ has remained conflictual and its interpretations permeate local politics and international geopolitics between Russia, Romania and the European Union (Danero Iglesias, 2014). In Chișinӑu, I rapidly found myself as an integral part of the conflict I had started to study. By speaking the Romanian that I had learned in Bucharest, I might have involuntarily positioned myself and was positioned by others in a certain way. Firstly, in Chișinӑu I could not pass for a ‘native’ Moldovan speaker. I could easily pass for a ‘Romanian’ native speaker, but not at all for a ‘local’ speaker. Even though attempts at creating a distinct ‘Moldovan’ language have been ridiculed by most linguists in Romania and in Western scientific literature, Romanian is spoken in Moldova with a very distinctive accent and numerous different words and expressions. Passing for a ‘native’ in Bucharest was a great advantage – for very pragmatic reasons. In Chișinӑu I was identified as ‘Romanian’ and could not play at all with my competence as I did when sending letters to negotiate access in Bucharest. At the same time, most locals would also identify my accent as ‘from Bucharest’, the capital of Romania. In this nationalist conflict, Romania is considered by some in Moldova as an occupier that ruled over Moldova between the two World Wars. Some remember this period

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as an ‘occupation’ where Jews, traditionally Russian-speaking, and other minorities were deprived of their rights and where ‘Moldovans’ were given low consideration by ‘arrogant Romanians’ arriving from Bucharest. Depending on whom you are talking with, speaking Romanian in Moldova with a ‘Romanian’ accent can directly put you in a particular box. Furthermore, many Moldovans have numerous stories of how people have made fun of them and of their accent in Bucharest and in Romania. Romanians from Romania, in short, are often considered ‘arrogant’ and ‘patronising’ towards Moldovans. Knowing that context, I tried – and I remember this with some embarrassment – in shops or at the market to speak Romanian with a ‘local’ or ‘Moldovan’ accent or to put Russian words in sentences in Romanian. I felt very awkward in those moments and I am almost sure that I didn’t fool the person in front of me. I started little by little to use ‘local’ and ‘Moldovan’ words, expressions and constructions – to the extent that some in Bucharest later asked me if I was from Moldova – but never to the extent that I could pass for a ‘native’. Secondly, I believe that I also took sides in my research. At first, I was interested in issues of bilingualism and its use in politics. Living and researching in Moldova, I soon understood that, to investigate such a topic, I would need to know Russian. I took Russian classes, but in 2009, living in Moldova for six months, I found out that I did not actually need more Russian than the basic Russian I already had. Indeed, Romanian/ Moldovan is the ‘state language’ of the country and, living in the capital, you can do everything in Romanian. Some shop assistants or waiters would only speak Russian but bilingual conversations are not uncommon in Chişinău. Usually, in such situations, Romanian-speakers often switch to Russian; in contrast, by keeping on speaking Romanian, I would maybe pass sometimes for a Moldovan nationalist who refuses to switch and to speak the language of the former coloniser. At the same time, my dissertation became oriented more and more towards a discourse analysis of the construction of the nation in Moldovan political and media discourse. Such a focus can probably be explained by the fact that I was able to research, read and carry out the analysis, interviews and observation in Romanian but not in Russian. By knowing Romanian, I only had access to ‘one side of the story’, the story told in Moldova that was written in Romanian. This meant that in my research I used an overwhelming majority of sources and documents in Romanian (and in English and French) and almost nothing in Russian. Since I studied a discourse that is produced in ‘Romanian’ or in ‘Moldovan’ – and I often struggled and needed the help of ‘native’ friends when analysing speeches written by ‘Moldovanist’ sources using a very ‘local’ version of Romanian – I did not take sides with regards to the issue I studied, but I took sides by looking at only one side of the issue. Had I known Russian, I could have easily studied the reactions to the discourses I analysed, such as the discourse that is produced by national minorities. The latter were absent

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from my data and conclusions and it could easily be said that my lack of knowledge of Russian has indirectly silenced national minorities and only given a voice to the majority group whose language I spoke. For these reasons, it seems that my competence in Romanian, and my lack of competence in Russian, has had an impact on my research – on how I conducted it, and ultimately on how I approached and analysed the issue I was trying to understand. Researching in Romanian in Serbia and Ukraine

After my PhD, I started working on the influence of the European Union border on the populations living on the non-EU side of it. Taking the example of Romanians in Serbia and Ukraine who lived close to the border with Romania, I sought to determine how minorities understand citizenship as a manifestation of their relations with their kin-state and the nationalising host state. I conducted focus-groups and semi-structured interviews in Vojvodina and in Central Serbia in March, May and June 2014, and in Bukovina in Ukraine in May and June 2014. Compared to research in Romania and in Moldova, the context in Serbia and Ukraine was again different. When Romania was created as a state in the 19th century, many ethnic Romanians were to be found outside the newly created country. Today, Romanians can be found mainly along the borders of present-day Romania and they form minorities in various countries of Central and Eastern Europe. This means that I came to Serbia and Ukraine without knowing the language of the majority of the population of those countries but only the language of the minority I was studying. Just like in Moldova, I had firstly to adapt to the language that was spoken by the people I interviewed and observed. For different geographical, historical and current political reasons, the Romanian that is spoken in Serbia and in Ukraine is very different from the Romanian spoken in Bucharest. Romanian has been well preserved in Bukovina and, thanks to my knowledge of the way it is spoken in neighbouring Moldova, I did not have much trouble in understanding my interlocutors. In Serbia, Romanian has been preserved mainly in dialectal forms with numerous calques and words from Serbian. I would always be able to understand what the conversation was about or what people were answering to my questions. Still, I would often not be able to understand each of the words taken separately. While some of the words that were used by participants in Serbia could have been understood by Romanian ‘native’ speakers – notably as archaisms – they looked and sounded completely new to me. Furthermore, once again, there was no way in Bukovina or in Vojvodina that I would speak Romanian like a ‘native’ or ‘local’ speaker. However, contrarily to Moldova, in both countries I was in an environment where Romanian was spoken only by the participants in my research. When I

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was not with them, Serbian and Ukrainian were spoken – two languages in which I have no competence at all. Unlike Romanians in those countries who are often completely bilingual, I was not able to switch to Serbian or Ukrainian when needed. Still, helped by my basic knowledge of Russian, I could read and understand parts of the signs in shops or in the streets. In Bukovina in 2014 after the events in Crimea, I was told that speaking Russian was only accepted in the case of ‘foreigners’ since it is the language of the ‘invader’. In Serbia, I would often be answered with a smile or a brief comment when addressing people in Russian. Nevertheless, interactions were very limited outside of the Romanian minority I was studying. In this context, if I look back at the time that I spent in both regions, I do not have the feeling today that I was in Serbia or in Ukraine but rather that I was in Romania. Indeed, I spoke Romanian most of the day and spent most of my time with Romanians. Looking at the issue I was studying, my lack of competence strongly influenced my understanding of Vojvodina and Bukovina as a whole and my perception of the realities I have been observing in both regions. Once again, it can be said that I only spoke to the minority I was studying and did not take into account the views of the rest of the population of these regions. On some of the issues that I covered, such as cohabitation between majority and minority, it would probably have been interesting and important for my conclusions to hear from the majority. Conclusion

If I reflect back on my competence and fluency in Romanian, the need I created for myself to have an excellent command of Romanian has probably given me the opportunity to give more detailed accounts of what I was trying to analyse. By my willingness to be a member of the community I was living in, I believe that I had the opportunity to be a bit more ‘in the know’ (Tremlett, 2009: 64). It probably allowed me to understand what I was studying with more nuances than if I had been relying only on French or English accounts or translations. As shown in the first section of this chapter, my desire to be able to pass for a ‘native speaker’ has been influenced by the experiences of the people I met within this community. What I called a ‘need’ could be seen as a reaction to some discourses that I heard and with which I did not identify and that strongly relates to issues of power between ‘the West and the rest’ (Hall, 1992). As I showed in the second section of this chapter, I still lack some features of the ‘true’ native speaker. However, it has not always been a disadvantage since for the purpose of my research, I played with my ‘notso-native’ Romanian when I negotiated access to some organisations and institutions I was approaching. I tried to influence the outcome of the

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negotiation by showing that I was not a ‘native’ speaker and put forward my ‘non-native’ status to gain access. This shows that even though I had wanted to distance myself from other ‘Westerners’ in Romania by learning the language, it could be argued that I used the ‘Westerner’ card in this case. Still, as shown in the third and fourth sections of the chapter, being able to pass for a ‘native’ in Romania did not mean that I was able to pass for a native ‘local’ speaker of Romanian in Moldova, Serbia or Ukraine. In those settings, my competence in Romanian (and my lack of competence in other languages) influenced my research in directions that I could not choose, for example involuntarily silencing groups with whom I was not able to speak. This shows that the context in which I carried out research was stronger than I had expected and that language is only one of the many elements that may give researchers access to a fieldwork and the community they are trying to understand. Note (1) Supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) (Grant Number: AH/ L006936/1).

References Bonfiglio, T. (2013) Inventing the native speaker. Critical Multilingualism Studies 1 (2), 29–58. Danero Iglesias, J. (2014) Nationalisme et pouvoir en République de Moldavie. Brussels: Editions de l’Université de Bruxelles. Davies, A. (1991) The Native Speaker in Applied Linguistics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Davies, A. (2003) The Native Speaker: Myth and Reality. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Hall, S. (1992) The West and the rest: Discourse and power. In R. Maaka and C. Andersen (eds) The Indigenous Experience: Global Perspectives (pp. 165–173). Toronto: Canadian Scholars’ Press Inc. Ilutiu, V. (1996) Le Roumain sans peine. Paris: Assimil. Jenkins, J. (2009) English as a lingua franca: Interpretations and attitudes. World Englishes 28 (2), 200–207. Pavlenko A. (2015) Learning languages in the classroom and ‘in the wild’: Second language learning and embodied cognition. Psychology Today, 28 January 2015, accessed 21 May 2017. www.psychologytoday.com/blog/life-bilingual/201501/learning-languagesin-the-classroom-and-in-the-wild. Phipps, A. (2006) Learning the Arts of Linguistic Survival: Languaging, Tourism, Life. Clevedon: Channel View Publications. Schmitz, J. (2013) The native speaker and nonnative speaker debate: What are the issues and what are the outcomes? Calidoscopio 11 (2), 135–152. Shenk, P. (2007) ‘I’m Mexican, remember?’ Constructing ethnic identities via authenticating discourse. Journal of Sociolinguistics 11 (2), 194–220. Tremlett, A. (2009) Claims of ‘knowing’ in ethnography: Realising anti-essentialism through a critical reflection on language acquisition in fieldwork. Graduate Journal of Social Science 6 (3), 63–85, accessed 21 May 2017. www.gjss.org/content/claims‘knowing’-ethnography-realising-anti-essentialism-through-critical-reflection.

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

This chapter proposes a subjective reading of the particular practices of fieldwork language learning and research in a non-native language, taking the notion of ‘a language’, in a multilingual context, as central. Based on my own experience, as a native in Romanian, of learning Portuguese, the European branch, and then broadening the understanding of this language to Brazilian and Angolan Portuguese, I will question some of the methodological and epistemological issues arising from these processes, from the perspective of my fieldwork research in Angola between October and December 2013. A succinct socio-historical background of the beginning of 20th century colonialism in Angola will offer the basis for examining the cultural denominators of Portuguese, as spoken in that country. Introduction

The intersection between ethnographic research and the challenges brought by pursuing this research in a non-native language is almost never incidental.1 However, the ‘silence’ surrounding this is barely explored, causing a huge disservice to the research itself, the results, and to fellow colleagues, with whom we could demystify the obstacles and issues arising from it. Having this as a starting point, and based on my experience of learning Portuguese during my undergraduate studies in Romania, and six years of living in Portugal followed by a two-month period of PhD research in Angola, the purpose of the present chapter is to reflect on the crucial need to question the role played by cultural denominators of the same language spoken in different contexts (i.e. here Portugal, Angola and Brazil). Further, widening the analysis, my contribution will look at 152

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the effect of these cultural denominators on properly undertaking field research, taking my research in Angola as an example. In the first section I will focus on the social and cultural universe that defines a language. In the second section I will pinpoint the need to master one or more of the other national languages, depending on the location of the fieldwork and the languages linked to it. While I carried out the large part of my research, in Luanda and in a quite specific socio-­economic environment, Portuguese did not represent a problem. However, upon leaving for Malange in the north of the country, I became aware that mastering kimbundu (the second most spoken language in Angola, mainly in the northeast of the country, i.e. Luanda and Malange provinces among others), or even some words in kimbundu, would have helped significantly. It would have done so, firstly, by creating a sense of empathy and ‘trust’ and, secondly, through enhancing mutual comprehension. I will, in the final section, focus specifically on the epistemological and methodological issues that arise from these two main observations and reflect on wider issues relating to the researcher’s privilege and position of power in ­ethnographic research. From Colonialism to ‘Languages in Portuguese’

When giving a public talk in Brazil, the Portuguese writer José Saramago was once asked to repeat what he just said, because of his accent. He replied ‘My accent? Excuse me. The language is mine. The accent is yours!’ (Saramago in Gonçalves, 2015). Saramago’s words are complex and, at a first glance, can represent what, even today, is a quite widespread vision of the Portuguese language outside Portugal, that is, ‘the proper way of speaking Portuguese’. I am not even remotely suggesting that Saramago’s reply simplifies and reduces in this way the Portuguese spoken in Brazil, or in any other Portuguese-speaking country, but it definitely implies a gap that goes beyond the mere ability to understand a language. At the same time, his answer suggests a certain sense of ownership, of subjective disposition, and the incapacity to fully include all the universes in operation in a language. Because languages are inhabited by personal and collective memories, they are lived bodies of identity and as such they belong to their speakers, irrespective of literacy, socio-­ economic context or how they acquired the competences in the language concerned. According to Ethnologue (Simons & Fennig, 2017), Angola is divided into three major linguistic groups of bantu origin: umbundu, kimbundu and kikongo. Each corresponds to an ethnic group: ovimbundu, kimbundu and bakongo. The same website reports 41 spoken languages in Angola, 1 inactive and 5 non-indigenous. Nevertheless, the language spoken by most of the population remains Portuguese with a 73% literacy rate in a population of around 25 million, according to UNESCO’s 2015 report

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and the 2014 national census (UIS Unesco, 2015; National Institute for Statistics, Angola, 2014). This panoramic view of the multilingual context in present day Angola translates a former reality of struggle, not only for national independence, but for a national independence in Portuguese, equally as language of oppression, liberation and unity, alongside the other national languages of Angola. No reflection on the role of language in ethnographic research can disregard the historic framework that so deeply shaped the body of the languages per se and, with it, the multilayered society that still puts them to great use. And Angola is no exception. A brief overview of Portuguese colonialism in Angola at the beginning of the 20th century presents us with the cultural violence of Portuguese colonialism in Angola, which aimed to implement Portuguese as the sole language of the country. At the end of the 19th century, the central premise of Portuguese colonialism was its ‘civilizing mission’ (Boletim das Missões Civilizadoras, 1920; Jerónimo, 2010). In this context, to put into practice the ‘civilizing’ concept implied endorsing hierarchical, patriarchal, abusive relations, as defined by the series of laws known as the Indigenous Statute or Native Statute. Being ‘indígena’ was equivalent to being the ‘uncivilized native’, who needed to be ‘educated’ in the cultural and linguistic customs of the Portuguese settler, and was subject ‘to an exceptional regime of civil, criminal, and political law that served the ideological and economic aims of colonization’ (Nogueira da Silva, 2012: 300). In 1913, Ferreira Diniz (Secretary of Native Affairs) proposed one of the first characterizations of ‘indígena’. According to this interpretation one of the defining elements of an indigenous person was ‘not mastering Portuguese properly’ (Vera Cruz, 2005: 95). The Indigenato system allowed the creation of a new category, the assimilado (assimilated), an indigenous person who met all the requirements, including the ‘proper’ speaking of the Portuguese language, that could be expected of a Portuguese citizen from the metropolis, of the same social class and cultural level (Ferreira & Veiga, 1957: 114). Whereas during the first contacts the Portuguese merchants or the missionaries had to learn one of the bantu languages, now the colonized population was subjected to the unitary language of the empire. By Law Decree nº 77 of December 1921, the Portuguese language was imposed as the compulsory language of education in the very few schools then existing in Angola, while the African languages were banned from the state education system. Consequently, the bantu languages, seen as markers of the ‘uneducated’ and uncivilized indigenous population, were doomed to be spoken only in personal spaces and gatherings. Yet, the Colonial School in Lisbon still provided a course in ‘general knowledge of the ambundu language’, as well as in landim, also known as ronga (nowadays one of the national languages of Mozambique) (Organização, Programmas e Regulamentos da Escola Colonial. Decreto de 18 de Janeiro de 1906, 1907: 11). This can be easily explained by the fact that speaking Portuguese was confined mostly

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to urban centres and upper-class families; the local administrators seemed almost compelled to have general knowledge of bantu languages. This relegation of the national languages of Angola in direct relation with acquiring the assimilado status de iure made many parents decide to give up on passing the maternal or paternal languages on to their offspring, in order to protect them or secure a ‘better future’. But being fluent in Portuguese did not necessarily mean acceding to the assimilado status, since this was a very selective process dependent on political and economic factors. Far from being a protective regime to the advantage of the local population, it was a Kafkaesque process through which the population could be better controlled, especially for labour, education and, hence, economic purposes. The Indigenous Statute was only abolished in 1961 (Neto, 2010). The uprisings in Angola in January, February and March of that year that also marked the formal beginning of the liberation struggle, as well as international pressure against Portugal’s colonialism system, led to this change in legislation. At the same time, considering the variety of ethnic and, consequently, linguistic groups of colonial Angola, Portuguese had to be (re)appropriated and transformed. The voice of contestation and of liberation needed a common spoken language of national unity and that could only be, again, Portuguese. Therefore, even in The People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola’s (MPLA) military camps, Portuguese was taught and transformed into a tool of liberation, before and after independence. In a discussion-interview from June 2013, Pepetela, one of the MPLA’s former liberation fighters and also language instructors, and now one of Angola’s iconic writers, tells the incredible story of one of his most appreciated books As aventuras de Ngunga (Ngunga’s Adventures), first published in 1973. Since the author preferred not to have this talk recorded, I reproduce the same testimony as it appears in the inside cover of one of the editions of the book (Pepetela, 2002): Ngunga wasn’t meant to be a book. I was in the East and I was doing a numbering of MPLA’s bases: for the first time we were to know how many bases there were, how many people, weapons... I was going from base to base and at the same time I was accompanying the teaching, I was giving a hand to the teachers with the maths manuals from the former GDR (German Democratic Republic) that were too modern, and the teachers had some difficulties with it. Also I got to figure out that the kids had only the schoolbooks to practice Portuguese, so I got to the conclusion that I had to do some auxiliary handbooks, and this is where Ngunga appears. The texts went gradually from very simple to very complex. But since that wasn’t enough, the texts were translated to Mbunda and afterwards I was trying to give them the grammatical rules by rewriting Mbunda. In this way the children could learn to read in their language and use it every time they had a difficulty in any word in Portuguese. When I finished, I came to the conclusion that was a story; I gave it a meaning and some time after we decided to publish it.

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Pepetela is also the author of one of the MPLA’s literacy manuals called ‘The victory is certain’.2 Published in 1968, the manual has 31 lessons, focused propagandistically around the construction of a nationalist consciousness, in direct relation with the fight for national freedom from Portuguese colonialism, and imperialism, as the greater enemy. The first 27 lessons prepare a basic vocabulary for the revolution, using the most common words, such as ‘colonialismo’ (colonialism), ‘independência’ (independence), ‘unido’ (united), ‘bombas’ (bombs), ‘guerrilheiro’ (freedom fighter). This short analysis of late Portuguese colonialism in Angola in relation to language learning is particularly important since it determines the connection the Angolans I interviewed had with the Portuguese language, both as a language of oppression and emancipation. Also, it determined my own process of relating with the language, both its weight and power. When cautious, when ignorant, I started drifting between the variations of Portuguese and my own variant of them all. Language Learning: Multiple Linguistic Personalities at Work

I ‘officially’ started learning Portuguese, the European branch of the language, during my undergraduate studies in Romania, although my very first contact with the language had been through free classes offered by the Brazilian Embassy in Bucharest. During the classes at the university, more often than not, we were penalized for speaking the language we supposedly had learned from Brazilian soap operas. We had to opt for one variant of the language, which definitely makes sense now, since every variation has its particularities of both grammar and vocabulary, but invariably it had to be European Portuguese (EP). In my last year of studies I received an Erasmus scholarship at Minho University in Braga, Portugal. Although, right from the beginning, it seemed only natural to understand Portuguese since Romanian and Portuguese are both Romance languages, I felt that the proximity between the languages, or the simple immersion in the Portuguese context was not enough. I was quite disappointed to observe I was changing the genders and the plurals of the words, and misplacing the pronouns very often. Because of this, I decided to spend all my time with Portuguese and Brazilian colleagues. While the interaction with most of the Portuguese colleagues reminded me of the Portuguese classes back home, with no apparent flexibility towards using variations from other ‘languages in Portuguese’, exchanges with the Brazilian and Cape Verdean colleagues allowed me to immerse myself in the diversity of the Portuguese language spoken in these countries. I was soon able to joke and use regionalisms in Portuguese. This direct contact with the language and its various peoples gave me confidence and made me want to deepen my knowledge of the language. But apart from this direct linguistic and personal experience with the Portuguese language I also had the opportunity to enrol in two classes: Angolan literature and Cape-Verdean literature. After three years of already

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studying Portuguese in Romania, and one semester in Portugal, I was modestly satisfied with my level of Portuguese, but soon that proved to be more than inaccurate. The course on Angolan literature was an introduction to Angolan poetry, almost entirely dedicated to the feminized body of the nation, of the mother, that claimed independence through the voice of her sons. Even though expressed in Portuguese this voice translated a culture in a historical process that went beyond language alone (Couto, 2004). Confronted with ‘Letter from a contract laborer’ (Carta de um contratado) by Antonio Jacinto, I discovered not only Angolan literature as a means of struggle, a space of denunciation of the atrocities of Portuguese colonialism in Angola, but also another Portuguese. Written in 1961, the year of the outburst of anti-colonial violence in Angola, this poem claims the language of the colonized, and transforms it into a tool of struggle. This process happens by appropriating the Portuguese language, through the use of words coming from kimbundu, which help recreate a cultural and affective space of the Angolan reality of the ‘contract worker’. In the love letter written by the contract worker to his love, the author transmutes the orality into a blend of significances and denominators in both languages.3 Flora and fauna that do not exist in Portuguese are directly transcribed in kimbundu to praise the beauty of the loved one, but the lyric of a Portuguese classical poem and the literate vocabulary go to show the proximity with EP. The final verse ironically reveals the despair of this couple: she cannot read and he cannot write. This duality of the Angolan intellectual in between two worlds is representative of most of the Angolan literature of the period, but also of the society it depicts. Obviously, this reality cannot possibly be simply wiped out with independence or the ongoing process of decolonization. The process of reconstructing the Portuguese language happens in association with, not in opposition to, the vernacular languages. A close examination of the spoken and written word in contemporary Angola easily shows this intriguing diversity of the Portuguese language there. All in all, the experiences above show precisely the Portuguese language as plurinational and pluricentric (Kloss, 1967), that is, the recognition of standardized variations of the same language, circumscribed to a national territory (Kloss, 1967: 31). Also for my PhD I chose to pursue my studies in Portugal, this time having Angola as my focus, namely the role women played in the initial years of the liberation struggle (1945–1961). By the time I went to Angola to conduct fieldwork, in 2013, I had already lived in Portugal for almost four years, on and off, and had contacts with different variants of Portuguese, including Angolan, but mostly through Angolan literature. This helped me to familiarize myself with Angolan vocabulary. Yet, nothing could prepare me for the richness of the Portuguese language I found in Angola, blended with the local languages and very specific cultural traits. In Angola the bantu languages influenced phonetically, phonologically and syntactically the Portuguese language there. Also, grammar variations

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are more frequent than in any other monolingual context (Gonçalves, 2013). In practice, this takes various forms, as I could observe during my stay in Angola. During my two months in the country, between October and December 2013, I noticed the use of a preponderantly European Portuguese (EP), with words from local languages, mostly kimbundu. These words often appeared as established denominators in the language, as for instance ‘kandandu’, the Angolan fraternal hug, a sign of solidarity, proximity in life, joys and troubles. This was soon one of the first words I would also put to great use and with great benefits. Before arriving in Angola I read extensively from Angolan contemporary literature. This helped me to familiarize myself not only with some of the vocabulary of kimbundu, umbundu or mbunda origin, but also allowed me to enter the new universe of significances they bore. Gradually, the same language gained other significances and they opened a space of orality, of improvisation in language, of nuances never addressed in European or Brazilian Portuguese (BP). All the women I interacted with at the market, on the street, during the interviews, suddenly became ‘mamãs’ (mothers), and I apparently was one of them as well in daily interaction. This formula of addressing translates a universe where the women are the womb nurturing the relations among the various layers of society. Concomitantly, they are the linkage between the various ‘estórias’ (histories) composing the narration of the national history. Slightly different from the EP ‘história’ (history), an ‘estória’ bears nuances, local significances and goes beyond the dystopian image of the ‘Family [as] a metonym for nation’ (Moorman, 2016: 198). I soon understood what I came to realize in Angola: gender shaped the house and the agora, and by this, the struggles for the right to imagine a nation long before the actual beginning of the liberation war, and the more visible presence of women as guerrilla fighters. Language itself was an instrument and a reflection of these transformative practices. Thus, language embodied, reshaped and translated emancipatory political and cultural practices and traits, transforming the body of the Portuguese language in Angola into an owned body. Although I knew these words beforehand, only the direct contact, living and explanations that came with it provided a better understanding of it. I conducted most of my interviews making use of these words and significances and this gave me a sense of growing confidence and apparent proximity through language, but never ownership. While speaking EP I felt more certain, but less free to improvise; the Angolan Portuguese (AP) provided me with joy and freedom, while walking on quicksands. And it was a journey that was long prepared, although most of the time merely intuitively. Unaddressed Anxieties and Fieldwork

Starting my PhD, I frequently attended meetings and conferences on Angola-related topics. While doing this, I felt I should step back and

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reconsider what I thought I knew about the Portuguese language. Since language is more than the simple form that dresses a word, I realized that hearing a word, knowing its primary meaning, or even the meaning I learnt ‘on the street’ wasn’t good enough. Breaking the codes of AP implied opening myself to hearing and practicing the new jargon circumscribed to this ‘new’, complex and fluid reality. From then on, a new process started, very similar to inter-comprehension. While I was actually learning new words of bantu origin, mostly through reading, oral interactions helped me to have a slightly better sense of the various significances in AP. My research was initially set to gain a foothold in Luanda, where I managed to interact with people from all socio-economic classes, but mostly from the middle class. Most of my interlocutors had received their education in Portuguese and demonstrated a very good use of it. Also, the vast majority of them knew some words in either umbundu or kimbundu, or even could actually understand one of these languages. Yet, the proportion of middle-aged and young people that assumed they knew another national language was very low. In a multilingual country, most of the time it seemed they were monolingual in Portuguese, but often they confessed they felt bad for not knowing another national language. Three of my informants in Luanda, all distinguished ladies in their 80s, affirmed they knew kimbundu, but didn’t want to pass it on to their children, in order to protect them. The children, present at the interviews, confirmed they only knew specific, disparate, words in kimbundu and they were very sorry for not insisting on learning the language. In all these cases, also taking in consideration the elderly condition of my interlocutors, their children were present and assisting with the language, because either my questions seemed not clear enough in Portuguese, or their use of specific variations was almost unintelligible for me. In addition, the family actually wanted to hear the testimonies of their loved ones. Also, to my great surprise in one of the encounters my Romanian mother tongue interfered in the dialogue. The daughters of one of the interviewees had studied in Romania in the late 1970s and they greeted me in Romanian and seemed eager to practice the language. They had still a very good command of it, but since not everyone present could understand us I asked them to switch to Portuguese. At the same time, I noticed that I felt slightly uncomfortable in Romanian, not only because I was caught by surprise, but also as I was not at all used to addressing the topic of my thesis in a language other than Portuguese or English. Since Luanda is a capital of almost 6 million people, most of whom are not caluandas (kimbundu: traditionally inhabitant of Luanda), but people from other provinces who fled their homes during the wars, this primary observation of my fieldwork is not, it seems to me, at all representative of Luanda, let alone Angola. Rather, it is restrictive to the socio-­ economic group I happened to interact with most while I was there, using the snowball technique in order to identify potential informants. Since I

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felt this pressure and incompleteness with the entire research, not only on a linguistic level, I decided to leave for Malange, a six-hour bus ride from Luanda, more into the heart of the country. The focus-group interviews conducted in Malange proved to have even more sociolinguistic specificities, given the socioeconomic, cultural and political history of the region. As a consequence, the influences on EP could be seen mostly at the level of vocabulary and syntax, but also at a grammatical one. Two general observations are to be made here: besides the borrowing in EP of words from bantu origin I also sometimes observed a different structure of the phrase, the so-called interferences and transferences, probably from another mother tongue. A second observation, also much more recurrent in Malange, was the omission of the final ‘s’ in plurals, that is the articulation of the denominators (articles and so on), quantifiers (numerals) and modifiers (adjectives). Previously mentioned in linguistic studies about AP, this is a characteristic inherited as well from the bantu languages, when these are mother tongue languages (Inverno, 2009). In my discussion-interviews in Luanda I noticed, on the contrary, a mastering of the Portuguese language, very similar to the standard Portuguese, since much of my informants’ education had been completed in Portuguese as a first language, inside the family and at school. I felt that my own path of studying Portuguese and living in another country on a daily basis helped me to recognize the specificities mentioned above and to better cope with linguistic difficulties on the field. All this because, alongside the variations of the AP, EP and BP, there were natural fluctuations inside each of these languages in Portuguese, as shown above, ­circumscribed to a specific region, and cultural and socioeconomic group. To this can be added the obvious differentiations between oral and written language, and their different registers. For instance, in the first year and a half of my PhD in Portugal, we had eight different seminars and for six of them we had to present a final paper, while in all of the seminars we also had to give at least one presentation on a given topic. I still remember my first presentation, in Prof Meneses ‘Cognitive Justice’ seminar. At the time I had already been studying Portuguese for five years, including one spent in Portugal. Even though I had graduated in Portuguese and everyone insisted I was fluent, I felt quite the contrary when I had to adapt my language to another universe in the Portuguese language: academic speaking and writing. My concern regarding carrying out research in another language, as well as writing a thesis in Portuguese, proved to be a permanent preoccupation that, more often than not, set me back. While in speaking, even during my fieldwork in Angola, I could easily adapt to different situations, in writing I became very self-aware and I tended to feel reticent about my language skills, since I might mix AP, EP and BP. These anxieties and considerations first became real while transcribing the interviews. This was when I actually became aware of the peculiar

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importance of the sociocultural specificities and their influence in appropriating different meanings for the same words. At the same time, assuming that doing fieldwork is an extremely personal, specific and subjective path, I understood that, at certain points, not having Portuguese as a mother tongue was also an advantage and a way of linguistic ‘identification’ with the people I was speaking to. Thus, I could observe changes in the topic of the phrases, wrong identifications of the gender or plural, all problems I confronted myself with while learning Portuguese. I have to highlight here that out of the 24 people I formally interviewed in Angola, 20 were women and 4 men, 16 had a degree, of which one completed abroad, and the rest had technical training. Nine of these people were at least bilingual. Three of these semi-structured interviews, as well as other informal conversations in Luanda, and another two interviews in Lisbon, were unrecorded, since I was not allowed to do so by my interlocutors, out of fear or maybe lack of confidence, due to the extremely personal nature of their testimonies. Recording the interviews allowed me to go back and forth and pay attention to the pauses in speaking, emotions, tone, word choice, corrections, length, speech rate; all elements that I could later cross-check with literary and historic sources or transcribed, published interviews on similar topics. When I first started my PhD, I imagined the corpus of the thesis composed of literary texts on the topic of the liberation movements. But, gradually, while exploring the literature and visiting the archives, I realized this choice would have been limiting and reductive. I recall a day at the Torre do Tombo Archives in Lisbon, where the dossiers of the International and State Defense Police (PIDE) are held. I was looking at a picture of a newborn baby. This was part of a letter sent from Angola to a grandparent in Portugal, which never reached its destination. The father was a freedom fighter who soon fled the country to join the MPLA in Algeria. This was when I realized the thesis had to have more than a corpus, had to have the materialization of that history there, of that body, intended not only as a metaphor for the nation itself, but as multiple bodies that cannot be separated from their identities, and always ‘inscribed within particular cultural formations’ (Ahmed, 2000: 42). And, because of these micro-histories and polyphonies, and because it was a contemporary topic, I chose to work directly with and about women. In a nutshell, introducing semi-structured interviews as part of the research turned out to be both enriching and provocative, offering a multiple layered reading to the subject I was trying, to a certain extent, to understand. Of course, by this I do not assume I hold an exhaustive or objective perspective on the topic, or a feminine voice. However, I propose a crosschecked pluri-reading of the subject, since no source is complete per se. By problematizing in the dissertation the language question from the perspective of the semi-structured interviews, blended with my own troubled linguistic path, I want to raise awareness on an issue that is very commonly overlooked and disregarded. Especially with languages spoken on

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more then one continent, like Portuguese, linguistic diversity, even inside the same territory, is immense, and taking it for granted may lead the researcher to uncritically assume a privileged, power position towards the field and the people she or he interacts with. Assuming that one knows the language, because one is a native, or because one listened to enough ‘N’gola Ritmos’ can be pretentious and doesn’t benefit our research or us. Conclusion

The scope of this chapter was to look at particular practices of fieldwork language learning and, while highlighting the problematic concept of ‘a language’, document the methodological and epistemological issues arising from it. Nevertheless, this is not a linguistic study, nor does it address a specific linguistic corpus, the focus being instead language as a body of political, cultural and economic layers. Exploring the subjective experience, a sense of shared anxiety, identification and genuine preoccupation with research in a foreign language has been the main purpose of this chapter. My strong connection with living and conducting research in another language made me twice as cautious about language in my fieldwork and in my writing, thus ultimately enriching my research. However, I feel that methodological and epistemological issues, such as differentiations between interview, dialogue and monologue, fieldnotes interpretation, observant participation, second language acquisition and the context or purpose of learning a language, stay partially unaddressed, due to uneven power relations both in writing and in data collecting. And this is enough reason to continue to write about language in the ethnographic context and embrace the complex universes of the languages we are studying through and with. At the same time, this constant shift between languages, cultures, accents, and therefore different ‘linguistic personalities’ is the fluid, dynamic, process that deepens in the subjectivity of our practices of research and challenges our capacity to question them Notes (1) This article benefited from financial support of the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT/MEC) Portugal (with national funds and co-funded by FEDER through the  Programa Operacional Competitividade e Inovação COMPETE 2020), especially through fellowship PTDC/CVI-ANT/6100/2014-POCI-01-0145-FEDER-016859. (2) The manual can be consulted at: https://issuu.com/natc/docs/nreg_8457. (3) For an English translation, please consult: www.disa.ukzn.ac.za/webpages/DC/­ stv4n181/stv4n181.pdf. Also, for more extensive interpretations of Jacinto’s poem, please see: Hamilton (1975), Tavares (1999).

References Ahmed, S. (2000) Strange Encounters. Embodied Others in Post-Coloniality. London and New York: Routledge.

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Boletim das Missões Civilizadoras. Instituto de Missões Coloniais (1920) Sernache de Bomjardim: Tip. do Instituto de Sernache do Bomjardim. No.1, accessed 22 May 2017. www.ft.lisboa.ucp.pt/resources/Documentos/CEHR/Rec/bmc/PT_UCP_CEHR_ BMC_1_Abril_1920.pdf. Boletim Oficial da Província de Angola (1921) Alto Comissariado da República, Decreto No 77, de 17 de Dezembro, I Série – Número 50. Luanda. Couto, Mia. (2004) In Victor Lopes (dir.). Língua: vidas em português (movie), Accessed: 4 January 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBmLzbjmhhg. Ferreira, J.C.N. and Veiga, V.S. da. (1957) Estatuto dos indígenas portugueses das províncias da Guiné, Angola e Moçambique (2nd edn). Lisboa: Edição do Autor, accessed 6 January 2016. https://governodosoutros.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/ferreira-josc3a9-­ carlos-ney-estatuto-dos-indc3adgenas-portugueses-da-provc3adncias-da-guinc3a9angola-e-moc3a7ambique-annotado-e-le1.pdf. Gonçalves, H. (2015) O Estrangeiro. Díario de Notícias, accessed 5 February 2016. www. dn.pt/opiniao/opiniao-dn/hugo-goncalves/interior/amp/o-estrangeiro-4480788.html. Gonçalves, P. (2013) O português em África. In M.F. Bacelar et al. (eds) Gramática do Português (pp. 157–168). Lisboa: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian. Hamilton, R. (1975) Voices from an Empire: A History of Afro-Portuguese Literature. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Inverno, L.C.C. (2009) Contact-induced restructuring of Portuguese morphosyntax in interior Angola: evidence from Dundo (Lunda Norte). PhD Thesis, Coimbra University. Jacinto, A. (2014) Carta de um contratado. In União das Cidades Capitais de Língua Portuguesa (eds) Antologia de Poesia da Casa dos Estudantes do Império (1951–1963). Angola. S. Tomé e Príncipe. 1 Volume (pp. 158–160). Lisboa: União das Cidades Capitais de Língua Portuguesa. Jerónimo, M.B. (2010) Livros Brancos, Almas Negras: A «Missão Civilizadora» do Colonialismo Português (c. 1870-1930). Lisboa: Imprensa de Ciências Sociais. Kloss, H. (1967) ‘Abstand languages’ and ‘Ausbau languages’. Anthropological Linguistics 9 (7), 29–41. Moorman, M.J. (2016) Intimating nationalism: Gender in the MPLA’s maquis. In S. Pantoja, E.A. Bergamo and A.C. da Silva (eds) Angola e as Angolanas. Memória, sociedade e cultura (pp. 165–203). São Paulo: Intermeios-Casa de Artes e Livros. National Institute of Statistics (Angola). Angola Population and Housing Census (2014), accessed 5 February 2016. http://ghdx.healthdata.org/record/angola-population-andhousing-census-2014. Neto, M. da Conceicão (2010) A República no seu estado colonial: combater a escravatura, estabelecer o ‘indigenato’. Ler História 59, 205–225. Nogueira da Silva, C. (2012) Natives who were Citizens and natives who were Indigenas in Portuguese Empire (1900-1926). In A.W. McCoy, J.M. Fradera and S. Jacobson (eds) Endless Empire. Spain’s Retreat, Europe’s Eclipse, America’s Decline (pp. 295–306). Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press. Organização, Programmas e Regulamentos da Escola Colonial (1907) Decretos de 18 de Janeiro e 4 de outubro de 1906. Portarias regias de 13 de novembro e 21 de dezembro de 1906. Decreto de 22 de fevereiro de 1907. Lisboa: Imprensa Nacional, accessed 5 February 2016. www.fd.unl.pt/Anexos/Investigacao/1432.pdf. Pepetela (2002 [1973]) As aventuras de Ngunga. Alfragide: Dom Quixote. Simons, G.F. and Fennig, C.D. (eds) (2017) Ethnologue: Languages of the World, (20th edn). Dallas, Texas: SIL International, accessed 5 February 2016. www.ethnologue. com/country/AO/status. Tavares, A.P. (1999) Cinquenta Anos de Literatura Angolana. Via Atlântica 3, 124–130. UNESCO Institute for Statistics: Angola (2015), accessed 5 February 2016. http://uis. unesco.org/country/AO. Vera Cruz, E.C. (2005) O Estatuto do Indigenato e a Legalização da Descriminação na Colonização Portuguesa – o caso de Angola. Lisboa: Novo Imbondeiro.

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

The acquisition of ‘proficiency’ is often assumed to solve a variety of problems when conducting ethnographic fieldwork in a second language. Based on my experience of doing fieldwork while ‘proficient’ in Russian, this chapter highlights the issues raised by ‘fluency’, which complicate and deepen challenges common to ethnographic fieldwork in general. Firstly, I consider how I was ‘enlanguaged’ by new contexts and activities, especially in learning new cultural norms. Secondly, I examine the performative aspects of conducting fieldwork in a foreign language, such as the pressure to ‘pass for a native’ and the emergence of a ‘field identity’. Finally, I reflect on how being ‘fluent’ impacts on issues of power, hierarchy and inequality in local Russian contexts. This chapter demonstrates how the emotional and ethical challenges of conducting ethnographic research in a foreign language do not end with ‘fluency’ and encourages those doing fieldwork to consider what it means to be an effective ‘intercultural speaker’.

Introduction

The move towards greater reflexivity about the role of the ethnographic researcher has removed many of the clouds and cobwebs surrounding the ‘mystique’ of fieldwork. This relatively new focus on the ‘shadow side’ of fieldwork has resulted in an abundance of material on fieldwork methods for both novice and seasoned ethnographer alike (Spradley, 1979; 164

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Hammersley & Atkinson, 1995; Lofland & Lofland, 1995; Mason, 2002; O’Reilly, 2012). Some observers (Gibb & Danero Iglesias, 2017; Tanu & Dales, 2015) have recently highlighted gaps in this literature pertaining to the use of a second language, where the linguistic capabilities of researchers in the field remain shrouded in a veil of silence and/or reticence. This is despite the high number of ethnographic research projects that involve language learning on the part of the researcher, who is often under pressure to make rapid progress with language skills and ‘master’ the language of respondents before entering the field (Gibb & Danero Iglesias, 2017; Rodgers, 2012). Prior to beginning my PhD research, I had lived and worked in Russia for four years, passing language proficiency examinations there and in the UK. I had also carried out a qualitative research project in Almaty, Kazakhstan, which gave me a year’s experience of conducting ethnographic fieldwork using Russian. Attaining ‘proficiency’ would appear to reduce or neutralise the anxieties about perceived competence and authority felt by those researchers who are ‘less-than-fluent’ in the second language (Tremlett, 2009: 65). However, as my fieldwork progressed, a range of unanticipated issues emerged despite reaching the ‘holy grail’ of ‘fluency’ and ‘competence’ in using the second language. As this chapter shows, carrying out fieldwork in another language can, in many ways, complicate and deepen issues common to ethnographic fieldwork in general. In breaking the relative silence on how ethnographic fieldwork in foreign languages is conducted we can offer new insights into the nature of ‘multilingual consciousness’ and how this affects ethnographic fieldwork. Employing self-reflective practice while working in two languages recognises that, in every stage of the process of research, we are operating in two languages and writing in the presence of both. Above all we do not want to obliterate this rich double language environment by making the way language is used invisible. On this point I am very much in agreement with Phipps (2010: 100) on the need to move away ‘from oblivion and towards an echo’, that is, towards candid reflection on language practices. Three areas will be examined in this chapter. Firstly, I consider the experience of being ‘enlanguaged’, when the ethnographic language learner engages with a language in a whole new context and learns the skill of communicating in new intercultural spaces. Secondly, I examine the self-applied pressure to ‘pass as a native,’ which complicates the well-­ documented insider-outsider dynamic of ethnographic field identity. Here I consider researcher positionality and the dynamics of mild deception in the field through an identity that is socially and culturally constructed in the other language. The third set of issues in this chapter relate to the experience of ‘being fluent’ and how this impacts on issues of power, hierarchy and inequality within the context of local Russian cultural values. This offers a window into the experience of a male, Western researcher in gaining access to gatekeepers in a culture that, at times, still operates

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on the basis of ‘a favour for a favour’. This raises ethical questions as to how one can manage expectations, understand local values and be aware of any potentially exploitative aspects of field relationships in different linguistic and cultural spaces. Before examining these issues, however, I offer some brief background information about the ethnographic research referred to in this chapter. The Research Context

My ethnographic fieldwork took place over the second year of my PhD (June 2014–September 2015), which was spent gathering data in Russia. The aim of this research is to examine aspects of modern Russian national identity and ‘everyday nationalism’ or ‘national feeling’, demonstrating how this operates in different generational, social and regional groups. Rather than focusing on a smaller group of self-­professed ‘nationalists’ in Russia today, the aim is to explore how ‘ordinary’ Russian people view and express aspects of national identity and what meanings are given to this within their own specific contexts. In other words, the research seeks to gain access to the collective imagining of the Russian nation and state. My ethnographic fieldwork involved interviews conducted exclusively in Russian and analysed/coded in this language. From the outset I intended to write up the results in both languages, making my work accessible and (hopefully) relevant to two audiences, one in the West and one in Russia. Interviews were conducted as part of an overall ethnographic approach. As I had over a year to live, work and study in Russia, I was able to build up field notes and follow how a variety of themes entered the public domain and were discussed in everyday life. This was central to making the study ‘resolutely grounded in a specific context’ (Baszanger & Dodier, 2004: 12), in this case, that of present-day Russian society. At the start of this research, however, I doubted my own credentials as a ‘true’ ethnographer – I felt this was not a ‘typical’ ethnographic case study due to its wider focus. It is not, for example, a study of a smaller, perhaps even ‘exotic’, sub-stratum of society such as ‘young skinheads in North England’ or ‘Scottish biker gangs’. Instead, I focus on two roughly generational groups in European, urban Russia while seeking a representative sample in terms of socioeconomic backgrounds. In a sense, I entered the field with doubts over how ‘ethnographic’ my approach was and with the impression that I wore two ‘hats’: one as an area specialist with a multi-disciplinary approach, the other as a linguist. I would soon find some pressure over how to present myself to experts and respondents alike, an anxiety that did not truly reveal itself until entering the field. Thus, the account that follows thus also contributes to the literature on being reflective about one’s emotions in the field as research progresses (Kay & Oldfield, 2011; Pollard, 2009).

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Being ‘Enlanguaged’ and Multilingual Consciousness

The work of using language when making meaning and shaping knowledge has been termed ‘languaging’ (Bagga-Gupta, 2014). The experiences related below show how data are a product of interaction and ­collaboration between the respondent, the interviewer and the field environment, an interplay in which language plays a salient role. As Phipps (2010: 98) has written: ‘when language learners enter the social world of that language and start living in that language they become “enlanguaged” by social worlds, their ways of being and of dwelling change, often profoundly, though also imperceptibly, as a result’. Thus, upon entering the field we take our language skills and begin our engagement with a new set of social worlds, a process that Roberts et al. (2001: 10) have termed ‘­tertiary socialisation’, which is ‘the process of entering into the social practices of the foreign language community’. This process ensures that, in time, the researcher becomes more capable, using language ‘in ways which can make them acceptable members within a new community’ (Roberts et al., 2001: 10). The pilot project for my PhD was the first key phase of ‘languaging’ and becoming ‘enlanguaged’; it was then that my acquired linguistic skills met the social world. Prior to entering the field, my only experience of discussing my research had been with supervisors, friends and people connected to academia. In the pilot project I met a variety of people in Moscow from May to September 2014. It was in this period that I experienced the constant challenge of adapting and scaffolding language to new audiences. In presenting research to academics and peers in an abstract, scholarly language, one must express an intellectual puzzle in a concise manner to engage a community of researchers. What became apparent to me was how inadequate this is for the field; what I needed instead was a plainer, ‘unpacked’ version of the research, not just for respondents but also for the various people I needed to interact with, such as gatekeepers. Any ethnographic research project benefits from the post-pilot project phase of reflection, contemplation and reworking of research approaches. For those using a second language it is even more complex: in attempting to grasp why questions were being ‘misunderstood’ or not eliciting a response, linguistic and cultural considerations make the picture even more complicated. I discovered my semi-structured guide with its very open questions resulted in respondents disengaging from segments of the interview and not ‘opening up’. In a way this was about learning the culture of ‘interviewing’ in Russia; respondents expected me to be more forthright about what I wanted to discuss. I subsequently put more effort into offering preambles and brief introductory sections before my questions without ‘leading’ respondents too heavily, underlining why the views of ordinary people are important. This ‘prompting’ material came from carefully listening back

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to the audio files of the interviews, where I could review my own performance as an interviewer and reimagine how the questions sounded to respondents. Upon my return to Russia I was able to experiment in a few interviews to judge how best to explain the point of the interview, engage respondents with good questions and make better linking statements when shifting to a new thematic section. This was a challenging period when I had to creatively work with Russian in new ways; the subsequent materials I created were important in improving respondent engagement in later interviews. It was also only after the pilot project that I became more fully aware of the constant challenge of acting as an intermediary between two cultural spaces. It became clear to me that a variety of ambiguous terminology was being used in interviews, both in my questions and respondents’ answers. This included words such as ‘patriot’, ‘Nationalist’, ‘The West’, and even ‘Russian’ – which has two versions in the Russian language (russkiy and rossiyskiy). The differences between these terms in English and Russian ran far deeper than I had expected; it was only being in a Russian-language environment that made me realize that the meanings behind them were worth exploring, echoing the points made by Müller (2007) on the difficulties and near impossibility of translating key terms. The complex and changing meanings of certain terms in Russian also left me with the sense they were untranslatable. This, in turn, became an important element of my dissertation: to examine these phrases and words in the rich ‘thick descriptions’ of my respondents, retaining key expressions in Russian when writing in English and presenting at conferences. It was only with time that I came to appreciate my position as ‘interpreter’ and my own relationship with hermeneutics. Here I experienced Gadamer’s ‘fusion of horizons’, where the common horizon achieved between interpreter and respondent opens up new, deeper understandings (Palmer, 1969: 209). This brings with it a commitment to the idea that new meanings can be found in the space between two languages. The willingness and desire to explain these phrases, especially in written work and at conferences, means we must not gloss over the challenge of translating but clearly position ourselves as located between two worlds and be candid about the kind of translation decisions we make as an ‘intercultural speaker’. Another aspect of being ‘englanguaged’ was in experiencing new cultural spaces and adapting to their linguistic requirements – in this case, my experience of university officialdom in Russia. Being ‘Western’ anywhere in Russia can often make you the object of considerable curiosity. Being a ‘Western researcher fluent in Russian’ can further magnify this interest on the part of some people. However, given the political climate of rising hostility between Russia and the West, there was the potential for that curiosity to be converted to suspicion or hostility. Regardless of how well I felt I presented my intentions in the research, there were some who

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were unwilling to meet a foreign researcher studying/interested in Russian national identity at a time when being seen as ‘pro-Western’ carried risks or stigma. I was soon asked to write a written report in Russian on the aim of my research for the dean of one university department, who had made clear his concern about a foreign researcher appearing at his faculty without his prior knowledge and asking questions about Russian politics and history to staff and students. The process of meetings, discussions and formally justifying the motives for my research was unexpected – the host university had, after all, already approved my research plan as part of an EU-funded doctorate mobility grant and I had not expected further scrutiny. However, in working to justify my research I gained a new sensitivity in adapting to a kind of Russian political correctness. In negotiating this hurdle I experienced a new and hitherto unknown phase of ‘using Russian’ and ‘being enlanguaged’: communicating my research in formal written Russian, interacting with university management structures and making the right impression. This experience was important in building new confidence in the next stage of my research in Moscow, where I planned to contact a variety of elite respondents. The above highlights the fluid nature of challenges in ethnographic fieldwork in a second language and how an appropriate ‘field identity’ was necessary when explaining my motives to university officials. It is this socially and culturally constructed field identity that I will now consider. ‘Passing for a Native’ Versus the ‘Intercultural Speaker’ – The Role of a Field Identity

Looking back on how I prepared myself for the field, it is clear that, even though I was technically ‘proficient’ in Russian, I was still very anxious about presenting myself as a ‘master’ of my subject, in order to instil a sense of confidence among respondents and experts alike. It may be that this pressure to ‘perform like’ and ‘pass for’ a ‘native’ emerged from my own language learning habits and urge to reach ‘native-level’ fluency. In the first year of the PhD this ‘striving for fluency’ returned, only now the focus was ‘mastering’ history, sociology and politics in Russian and ‘fluently’ communicating my research aims to a Russian audience. Prior to entering the field, several Russian academics did raise questions about whether I would be able to engage ordinary people on these topics. I took this, however, as a challenge: it prompted me to work harder in devising a varied and flexible interview guide in Russian. It has only been through retrospective reflection that I have come to a new understanding of language learning and identity, and the role cultural learning plays. Fluency in a language is accompanied by increasing capacities in intercultural communication, as Roberts et al. (2001: 6) note, ‘Language-and-culture learning involves a repositioning of the self both intellectually and at the level of “felt reality”’. Conducting ethnographic

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fieldwork in another language means being an effective ‘intercultural speaker’, ‘border crosser’ and ‘cultural mediator’ who is able to take ‘a critical perspective both on their own cultural practices and that of others’ (Roberts et al., 2001: 31). However, looking back I feel I spent too much energy on ‘passing for a native’. Consider the laborious work done on interview guides, prompts and supplementary materials written up in advance and checked by other native speakers but often not used. Rather than improving the quality of the interactions in interviews or making me a better listener/interpreter, these may have been more about making me feel ‘authoritative’. I would have been better viewing the process more in terms of becoming an ‘intercultural speaker’, tasked with the ongoing challenge of communicating between two spaces. Perhaps this would have reduced performance-based anxiety and made me less concerned about ‘perfecting’ my original interview guide and ‘mastering’ the Russian needed for these interviews. The emergence of a field identity

Employing a language in research, then, is not as straightforward as simply applying a research tool such as NVivo software; when a person ‘masters’ a language they acquire an identity along with it and this has ramifications. For me the ‘striving for native-level’ was about reducing or neutralising certain performance-related anxieties. The emergence of a ‘field identity’ appeared to fulfil a similar function. Entering Russia just months after the annexation of Crimea (March 2014) in an atmosphere of heightened national feeling, I was often asked by a wide range of people why I wanted to do this kind of research. My own field identity emerged as an answer to a rather simple question: ‘Why have you come to study us?’ Upon finding out why I was in Russia, people would turn me into their interviewee and begin an interrogation to ascertain my motives and credentials as a researcher in this area. This revolved around the ‘Russian’ parts of my ‘identity’ – where I learned Russian, why I chose Russia and why I was pursuing this research, along with attempts to elicit my own personal view of Russia and the current situation. In answering such questions I had to come to grips with my own identity and convincingly explain why I had chosen to take on such a project. There was a sense of role-reversal: instead of the curious ethnographic researcher exploring the ‘alien world’, I was the ‘intruder’ being submitted to interrogation. ‘The Russian-speaking Scot’

The beginning of my fieldwork coincided with a period where my home country, Scotland, found itself at the centre of international attention; the ongoing independence debate and impending referendum brought curiosity to the fore among the people I met. Given my own (moderate)

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pro-independence and anti-establishment stances, I found myself soon aligning towards the position of a ‘friendly’ European (as opposed to the ‘anti-Russian’ contingent supporting sanctions against the country). Here it is worth highlighting what elements of my identity I found myself emphasising. Firstly, there were my credentials in ‘passing as’ a ‘proficient’ and ‘authentic’ Russian-speaker. My encounters with Russians in a variety of settings, mainly informal, helped shape how I presented myself. The role of language here was key; ways of defining myself emerged from the social encounters I experienced and were rather unconsciously internalised for later reproduction. This ‘tertiary socialisation’ was not purely based on group interactions; I also had the general context of the ‘information war’ raging between Russia and the West, where binarization of discourse and highly-emotional reporting predominated. Thus, after a few months’ work on the pilot project, I had rather unconsciously created a script to explain my ‘neutrality,’ which I roughly outlined in the following way: ‘I want to see things from your perspective. I am here to learn and provide a more authentic picture of Russia than is present in the current distorted media representations both here and in the West. Russia is a country close to my heart and I want to learn more about it from Russians themselves’. These sentiments emerged as a product of the conversations I had with Russians and were influenced by the trends of the larger media space. This provides an example of how language and the cultural space influence the researcher’s positionality in the field, leading to the ‘donning’ of a socially and culturally constructed field identity. It is also important to note that this ‘field identity’ was not purely driven by pragmatism or rational reasoning; its emergence was not a conscious effort but a response to new external forces. Given my own background living in Russia and connection to the country, this was about coming to terms in a deeper way with my own identity and emotions about why I was doing this research. It was also a response to my own need to achieve an acceptable synthesis between the Scottish and Russian parts of my identity. Here the strain between the ethnographic researcher as an ‘insider’ or ‘outsider’ comes into play too.

Insider, outsider, in-betweener

The previously dominant interpretation of ethnographic fieldwork was to view it as a journey where the non-native researcher enters an ‘alien culture’ and, over the course of conducting fieldwork, becomes an ‘insider and participant’ (Clifford, 1983). However, the interaction of language and identity is such that when we investigate different worlds in another language the ‘traditional binary divide between “us” and “them” (…) comes under pressure’ the closer one gets to ‘bilingual competence’ (Roberts et al., 2001: 6). Caught between closeness and distance, the

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language learner is ‘liberated (or condemned) to be forever in-betweens’ (Roberts et al., 2001: 30). Having lived in Russia for over four years, I consider myself well acquainted with Russia’s culture, customs and language registers. Through informal chat and social interactions it was at times possible to demonstrate this and ‘pass for a native’, either before or during the interview. Some respondents appeared to treat me as an ‘insider’ on the questions we were discussing. This was reflected in comments such as ‘as you know very well yourself’ or ‘you know this too, you’ve been here for a long time, right?’ The sense of being an ‘insider’, I thought, made me more attuned to the voices of my respondents. I felt few linguistic or cultural barriers in understanding what was being said at the time of the interviews and could respond to interviewees’ points in an appropriate manner, probing the parts that interested me or querying aspects needing clarification.  However, there was a downside to playing up an ‘insider’ identity as, although helpful in building rapport, it could lead to respondents assuming I knew about the kind of things I wanted them to express and explain in their own words. There was also a danger in internalising this identity as it would give me a sense of ‘already knowing this country’, when I had so much to learn from my respondents and had to stay open. I became concerned that I might be falling into a trap, ignoring Spradley’s maxim that ‘Instead of collecting “data” about people, the ethnographer seeks to learn from people, to be taught by them’ (Spradley, 1979: 4). Clearly, the striving for fluency and ‘insider’ status must be carefully kept in check; there were so many things that respondents had to offer and I would not want to give the impression that this was already ‘common knowledge’ to me. The process of negotiating my own field identity and insider/outsider dynamics led to the creation of a short written description of me as a researcher, the nature of the research and my motives. This message was vital in attracting respondents who might otherwise have been reluctant to agree to be interviewed. This was this message that helped establish trust and willingness to participate on the part of a wide spectrum of potential respondents, from pro-Putin patriots and Slavophile Orthodox traditionalists, to anti-Kremlin nationalists, pro-Western liberals, Soviet nostalgists and apolitical people. Using Gatekeepers in Russia

The final question I would like to look at is that of power, privilege and inequality in fieldwork. I would agree with Tanu and Dales (2015: 4) that language proficiency is ‘mediated by other factors such as physical appearance, accent, gender, and so on’. We should not discuss language in ethnographic fieldwork in isolation from how the researcher is perceived in terms of gender, ethnicity and status. The experience of Adams (1999) in

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Uzbekistan is an excellent demonstration of how a female researcher using a second language in a male-dominated environment can be relegated to playing the role of ‘mascot’ and ‘guest’ rather than professional researcher with a more equal status. While the relationship between interviewer and respondent has often been seen as ‘inherently exploitative’ to the benefit of the interviewer, Adam’s experience would suggest we should be cautious about being too one-sided in this. She argues that ‘field research is always a collaboration in which the researcher is not all-powerful’; it is a two-way process, ebbing back and forth and, sometimes, the researcher can be in ‘a position of relative powerlessness’ (Adams, 1999: 332). Looking back at how the snowball process unfolded for my fieldwork, gatekeepers were of vital importance to securing access and opening the chain of referrals. This was because, rather unexpectedly from my point of view, only two of those I interviewed were willing to put me in touch with their friends or family. With hindsight this is understandable: these people had, after all, selflessly given up their time for an interview for no obvious personal or professional benefit only to face, at the end of the process, a request to help the research even further by providing a referral. It also reflects a sensible desire (in a Russian context) not to expose your most intimate circle of family to a person who has not yet ‘earned’ this level of trust. Thus, I only came to understand the importance of gatekeepers when in the field and, despite experience of living in Russia, did not fully anticipate the kind of cultural dynamics I would face. Within the context of this research I define a gatekeeper as a rather exceptional person who provided direct referrals leading to a large number of interviews. Two of these gatekeepers worked in university Sociology and Politics departments and provided help due to their own interest in the project and, as they stated, to support a ‘fellow researcher’. The other two main gatekeepers had contrasting motivations. The first was a Russian-born researcher from Spain temporarily in Russia who had extensive contacts in one particular working-class district. She was happy to assist a fellow PhD student and was vital in setting up the interviews with people from working-class backgrounds of the older generation. All of these interviews took place in the homes of respondents with her present. This was an essential factor in breaking the ice and gaining rapport and trust, resulting in rich and productive interviews. The other key gatekeeper, whom I’ll refer to here by the pseudonym Svetlana, was someone I met quite by chance. Her direct referrals led to five interviews, and direct referrals from these led to series of important interviews that would otherwise have been impossible. In making referrals she used my written introduction on social networks, and those who responded to the request were enthusiastic and engaged in the interview. Svetlana’s help in the snowball process was pivotal to the quality of my research and I can only be grateful to her. Her role did, however, highlight some of the issues of using gatekeepers and how I was perceived in Russia.

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In return for Svetlana’s help, I assisted her with a job application, and helped her relatives with some tasks. In doing this, I was reminded that, in a Russian context, this ‘a favour for a favour’ process is a culturally accepted way of beginning friendships or relationships. In this situation I soon found myself under pressure not to disappoint Svetlana but at the same time maintain an ethical and professional position. While this was at times challenging, perhaps some of the discomfort was due to a lack of foresight on my part. It was a relationship I seemed to stumble into and I now feel I could have been better prepared before I went on my fieldwork for these kinds of situations. These developments did make me reflect more on my image as a relatively young, Western researcher arriving in a provincial Russian town. It could be argued that some respondents viewed me as carrying a certain amount of social opportunity and believed that, by providing help with the research, they would be able to build a friendship or relationship with a ‘Westerner’. Thus, I soon was made aware of how local values can differ in terms of relationship building and how managing expectations in a careful way can help avoid disappointing or hurting those who generously provide researchers with assistance. In some ways, this could have been handled better by representing my research in an appropriate manner so as to encourage fair expectations. It took time in the field to even realise this kind of message might be necessary. Over time, I tailored my introductory message and opening comments pre-interview to explain their role and that the nature of the project involved encouraging Russian people to speak their mind about Russia. Conclusion

The above account reveals how, even for those entering the field with ‘fluency’, the challenges thrown up by ethnographic fieldwork in a second language are physically, emotionally and ethically challenging. Remaining silent or burying such accounts in the methodological chapter of dissertations is not helpful to those preparing to conduct ethnographic research. Being a ‘fluent’ researcher in the field involved, for me, a number of performative dimensions with vital emotional pressures. Firstly, immersion in the field during the pilot project can be taken as a good example of ‘languaging’ and becoming ‘enlanguaged’ by the surrounding social world. Not only were key terms being unpacked in the field, but I was also beginning to experience how much of the language crucial to explaining my research was in many ways untranslatable; these were ‘moving targets’ in the sense that the process of translating them is ongoing. This very idea became an important aspect of my dissertation, the fact that understandings of certain phrases such as ‘nationalist’ or ‘patriot’ are under constant reconstruction and renegotiation in Russian language. This brings us back to the theme of ‘multilingual consciousness,’ the sense of being

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accountable to multiple audiences in both languages and the sense that openness is needed in the translations employed in final texts. Thus, the idea that I would need to perform the role of ‘intercultural speaker’ during and after the research only gradually came to the fore. Another performative dimension was the consistent internal drive to ‘pass for a native’. This can be seen in the laborious attention paid to interview questions, the development of prompts and the use of ‘back-up’ questions and preambles in interviews. Looking back it feels that much of this work was done to make me more ‘authoritative’ and ‘masterly’ when conducting interviews. Had I conceived of my role more as an intercultural speaker I could have viewed ethnographic fieldwork more as an ongoing challenge that could not be ‘mastered’ by extensive preparation. However, my own experience of learning languages pressed me to achieve what I saw as ‘higher standards’; this reveals how the pressure to ‘perform like a native’ can act on some ethnographic researchers. The interaction between the ethnographic self and my own identity reveals much about researcher positionality. In my case, a large part of my field identity was about reducing or neutralising certain anxieties I felt about my credentials as a researcher. While much of this only became apparent to me after leaving the field, in the case of the insider-outsider dynamic I discovered that emphasising my ‘insider’ credentials were rather counter-productive; respondents could give the impression our discussions were rather superfluous as I ‘clearly know as much as them’. This resulted in the decision to explain before interviews that I was searching for the ‘view from ordinary people’. Once again I needed to do careful language work to get this message across to respondents without sounding too academic or perhaps unnatural. Finally, being ‘fluent’ in the field can lead respondents to see you in certain ways; one’s gender, profession and appearance can seriously impact on the dynamics of power and privilege. There is a need to become attuned to local values when building relationships. In some ways this also is about being ‘less-than-fluent’ about culture; I was inexperienced in how to manage expectations, follow certain cues and understand local values. It is important to remember that the ethnographic language learner is also a cultural learner, in the process of evolving into a more effective intercultural speaker. All in all, my experience in managing issues related to language competence was important to my research, one deserving of contemplation and reflection for those planning ethnographic fieldwork in a foreign language. References Abu-Lughod, L. (1991) Writing against culture. In R. Fox (ed.) Recapturing Anthropology (pp. 137–162). Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press. Adams, L. L. (1999) The mascot researcher: Identity, power, and knowledge in fieldwork. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 28, 331–63.

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Bagga-Gupta, S. (2014) Languaging: Ways-of-being-with-words across disciplinary boundaries and empirical sites. In H. Paulasto, L. Merilainen, H. Riionheimo and M. Kok (eds) Language Contacts at the Crossroads of Disciplines (pp. 89–130). Newcastleupon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Baszanger, I. and Dodier, N. (2004) Ethnography: Relating the part to the whole. In D. Silverman (ed.) Qualitative Research: Theory, Method and Practice (2nd edn) (pp. 9–34). London: Sage. Churchill, C. (2005) Ethnography as translation. Qualitative Sociology 28 (1), 3–24. Clifford, J. (1983) On ethnographic authority. Representations 2, 118–146. Coffey, A. and Atkinson, P. (1996) Making Sense of Qualitative Data. London: Sage. Coffey, A. (1999) The Ethnographic Self. London: Sage. Gibb, R. and Danero Iglesias, J. (2017) Breaking the silence (again): On language learning and levels of fluency in ethnographic research. The Sociological Review 65 (1), 134–149. Hammersley, M. and Atkinson, P. (1995) Ethnography: Principles in Practice. London: Routledge. Kay, R. and Oldfield, J. (2011) Emotional engagements with the field: A view from area studies. Europe-Asia Studies 63 (7), 1275–1293. Lofland, J. and Lofland, L.H. (1995) Analyzing Social Settings: A Guide to Qualitative Observation and Analysis. New York: Wadsworth. Mason, J. (2002) Qualitative Researching: London: Sage. Müller, M. (2007) What’s in a word? Problematizing translation between languages. Area 39 (2), 206–213. O’Reilly, K. (2012) Ethnographic Methods (2nd edn). London and New York: Routledge. Palmer, R. (1969) Hermeneutics: Interpretation Theory in Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Heidegger, and Gadamer. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Phipps, A. (2010) Ethnographers as language learners: From oblivion and towards an echo. In P. Collins and A. Gallinat (eds) The Ethnographic Self as Resource. New York and Oxford: Berghahn. Pollard, A (2009) Field of screams: Difficulties and ethnographic fieldwork. Anthropology Matters Journal 11 (2), accessed 9 May 2017. www.anthropologymatters.com/index. php/anth_matters/article/view/10. Roberts, C., Byram, M., Jordan, S. and Street, B. (2001) Language Learners as Ethnographers. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Rodgers, S. (2012) How I learned Batak: Studying the Angkola Batak language in 1970s New Order Indonesia. Indonesia 93 (April), 1–32. Spradley, J.P. (1979) The Ethnographic Interview. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Tanu, D. and Dales, L. (2016) Language in fieldwork: Making visible the ethnographic impact of the researcher’s linguistic fluency. TAJA: The Australian Journal of Anthropology 27 (3), 353–369. Tremlett, A., (2009) Claims of ‘knowing’ in ethnography: Realising anti-essentialism through a critical reflection on language acquisition in fieldwork. Graduate Journal of Social Science 6 (3), 63–85, accessed 9 May 2017. www.gjss.org/content/claims‘knowing’-ethnography-realising-anti-essentialism-through-critical-reflection.

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

Drawing upon my experience of researching in multilingual spaces during the successive phases of my school ethnography, this chapter reviews the possibilities, challenges and lost opportunities found during my work. I explore the issues around collecting data in multilingual spaces with plurilingual youngsters in two different localities in bilingual Catalonia. Since I am doing research in my country of origin, I did not anticipate serious linguistic issues. However, the current situation of super-diversity (Vertovec, 2010) in many cities all over the world, which some schools especially reflect, challenges the idea of researching monolingually. The bilingual situation of Catalonia adds additional linguistic nuances to the researcher-subject relationship. I present an account of my uses of languages and my linguistic decisions during the research, as well as some of the ethical, political and methodological issues that have arisen while trying to collect as faithfully as possible the voices of the subjects of my research. ‘Quin parla amb mi català jo intento parlar català qui parla amb mi castellà jo intento parlar castellà.’1

‘Whoever speaks Catalan with me I try to speak Catalan with them, whoever speaks Castilian with me I try to speak Castilian with them.’

(Aleeza,2 15-year-old student who arrived in Barcelona from Pakistan 4 years ago) 177

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‘Les noies diuen que parlen català, però més aviat és un catanyol.’

‘The girls say they speak Catalan, but rather it is Catanyol.’3

(Teacher talking about the group of friends of Aleeza [non-verbatim]) Introduction

Traditionally, there have been problematic issues around languages and ethnography and the insidious ways in which people’s voices are silenced (Temple, 2005).4 However, nowadays, in a situation of super-­diversity (Vertovec, 2010), the challenges related to learning ‘the language’ of ‘the community’ multiply. In this chapter I explore issues around collecting data in multilingual spaces with plurilingual youngsters during successive phases of my ethnographic research in two different localities in bilingual Catalonia. In the last few decades, different terms have been coined to try to capture what speakers do with their communicative practices and to move away from the view of named languages, considering these as social constructs. In this chapter I use the plurilingual concept based on the Council of Europe’s definition of plurilingualism as: the ability to use languages for the purposes of communication and to take part in intercultural interaction, where a person, viewed as a social agent has proficiency, of varying degrees, in several languages and experience of several cultures. This is not seen as the superposition or juxtaposition of distinct competences, but rather as the existence of a complex or even composite competence on which the user may draw. (Council of Europe, 2001: 168)

Some authors, like García and Wei (2014), consider that the scope of this term is still insufficient since it does not question enough the autonomy of the languages. However, it allows me here to focus on the complex capacity of speakers to combine all their languages, in contrast to the descriptive term multilingualism, which I will discuss later. In this chapter, I reserve the term translanguaging to examine what speakers actually do with their linguistic resources, while I use plurilingualism in a more general way to describe a capacity for which the concept of multilingualism falls short. I started collecting data for my present anthropological research a few years ago while doing my master’s dissertation. Over four months, I compared the learning behaviour of a group of young people of Moroccan, Senegalese and Gambian origin both at the public high school of a small town in the province of Barcelona and at the town’s mosque, where they learned Arabic. A few years later, I embarked on a doctoral thesis, which focused on the same subject but involved research in another

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multilingual school in another location (the city of Barcelona). I draw on these two ethnographic experiences here to reconsider my approach to the fact of not sharing some of the young people’s languages and to the way I use languages with them now compared to previously. I also examine the ethical, political and methodological issues related to the role of languages in the relationship between researcher and research subjects in the current context of globalization, where the boundaries between groups are being seriously reconsidered, at least from an analytical perspective. In the following sections I first present an account of how I used languages during the different stages of my research, before discussing some of the issues that have arisen around languages and their use in my work. Learning and Using Languages when Researching in Multilingual Spaces in a Bilingual Context

When I started my research at Pompeu Fabra, the high school where I conducted the first stage of my fieldwork, I did not consider that I would have the linguistic difficulties that somebody doing ethnography abroad would have. However, I soon realized that when carrying out research in a multilingual school, one of the main challenges was going to relate to the use of different languages. Nevertheless, I never contemplated, neither in that first stage nor in the present stage, learning ‘their’ (i.e. the young people’s) languages before going to do fieldwork. In this section, I want to concentrate on the questions of learning/not learning and choosing languages in both stages of my research, emphasizing my starting point: doing school ethnography in Catalonia. Although my main interest was Catalan students with different linguistic backgrounds than Catalan, I was considering the whole school population as potential subjects of my research. From the beginning, I was concerned that some students were seen as problematic by the school because of their different linguistic backgrounds. I wanted to carry out a comparative ethnography to observe them in the institutional space and in a community space, but I was not sure which languages I was going to find or which community spaces I would be able to access. In some ways, not being able to anticipate a linguistic ethnographic space with clear boundaries in a public school in Catalonia is directly related with the concept of super-diversity coined by Vertovec (2010). Vertovec’s concept describes the current growth in the categories of migrants and the dynamic character of the social reality and how relatively small places can bring together multiple nationalities, ethnicities, languages as well as many different experiences in constant movement. This phenomenon challenges any fixed correspondence between territories and languages spoken. I will now describe what my actual linguistic practices were, as a researcher, in the two different stages of my work. In the first – my fieldwork

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in a school in a seaside town in northeast Catalonia – I focused my research on students belonging to Moroccan, Senegalese and Gambian families. This same group of students were found in the Arabic classes at the town’s mosque, where I also carried out fieldwork. At the mosque, they deployed linguistic resources from different languages, as I explain below. As this research was part of my master’s dissertation I had some serious time limitations. I had no more than a year to collect, analyse and present my research data. Although I realized at the start how limiting it was not to share more of the linguistic resources of the subjects of my research in order to be able to access significant parts of their social practices and social relations, I did not have the time to organize my research incorporating the learning of all the languages or ‘linguistic features’ I encountered. Here I refer to ‘linguistic features’ instead of ‘languages’, following the terminology of sociolinguists such as Creese and Blackledge (2015) and García and Wei (2014). I will later use this work to discuss in greater depth methodological and political issues arising in my research with respect to language. Recently, sociolinguists have increasingly distanced themselves from the concept of language as a system of closed linguistic structures and insist that communication is a social practice in constant transformation, where individuals try to make meanings using all the communicative repertoires to which they have access. From this perspective, the linguistic relationship between researcher and research subjects also changes. Thus, I started to do my research mainly using the official languages of Catalonia that the research subjects and researcher shared. I did have some knowledge of Moroccan Arabic and Standard Arabic because some years before I had lived for several months in Morocco studying Moroccan Arabic. However, in the first stage of my research I did not have the confidence to be able to use this emerging knowledge much beyond a way of developing rapport with the youngsters. The mosque, the community space where I managed to follow some of the students of the school, provided me with a linguistic experience that I had not anticipated either. I was interested in following these youngsters in a community learning space to observe which learning strategies might transfer from the school to the community space and vice versa, but the mosque became an even more significant place in terms of linguistic and identity behaviour. This was a space where children from Morocco, Senegal and Gambia, or children of parents from these countries, were learning Standard Arabic taught by a Gambian teacher with a very limited repertoire of Spanish and Catalan. It became a third space in the terms of Bhabha (quoted in García & Wei, 2014), where the youngsters negotiated their learning, and consequently their identities, using all the knowledge they had access to: Catalan, Spanish, Standard Arabic, Moroccan Arabic, Tamazight, Mandinka, Sarahole, English, or others. In terms of language, this third space became a ‘translanguaging space’, as described by García and Wei (2014). The action of translanguaging, as also discussed by García

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(2009) and Creese and Blackledge (2015), is the use by plurilingual people of their linguistic repertoire to mediate their social and cognitive activities. In translanguaging spaces, metalinguistic awareness enabled plurilingual people to negotiate their extended linguistic repertoires (García & Wei, 2014: 74). Through witnessing this negotiation process, which involved some linguistic features I could not understand, but others that I could, such as the ones identified as Catalan, Spanish, English and some identified as Moroccan and Standard Arabic, I managed to collect relevant data for my research. The mosque was a third space for the young people between the monolingual-oriented spaces of school and home, but it also was a third space for me, the researcher. In this third space, the use of languages, and the learning and incorporation of them were an open process for everyone. At this stage I was mainly using Catalan in the school to approach the young people, while in the mosque I involved myself deeper in their linguistic background and processes by placing myself through participant observation as another Arabic learner. Another important linguistic decision I had to make was related to the bilingual context in Catalonia. Although in Catalonia both Catalan and Spanish are official languages, Catalan is the language of the school and the language of most official and public spaces (see, for example, Carrasco, 2008 or Woolard, 2016). In Catalonia, this bilingualism has been felt as very far from balanced. Catalan is one of the regional languages of Europe that has been suppressed during different periods of its history, such as during the 40 years of the dictatorship of Franco in the 20th century. Choosing one or other language is therefore quite symbolically charged. Nevertheless, Spanish is also the majority language used by the working class in Catalonia and the language which immigrants and children of immigrants have more contact with since they share the spaces of Catalan working-class Spanish speakers. As a bilingual researcher with Spanish-speaking parents, to choose one or other language was also a complicated matter for me. Before contact with the young people I had a few considerations about which language to use to start the communicative interaction. On the one hand, I have been immersed in the discourse about the need to speak Catalan to the children of immigrants – it is seen as the obligation of Catalan speakers to help them to progress in the Catalan system. On the other hand, I am a Catalan-Spanish bilingual person who is continuously negotiating which language to use in all her interactions, depending on many factors such as place, topic, interlocutor, and social background of the interlocutor (see Fishman, 1965 on the language choices of multilingual speakers). I felt it would be unnatural not to use Spanish with them, especially when needing to develop rapport and since Spanish is my more affective language, or the language I most use when I want ‘to be myself’. However, I finally decided to start the conversations in Catalan, as in some ways it is the most ‘neutral’ linguistic choice when associated with the school institution and although my role as a researcher was clarified from the

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beginning, I was introduced by teachers in the school context. In the research, I observed the young people’s own linguistic choices. Currently, I am conducting fieldwork in a high school in Barcelona, Váquez-Montalbán. This school, like Pompeu Fabra, also embraces a diverse population in terms of origin and social class. By the start of this second stage I had already acquired an idea of the linguistic complexities of doing research in a multilingual school. Nevertheless, again I did not consider learning any specific language before starting the fieldwork, this time not so much because of a lack of prediction, but more because I predicted it would be a quite time-consuming task. Although I had more time to deal with methodological aspects in my PhD research, I knew that trying to master at least the 2 or 3 major languages that I was going to find in the classroom could use up all the time and resources of my doctoral grant. What I tried in the new context was to find a third space such as the mosque where I did fieldwork previously. I decided to follow a small group of students to the mosque, where they were learning Urdu. Again, I placed myself as a student of the language taught there. However, the situation was a bit different since all the members of the mosque, children and adults, shared Urdu as lingua franca. Struggling much more with the new language, feeling much more lost in the nearly monolingual space and not seeing the possibility of comparing the same students in the two educational settings as they were going to the mosque less and less, I finally decided to investigate their linguistic learning strategies in different ways. In some ways, the fact that I was having more trouble collecting data in a mosque also pushed me to find or create other spaces that included the young people’s different linguistic repertoires, and where it was possible to analyse their linguistic uses. I have been doing some language exchanges where I help them with their homework and they help me to learn Urdu. Also, in the latest ethnographic stage of my research, inspired by the work of Anderson and Macleroy (2016), I have been involved with a small group of students on a project where they work as co-researchers with me. In creating such spaces, I am aiming to deal in some way with the limitations of collecting data when not being familiar with all the linguistic features of the research subjects, breaking the hierarchical relationship and finally, with the co-researcher project, transferring the action of collecting and interpreting the data to the subjects themselves. I have attempted to build a third space, similar to the mosque during the first stage, in order to collect empirical data in a context where research subjects’ linguistic and, more generally, identity choices are, if not translated by the researcher, at least allowed to emerge. Ethical, Practical, Political and Methodological Issues and Ethnographic Challenges

In the following section, I turn to exploring in more depth some of the ethical, practical, political or methodological issues that arose in my

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research. When I started my research years ago, I was aware that doing school ethnography in Catalonia was not just a matter of conducting ethnography in Catalonia and in Catalan; I had to include transnational realities that added multiple experiences to the school ethnography, and, among these, linguistic realities. Nevertheless, I had not predicted the need for linguistic support. I soon began to reflect on and to worry about what kind of methodological decisions might be influenced by the limitations of the researcher. In the first stage of my research, however, what was a clear weakness – not having a command of a significant part of the linguistic repertoire of many of my informants – was transformed into a strength to some extent by incorporating my own limitations as a part of my ethnographic approach. In the mosque, the fact that I was doing participant observation as a language learner who knew much less than the research subjects, placed my deficit at the centre of our relationship, allowing the hierarchical relationship between researcher and researched to be destabilized. In the mosque, subjects were not the ones forced to feel inadequate by being asked to respond to questions in a language convenient for the researcher; instead, it was the researcher who presented herself as the one who did not have control of the interaction. I am not suggesting here that I could erase my position as an adult, with higher status as a university researcher, and perceived as a native Catalan speaker. I am also not claiming that subjects could use whatever linguistic features they found easier; they were still mainly using Catalan or Spanish with me. As other researchers have found (Murray & Wynne, quoted in Temple, 2005: 5), interviewees feel and perceive themselves as less confident and clever when talking in a ‘second’ language. However, I also show myself in a similar position and allow them, as experts, to guide me in the learning of the Arabic language and in the interpretation of what is happening in the learning space. Describing the uses of languages by research subjects, it is very common to use, as I have just done, the distinction between ‘first’ and ‘second’ languages. However, what do we mean when we describe languages that subjects are using in their everyday lives as ‘second’ languages? As Block explained, there is a monolingual bias in the use of the word “second”, as it ‘implies a unitary and singular “first” as a predecessor’ (Block, 2014: 54), whereas in fact, monolingualism is not the norm in the world. This use of concepts to describe a reality has consequences for the way we interpret this reality and implications for assumptions of belonging or not to the community we share with different groups. As researchers, we must be careful to avoid reproducing exclusive concepts. Indeed, awareness of a multilingual reality does not sufficiently capture the multiple nuances of the linguistic experiences of transnational realities. As Heller makes clear, ‘the tools inherited to make sense of multilingualism belong to an era when we were invested, as social scientists, in understanding languages as whole, bounded systems, lined up as neatly as possible with

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political, cultural and territorial boundaries’, and ‘the very idea of “multilingualism” comes out of the ideological complex of the nation-state with its focus on homogeneity’ (Heller, 2012: 24). Many of the youngsters on whom my current research is focused are often described by educational agents as, for instance, ‘the Pakistani girls’. In contrast, many scholars working from the transnational paradigm have broken with the idea of identities constituted in the frame of a territory. However, when dealing with the day-to-day needs of ethnography, as Heller clearly indicates, the tools inherited from modernist times can undermine our genuine intention of capturing the complexities of reality. It is for this reason that I prefer to talk about linguistic features rather than languages. When we talk about languages, as has been pointed out in sociolinguistics, we run the risk of defining people’s actions from a perspective that does not reflect everything they do and decide to do in the communicative act, and which in turn reinforces essentialist images about who they are and where they belong. Are not all the languages they use legitimately as much theirs as ours? No doubt not being able to understand them when using their community languages is a serious limitation for data gathering, but in a super-diversity context, the perspective of a unidirectional connection between subject and community makes less sense than ever and impedes the process of collecting data as a dynamic reality whereas, as García (2009) emphasises, subjects and their multilingualism are in constant construction and dynamism. Analysing subjects’ linguistic uses from the perspective of bounded languages that identify a territory and a culture can lead us to put a symbolic charge onto them that has to do with our historical relation to the construction of separate languages. When Aleeza’s teacher (in the opening quote) denies that she has a competent use of Catalan and describes what she does as a hybrid form, he is projecting a specific view of the languages related to belonging or affiliation that does not necessarily coincide with what is behind Aleeza’s act of making meaning. If, as a researcher, I adopt the same approach to languages, I can easily reinforce that image of correction or inaccuracy, which can be extrapolated to representations of belonging or non-belonging to a territory. When I started to analyse school documents about linguistic policy in Vázquez-Montalbán, I was surprised that the use of Catalan and Spanish was more of an issue than I had previously noticed. Similarly, when I asked teachers about this topic directly, it was also presented as a problem. This highlights a few points. First, it emphasises how difficult it is to do ethnography in bilingual political contexts. As Heller (2008: 257) explains, ‘bilingualism is a particularly charged topic, traversed by all kinds of ideologies and values, and these will emerge in any communicative situation one way or another, whether connected explicitly to research or not’. In addition, contrasting the different opinions made me wonder how much of my observation was affected by my own point of view of a question

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in which I was also embedded as a linguistic subject in the same linguistic context. Finally, I realized that although participant observation has shown itself to be a valuable technique in many aspects, it is not without difficulties. Was it not more challenging to see beyond my own linguistic position in a space where I was also a ‘participant’? The need for triangulation in situations of bilingualism is even more essential than when conducting research in monolingual contexts. This leads me to reflect on my decisions regarding the use of Spanish or Catalan when conducting research in Catalonia. As explained before I feel it ‘more natural’ to speak Spanish ‘to be myself’, but decided as a researcher to use mainly Catalan, considering this more ‘neutral’ in the context of the school. Woolard has analysed what she calls ‘sociolinguistic naturalism’, that is, how linguistic ideologies legitimatizing the use of a language are provided with authority though the concept of ‘naturalism’. The latter implies that we talk a language because ‘it is the natural, unmediated expression of a state of social life in the world, rather than the outcome of human will, effort, intervention, and artifice’ (2016: 30). Woolard also analyses how languages can gain authority through the discourse of anonymity, the ideology that legitimizes the general use of hegemonic languages such as English, interpreted as neutral languages that belong to everyone. Reflecting on my own interpretation of ‘choosing Spanish’ because it is ‘natural to me’ or choosing Catalan because is ‘more neutral’, I realize that I reproduce a way of legitimizing either one language or another. Following Heller’s approach, I need to take my communicative choices into account and analyse my role in the reality I am investigating but also which I am part of and I construct. Related to this is the need to reflect on my choices when transcribing students’ conversations. So far, I have been following the rules of ethnographic transcription (Pujadas i Muñoz et al., 2010). I have tried to be as faithful as possible in the interview transcriptions and only introduce small changes, for the benefit of legibility, in the fragments of interviews I use in publications. Nevertheless, some doubts have come to my mind during this process. It is extremely interesting to keep the different linguistic features the students use, in order to record phenomena such as translanguaging. I recognize these language mixes as ‘repertoires biographically organized’ and not as imperfect versions of a language (Blommaert & Backus, 2013). However, I am concerned about the impression they convey, given the dominant discourse about the importance of language proficiency. The first impression of the transcript might fit with a deficit perspective if the reader has not been trained in multilingualism. These children show tremendous competence in using Catalan, Spanish and English, avoiding combining Urdu in their talks with me as they know I do not share their competence in Urdu. Nevertheless, the dominant discourse is that if you mix languages it is because of a lack of proficiency in the language. As Woolard

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(2016: 115) has shown in analysing public representations of nonstandard Catalan: Standard language is standard precisely because, as a component of ideological anonymity, it is supposed to be devoid of particularistic ­ ­inflections. Nonstandard orthography violates this expectation and communicates just such a particularistic, locatable identity. The transgression is especially egregious because it introduces traces of an embodied voice into printed text, where ideology holds that none should be heard. Voice is bodily, and the bodily traces contaminate the purity of the standard, like someone spitting on the language. Thus, standard language ideology endows transgressions in the print medium with particularly violent symbolic force in comparison to aural modalities.

Clearly Woolard is focusing on representations for the general public; nevertheless, her considerations make me think about the implications of not finding the right way of representing subjects’ voices, especially if we do not question the tools for analysing multilingual realities inherited from modernist times that Heller referred to. It is an issue to which I have not yet found a satisfactory response. In dealing with young people with transnational experiences, the distinctions between ‘first’ and ‘second’ languages, or ‘our’ and ‘their’ languages, are therefore limiting, in that they do not capture subjects’ agency and have questionable ethical repercussions if adopted as categories of analysis. However, it is important in reconsidering these terms not to obscure what happens in ethnographic research when we do not share linguistic resources or features with the subjects of the investigation. In my research, the opportunities offered by the mosque, as a third linguistic space where young people navigated through all their repertoires in a more transparent way, allowed me to collect data that would not have been possible in other spaces. In addition, the fact of not dominating all their linguistic repertoires also pushed me to look beyond language and to focus on how the young people acted in different spaces. Thus, for example, young people who talked very little in school, and were described as (almost too) discreet, showed other dimensions of their personality in the mosque. My lack of language forced me to observe other ways of communicating and in this way to go beyond the lingual bias described by Block (2014), which is to focus only on the linguistic representations of the communication without considering the role of the body and other modalities of communication. Having experienced the possibilities of a space like in the mosque, my intention in the subsequent stages of my research has been to find or create similar spaces, where linguistic barriers are loosened. The search for such a third space, and influenced by the empowering possibilities of adopting a perspective of critical pedagogy (Carlile, 2012) and critical

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race theory (Yosso, 2005), has led me to ask the students firstly to do a linguistic exchange where they have been teaching me their languages, and secondly, a project where they are co-researchers. As in the mosque, my intention has been to change our roles, permitting their voices, at least in the ethnographic process, to be expressed as the competent voices. In the position of co-researchers, we need to negotiate meanings, which also helps to increase subjects’ agency and voice and balance an unequal power relationship. One of the students said about the project: ‘It’s like we’re going to be right, you know? Well, I don’t know how to explain it. The teachers are going to know what we think and so later we will feel better, when they react to this, you know?’5 However, I found that in the context of the mosque, the children revealed a stronger personality in comparison to these constructed spaces where possibly the traces of the researcher and her privileged position were implied. When doing interviews, I have also been introducing an extra element into the procedure of interviewing subjects, intended to give their voices more space. I have asked them to review my interview summary and to add, in whatever language they want, the information they might find missing. I have asked them to translate for me the information I cannot understand. By letting the young people add their languages to my interview summary, I want to give them a more active role in the research and in the interpretation of what I collect. It is also a way of making their linguistic capital visible and to see what information is added when their languages have a place. However, not all the methodological decisions of my research have been motivated by the desire to add sources of information. I will now reflect on the extent to which some methodological decisions are actually made to avoid situations of discomfort, and consider the possibilities of dealing with the linguistic limitations I have found. In particular, I want to think over my decision to abandon the monolingual mosque and how much this was affected by experiencing there an unbalanced linguistic power relation, but from my side. Reviewing that period from a certain distance, I need to reconsider whether I did not lose the opportunity to observe a space where my major linguistic ‘incompetence’ might have enabled me to overcome the lingual bias (Block, 2014) referred to before. I am not saying that the analysis of other ways of communication that involves analysis of embodiment and multimodality can be done separately from the different meanings that are given to body and other forms of communication in different contexts. What I want to emphasize is that a linguistically complicated situation can help us to observe other forms of communication normally left on the margins of research and that my decision to discard that space also had to do with the anxiety of not having linguistic control over the ethnography. Finally, I want to reflect on the lack of exploitation of the resources when youngsters talk among themselves in linguistic features I cannot

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recognize. The lack of more resources in a PhD research prevents the possibilities of working, for instance, in a multilinguist team and being able to use for analysis all the data collected or perceived in the fieldwork. I have referred to how I have tried to find more participatory techniques and give some space to all the languages subjects use. Nevertheless, these techniques do not resolve situations that, as also described by Holmes, Fay, Andrews and Attia (2016) can lead to situations of asymmetry in terms of collecting voices in ethnography. Holmes et al. propose a way of ‘researching multilingually’ in carrying out ethnographies in multilingual contexts from a framework of reflection that foresees the complicated situations that might arise and the alternatives that might be offered. In my case, this reflexive approach, although it has not given me absolute alternatives, does lead me to review the material conscious of the asymmetries and to reflect on them, integrating in my analysis, for example, what leads a student to speak less in Catalan and to use more Urdu with their partner when in the presence of another student who is seen by others as more competent. Conclusion

Based on the ethnographic work I completed for my master’s degree and am currently conducting for my PhD thesis, I have reflected in this chapter on my use of different languages, the methodological decisions related to this and the challenges and possibilities that these decisions have produced. From an initial naivety about doing ethnography in my country of origin to an awareness of the extent to which linguistic questions are central to multilingual research, there has been a process of reflection about what aspects made me feel uncomfortable, a sensation which I had not foreseen. In a bilingual context, my personal linguistic history has entered the equation, and this has both probably most caused the unforeseen discomforts and made me reflect more on how the different decisions were made related to languages in different aspects of the research. To seek different ways to solve, to a greater or lesser extent, problems of accessing an important part of the linguistic repertoire of the subjects, to break with exclusive categories of analysis or to obtain spaces of negotiation where the subjects of study can show their voices, have been some of the challenges with which I have tried to struggle. However, what I have wanted to show in this chapter is that ‘researching multilingually’ is not a task of ethnography to ‘fulfill’ at a single point in time, it is rather a process that must accompany researchers and should help them to be attentive throughout to what can be hidden, misleading or avoided when investigating in multilingual contexts. From this reflective perspective, as Heller has pointed out (2011: 45), to take into consideration and make transparent the role of the researcher in the construction of the final narrative is paramount.

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Notes (1) The grammar of the sentences does not follow exactly the standard Catalan rules. I have underlined the word which would not be considered correct from a normative point of view. However, the sentence would be understood and recognized as Catalan by any Catalan interlocutor. (2) The names of people and schools have been changed to protect identities. (3) Catanyol: Catalan-espanyol (Spanish) hybrid. (4) This research is part of a PhD ‘Mobility and linguistic capital of children of immigrants, in Catalonia’ under the project I+D+I ‘Movibar’, ‘La movilidad del alumnado en la RMB: tipos, procesos y tendencias’ financed by the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (CSO2012-34285). (5) ‘Es como si vamos a tener razón, sabes? O sea, no sé cómo explicar. Lo que pensem van a saber los profes y así después nos sentiremos mejor, quan ells reacten de esto, ¿sabes? In this case, the youngster is talking mainly with linguistic features identified as Spanish. He mixes some Catalan words that I have underlined and he also uses an English verb conjugated as Catalan. It is a clear example of translanguaging, of his competence to use the different repertoires he has, adapting them to the repertoire he acknowledges the researcher has.

References Anderson, J. and Macleroy, V. (2016) Multilingual Digital Storytelling: Engaging Creatively and Critically with Literacy. New York and London: Routledge. Block, D. (2014) Moving beyond ‘lingualism’: Multilingual embodiment and multimodality in SLA. In S. May (ed.) The Multilingual Turn: Implications for SLA, TESOL, and Bilingual Education (pp. 54–77). New York and London: Routledge. Blommaert, J. and Backus, A. (2013) Repertoires revisited: ‘Knowing language’ in superdiversity. Working Papers in Urban Language & Literacies, 67, accessed 12 May 2017. www.kcl.ac.uk/sspp/departments/education/research/Research-Centres/ ldc/publications/workingpapers/abstracts/WP067-Repertoires-revisited-Knowinglanguage-in-superdiversity.aspx. Carlile, A. (2012) ‘Critical bureaucracy’ in action: Embedding student voice into school governance. Pedagogy, Culture & Society 20 (3), 393–412. Carrasco, S. (2008) Barcelona and Catalonia: A multilingual reality between an old paradox and a new opportunity. In C. Kenner and T. Hickey (eds) Multilingual Europe: Diversity and Learning (pp. 28–32). London: Trentham Books. Council of Europe (2001) Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, accessed 15 February 2019. www.coe.int/en/web/common-european-framework-referencelanguages. Creese, A. and Blackledge, A. (2015) Translanguaging and identity in educational settings. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 35, 20–35. Fishman, J.A. (1965) Who speaks what language to whom and when? La linguistique 1 (2), 67–88. García, O. (2009) Education, multilingualism and translanguaging in the 21st century. In A. Mohanty et al. (eds) Multilingual Education for Social Justice: Globalising the Local (140–158). New Delhi: Orient Blackswan. García, O. and Wei, L. (2014) Translanguaging: Language, Bilingualism and Education. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Heller, M. (2008) Doing ethnography. In L. Wei and M.G. Moyer (eds) The Blackwell Guide to Research Methods in Bilingualism and Multilingualism (pp. 249–262). Oxford: Blackwell.

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Heller, M. (2011) Paths to Post-Nationalism: A Critical Ethnography of Language and Identity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Heller, M. (2012) Rethinking sociolinguistic ethnography: From community and identity to process and practice. In S. Gardner and M. Martin-Jones (eds) Multilingualism, Discourse and Ethnography (pp. 24–33). New York: Routledge. Holmes, P., Fay, R., Andrews, J. and Attia, M. (2016) How to research multilingually: Possibilities and complexities. In H. Zhu (ed.) Research Methods in Intercultural Communication: A Practical Guide (pp. 88–103). Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. Pujadas i Muñoz, J.J., Comas d’Argemir, D. and Roca i Girona, J.R. (2010) Etnografía. Barcelona: UOC. Temple, B. (2005) Nice and tidy: Translation and representation. Sociological Research Online 10 (2), accessed 12 May 2017. www.socresonline.org.uk/10/2/temple.html Vertovec, S. (2010) Towards post-multiculturalism? Changing communities, conditions and contexts of diversity. International Social Science Journal 61 (199), 83–95. Woolard, K.A. (2016) Singular and Plural: Ideologies of Linguistic Authority in 21st Century Catalonia. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Yosso, T.J. (2005) Whose culture has capital? A critical race theory discussion of community cultural wealth. Race Ethnicity and Education 8 (1), 69–91.

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

This chapter brings together reflections on listening in multiple languages from the field of development aid, ethnography and academic research in general. It draws on an AHRC-funded research project that sets out to investigate listening in the work of international UK-based development NGOs, who tend to present themselves as listening attentively to the voices of those they wish to empower. However, the aid field is hugely complex, with a variety of actors that require NGOs to ‘listen’ to them. By interrogating the listening of NGOs, this chapter leads us to reflect on our own listening as researchers, and makes us aware of the gaps in academic reflections on listening and the role of languages in listening processes. It proposes that allowing dialogue between researcher and researched, and critically re-examining our role as researchers can enhance conceptual and methodological developments for those working in multilingual settings.

Introduction

In today’s globalised world, international development NGOs operate in highly complex spaces, crossing geographical, linguistic and cultural borders and involving a large variety of actors. The concept of listening has been increasingly used in NGOs’ discourse in order to emphasise that these organisations listen to those they want to empower. However, NGOs have been criticised for listening primarily to their donors, who 193

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as purse-string holders are in powerful positions to set the development agenda and to request particular forms of evidence from NGOs that demonstrate impact and results. This chapter draws on a research project called ‘The Listening Zones of NGOs: Languages and cultural knowledge in development programmes’, which sets out to explore the concept of listening and the role of languages in the listening of international UK-based development NGOs.1 The chapter uses the specifics of this project in order to reflect on how we ourselves as researchers listen. It aims to make two contributions. Firstly, it aims to contribute to development studies and the development field in general by introducing a concept of listening that is more sensitive to the use of multiple languages. English has been the lingua franca of international aid for many years, and reflections on how language affects listening are often absent in discussions on development, particularly since donors do not ask about languages. Secondly, by observing NGOs’ approaches to listening in their complex working environments and by reviewing existing academic research, the chapter identifies a gap in academic reflections on listening. The chapter aims to introduce a hermeneutic model that is helpful to understand the tensions in the researcher’s own ‘listening zone’, and the role of languages within this zone. NGO Listening

Today’s aid field is densely populated by a variety of actors, including supranational organisations such as the UN, international and national NGOs, and an expanding civil society in the developing world. Working in this complex set-up, several NGOs have become interested in how they are perceived by the communities and beneficiaries with whom they work, and they have carried out self-reflective projects to gain better insight into this. These projects are often framed in terms of ‘listening’. For example, Médecins Sans Frontières carried out a ‘perception project’ in 2005 with ‘the goal of giving voice to the people living in the areas where MSF provides medical relief’ (Abu Sada, 2005: 2). Equally, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) marked its 90th anniversary with an opinion survey and in-depth research as part of its ‘Our World. Your Move.’ campaign, aiming ‘to gather views and opinions, and to give a voice to those who had been adversely affected by armed conflict’ (IPSOS & ICRC, 2009: 6). By far the largest listening exercise was initiated in 2005 in the Listening Project, run by the CDA Collaborative Learning Project group. The project ran for several years, and over 400 ‘Listening Team members’ from around 125 organisations were involved in gathering and analysing evidence. The final report, published as ‘Time to listen: Hearing people on the receiving end of international aid’ (Anderson et al., 2012) captured the voices of over 6,000 people. At the basis of the project was a ‘growing awareness that significant changes are needed to improve the

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effectiveness and accountability of international assistance’, and the book argues that ‘the cumulative voice of people who live in aid-recipient societies provides a powerful (…) case for more radical and systemic change in the aid system’ (2012: i). Criticisms of the privileged position of international, Western NGOs, who speak, advocate and design projects on behalf of communities in developing countries, are increasingly mainstream (Bond, 2015). In this climate, ‘listening’ seems to have become a way to address the difficulties posed by traditional accountability frameworks used by NGOs, which have been recognised as ‘mechanistic’ and ‘technical’ (Bonino et al., 2014; Buchanan-smith et al., 2015). ‘Listening’, on the other hand, is seen as ‘key to dialogue and changing the relationship between agencies and affected people’ (Buchanan-Smith et al., 2015: 2). Just as ‘participation’ in the 1980s was conceived as the key to radical social transformation and quickly became part of the mainstream development discourse (Leal, 2010), ‘listening’ could be seen as a new buzzword in development, a concept and a method that is heralded as the new panacea. Despite the relative frequency with which the concept of listening has been used in development discourse, the NGO field lacks any clear definitions or reflections on what listening is, how we do it, and what impacts on our listening. Although ‘listening’ may sound like a clear-cut and simple act, with phrases such as ‘just listen’ coming to mind, international NGOs’ listening is hugely complex, involving a set of different relationships – on the ground, in the UK, or virtual – between NGOs, donors, and local people, who generally speak different languages. Teasing out some of the complexities involved, we could say that the listening exercises mentioned above share a number of characteristics. Firstly, listening tends to be framed in terms of accountability, designed as part of a culture of monitoring and evaluation (Buchanan-Smith et al., 2015). Listening exercises are usually short-term and forward looking, with the underlying assumption that listening will lead to future efficiency. The focus on experts, who are deployed for short periods of time to a variety of locations, and the high staff turn-over in the aid sector further contribute to a loss of institutional memory, and enhance the focus on the present (National Audit Office, 2008: 28). Secondly, listening is framed programmatically, and increasingly takes place in donor terms. In congruence with the boost in NGOs’ income from government funding, NGOs’ listening has increasingly been geared towards large powerful donors since at least the 1990s. More recently, this trend in ‘upward’ accountability has been countered by more emphasis being placed on ‘downward’ accountability towards the communities that NGOs purport to serve (Banks et al., 2015; Crack, 2013). Yet despite their efforts to strengthen civil society, NGOs face significant constraints in a climate where they tend to work on large short-term funded projects, and where the emphasis is increasingly on ‘payment by results’

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(Bond, 2015: 13). Listening is often a one-way process, where NGOs extract the knowledge they need but do not seem to give much back.2 Thirdly, there is an assumption that English is the language to listen in, and to listen to, which may be linked to the prevalent conception of British policymakers that there is a positive connection between English and development (Coleman, 2011; Djité, 1993). English is used as the main working language in the sector, yet rural communities often do not speak English. The multilingual realities of these communities in Africa, Asia, and Latin-America are very different from those of the West – where most major aid agencies have their roots – yet their linguistic make-up is often not taken into account when planning development interventions. Fourthly, the reliance on English brings with it many power imbalances. The meta-discourse of development mainly consists of buzzwords in English, and the meaning of much of the development jargon is unclear (Cornwall & Eade, 2010). Many concepts that arose in an Anglophone framework are difficult to translate, often existing as loanwords in other languages. This is the case for some of the most central concepts of the aid field: Robinson’s (1996: 242) study of language and development in African rural communities showed that when speaking their local language, respondents ‘could not readily relate development intervention to their daily social intercourse’ and saw development as a ‘remote concept’. The above discussion emphasises that despite NGOs’ rhetoric on listening and participation, listening is still largely practiced as a top-down process, in a set-up that makes it difficult for people to speak and be heard in their chosen language. Participation as a process is not considered linguistically, and language diversity is not seen as an integral part of NGOs’ working ideologies and methodologies. Despite the intentions of listening exercises to be open-minded and enter the field without preconfigured agendas, it remains difficult to listen outside of dominant structures and existing power relationships. The next section turns to academic research on listening that may be useful to come to a concept of listening that is inherently linked to language, culture and power relationships, and identifies which gaps there may be in our own current understanding of listening. Academic Contributions to ‘Listening’

Academic research on listening has been conducted from a variety of perspectives. Wolvin (2010: 7-30) identifies three main conceptualisations of listening: the physiological (how physiologically a message is received), the psychological (how we construct meaning out of the message) and the sociological (how we respond to the message; the situational nature of response being socially and culturally conditioned). Despite a growing body of research, there has been relatively little attention to listening as opposed to speaking, as exemplified in traditional communication models that tend to largely overlook the receiver. Yet studies suggest that adults

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spend 40% of their time awake listening (Wolvin & Coakley, 1996: 6), and listening scholars have argued that ‘a theoretical foundation for understanding the message receiver, the listener, is critical to an integrated theory of communication’ (Wolvin, 2010: 7). Efforts have been made to develop a listening theory particularly since the 2000s, after a review of listening research reported that the work on listening lacked a solid foundation (Wolvin, 2010: 8). A summer school from the International Listening Association provided the definition ‘Listening is the process of receiving, constructing meaning from, and responding to spoken and/or nonverbal messages’ (1995, in Wolvin, 2010: 9). Wolvin (2010: 9) points out that such a definition effectively organises the physiological, psychological, sociological, and communicative perspectives on listening processes. In the context of NGOs and our research project, our interest is in a sociological definition of listening, in which we can include the various instances of listening to multiple speakers or stakeholders in multiple spaces and at various moments in time, and where we can include a focus on responses that occur as a consequence of listening taking place. The listener’s feedback is an essential part of the communication function of any interaction (Wolvin, 2010: 15). However, much of the research that has looked at listening from a communications perspective has interpreted listening as an individual act, having been heavily influenced by psychology. Purdy (2000) has argued that the primary problem with such a cognitive approach is that the study of listening is focused on the individual, and implies that the listener alone determines, or constructs, the meaning of what is being said. He calls for a view of listening as a community affair, where it is part of ‘an inter-active (even multi-active) process, a field, involving other individuals, social and cultural forces, language (or more broadly human expression), and a physical environment, at least’ (Purdy, 2000: 48). Such an approach transcends the focus on the cognitive and interpretive level and allows a discussion of the broader experience of listening and communication, defining listening as a social, political and cultural act that is essentially about connection and relationship (Purdy, 2010: 38). This interpretation is useful to get a better grasp of the different actors and issues that affect NGO listening. The notion of relationality is one that is particularly important, and that has been explored in more depth in the field of development and humanitarian studies, albeit not specifically from a listening perspective (Eyben, 2006; Smirl, 2015). In the context of the evidence and results agenda, researchers have emphasised that much of the evidence collected in the aid field draws on personal and informal communication between staff, local partners and communities, which was built upon strong relationships with the local environment and people (Roche, 2015: 83). Furthermore, Smirl (2015) has argued that the key position of the aid worker in collecting data and in interpreting and representing local knowledge is central to how ‘the field’ is perceived at home, yet the experience of the aid worker has not been problematised

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by existing theories. This draws into question ‘global claims regarding the figure of the “beneficiary” and the relationship between donor and recipient’ (Smirl, 2015: 4). This relationship, as well as that between the global North and South more generally, is further reflected on by Dutta (2014) who questions how we listen to those ‘on the margins’. Linking listening research to postcolonial and subaltern studies in a ‘culture-centred’ approach, he argues that neoliberal frameworks of global governance have responded to growing critiques on top-down structures ‘through the co-optation of the languages of listening and participation to further consolidate power in the hands of the global power structures’ (2014: 75). In the context of social change, it is often the dominant structures that call for listening, responding to their own goals and agendas. Therefore, he argues, it is necessary ‘to deconstruct existing frameworks of communication theorizing’ and to use the concept of listening ‘as a meta-theoretical frame for continually opening up opportunities for the presence of the other in the discursive space, and simultaneously interrogating reflexively what it means to listen’ (2014: 70). These claims recall statements from others in ethnography and sociology. Clifford, for example, in the introduction to the seminal collection of essays Writing Culture (1986), touches on the tendency of the West to rely on ‘visual’ evidence, and considers that much had been said about the ethnographic gaze, ‘but what of the ethnographic ear?’ (1986: 12). Similarly, from sociology, Back (2007) asks questions about the legitimacy of voices heard in society, and makes a claim for a more ethical, global sociology that pays ‘attention to the fragments, the voices and stories that are otherwise passed over or ignored’ (2007: 1). In a world that is increasingly focused on being heard and gaining attention, e.g. through reality TV and political rallies, Back argues that sociology should play a role in ‘returning our ears to the world’, to ‘hear those who are not listened to’, and to challenge the claims placed on the meaning of events (2007: 1, 7). These reflections lead us to think in more depth about our processes of knowledge construction and subjectivity as researchers, and how these affect our own listening. The overview of listening research has made evident that there is a wide variety of interpretations of listening, but perhaps more importantly, it has uncovered similarities in the challenges that NGOs and researchers are faced with in today’s global world, where there is an ever-pressing need for more and faster information, knowledge and evidence. The following section will follow Dutta’s (2014) suggestion to use the concept of listening as a meta-theoretical frame, in this case to draw parallels between NGO and researcher listening. The Researcher’s Listening Zone

In this chapter, I conceptualise the spaces that we listen in as listening zones, in which I understand ‘zone’ in the sense of Apter’s ‘Translation

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Zone’ (2006): as a geographical space in which only certain things are translated; as a political zone, in which governments and institutions are involved in setting the agenda for language and translation policy; and as a psychological zone which bears witness to the psychological repercussions of language and translation policy and practice. It is a theoretical mainstay that is broader than a single nation or language. As such, the ‘Listening Zone’ is a particularly helpful concept to map the zone as constructed by all the actors involved, by organisational and individual values, traditions, etc., and to gain a better understanding of the role that languages and cultural knowledge play in constructing the zone. Understanding listening as a broader and longer event than one-onone dialogue (Purdy, 2000), we could visualise the researchers’ Listening Zone of our project as in Figure 15.1. This visual and systematic representation helps to draw attention to a number of features of our specific project and of academic listening more generally. Our research project

Figure 15.1  Researchers’ listening zone in the ‘Listening Zones of NGOs’ project

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is collaborative both in and outside academia, working together with INTRAC (the International NGO Training and Research Centre, Oxford) and focusing on the practices of four international UK-based NGOs, i.e. Oxfam GB, Save the Children UK, Tearfund, and Christian Aid. As researchers in this project, we are listening to a variety of data sets, including archives, interviews with UK-based and in-country staff, and data collected through ethnographic case study observations. In parallel with the discussion above on NGO listening, I focus here on the four issues that were identified as characteristic of listening by NGOs. Temporality

Both NGO work and academic research are often project-based and limited in time, but time-scales can differ greatly. Our AHRC-project runs for three years, yet our partners in the aid field have asked us on a number of occasions for early results. Differences in what counts as valid evidence and data have emerged as well. For example, our research project includes historical material, which is unusual for NGOs. Policy discussions of humanitarian and development interventions tend to be ahistorical and apolitical. Rather, they focus on aspects such as the transformative power of technology and do not recognise the messiness of previous processes of change (Davey & Scriven, 2015: 114). Yet despite NGOs’ preoccupation with presentism and the simple uses of history in the form of ‘lessons learned’ toolkits, many of the NGO staff we have spoken to were keen to find out more about their organisation’s histories. The poor institutional memory of aid organisations has sporadically been commented on by the aid field as giving rise to a lack of knowledge (Abu Sada, 2005: 32; National Audit Office, 2008: 28). This presents an opportunity for our research team to argue for the value of history to challenge habitual ways of thinking and to contribute to a more reflective attitude to change (Davey & Scriven, 2015: 113). To what? Accountability and evidence

The current academic climate with its emphasis on research impact increasingly resembles that of NGOs, where evidence of results and positive impact are key to obtaining future funding, and opportunities to report failure are sparse. Academia’s impact agenda and the development field’s preoccupation with the results and evidence agenda can historically both be seen ‘as part of the “new public management” paradigm, modelled on corporate sector practices designed to maximize shareholder profit and eschewing any explicit ideological commitment’ (Eyben & Guijt, 2015: 10). Just like NGOs became increasingly accountable to their donors over time (‘upward accountability’), it is frequently the funder who sets the agenda in present-day UK academic research, for example through issuing calls for research bids on specific topics, such as the Global

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Challenges Research Fund. This means that our interests as researchers change, as we look for different partners in order to produce particular forms of knowledge and to ensure impact outside of the academic world. The increased emphasis on ‘upward accountability’ in academic research thus also brings with it a need for ‘downward accountability’, for example the need to design outputs that are of specific relevance to non-academic partners. The emphasis on impact raises questions on what counts as evidence, on who sets the agenda, and particularly on academic autonomy and creativity. In what way are the voices of non-academic stakeholders becoming more important? How does emphasising impact change the way we listen as researchers? Whilst it has been widely accepted in ethnographic research that the researcher’s personal subjectivity plays a role throughout the research process, the increased emphasis on non-academic impact adds a new dimension to discussions on the researcher’s subjectivity, ideology, and positionality (Canagarajah, 2006; Madison, 2004). In what language?

The researchers in our project as well as the funder are part of the UK academic system, which means that our research team functions in a predominantly English-speaking working environment. Many of our research interviews are set in the UK, are held in English, and are spiked with development buzzwords like ‘accountability’, ‘monitoring and evaluation’ and ‘feedback’. During the fieldwork phase, we will be confronted with the same issues that UK-based NGOs deal with when they work on the ground. We will need to rely on language intermediaries (which may be local staff members or someone from the local community), and we may encounter some of the difficulties that NGOs themselves face when aiming to translate a development discourse that originated in an Anglophone, Western context, into local languages and cultures. The prevalence of English also has an impact on what voices we hear in academic literature on development. Even though counter-­theories and approaches to the West’s dominating views on development have been around at least since the 1950s, it remains difficult for other-­language authors to enter mainstream development debates unless their work is translated into English. The absence of alternative voices from developing countries has recently been addressed by Shi-xu et al. (2016), who have aimed to introduce research on development and globalisation from Africa, Asia and Latin America into contemporary debates, in an effort to outline ‘a culturally conscious and critical system of researching development’ (2016: 2). The difficulty in exchanging knowledge concerns both directions: knowledge produced in English, or other major European languages, does not necessarily make its way into local rural languages (Shi-xu, 2016). This needs to be taken into account for academic research outputs: which audiences are we trying to reach? What other languages

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than English do we need to and want to speak and publish in in order to share what we have learned? Through which frameworks/disciplines?

The number of partners that academics collaborate with in the present-day research climate is on the increase, which is in parallel with the increased amount of actors involved in delivering development projects. Our own AHRC-project is characteristic of a new ‘mode’ of interdisciplinary research in which real world issues of social, technical or policy relevance provide the starting point, involving both academic and non-academic stakeholders (Rampton et al., 2015: 21). Moreover, the researchers in our project are from different disciplines (e.g. cultural studies, international relations, translation studies) and from various cultural and linguistic backgrounds. These differences give rise to lively discussions about the research topic, methods, theories and what counts as knowledge. A high tolerance for ambiguity and the feeling of discomfort are needed to make the project work. These differences also give rise to the need to speak different languages, including that of development. In order for our project to succeed, the research team needs to engage in conceptual and theoretical discussions not just with one another but also with the NGOs that are at the core of the project, an issue that was highlighted by the NGOs themselves. In order to collect meaningful data, as well as to increase the interest in the project among aid workers, NGO staff advised us that we need to clearly frame our research and our interview questions on language and cultural knowledge in their rhetoric, i.e. that of accountability, monitoring and evaluation, and power relationships. NGO workers are busy and are under enormous pressure to deliver results, and failing to link our research interests with theirs would deny us access to the organisations. These considerations again raise questions about academic autonomy and research ethics: if we are listening to our partners to see what they find interesting – in order to be able to access interviewees, their institutional environment, and field sites – does our work not to a large degree resemble that of consultants hired by NGOs to do research on the questions that they want answered? Robinson-Pant (2001) recounts how she was asked by a Western NGO to develop a literacy policy, but found that ‘Designing and conducting ethnographic research in a literacy policy context is far more problematic than making use of ethnographic findings from academic research projects for informing policy’ (as quoted in Canagarajah, 2006: 163, italics in original source). The emphasis on interdisciplinary research and the co-production of knowledge is a relatively new phenomenon in social sciences, and not much attention has been paid to how stakeholders influence researchers’ listening and processes of knowledge production. The above discussion had laid bare the many parallels between the challenges faced by NGOs

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and academics, and calls for renewed attention in academia to our listening practices, our ethical position, and our autonomy. Moreover, it has raised issues around our own use of language, and the taken-for-­ grantedness of using English when disseminating research results. Seeking to become more reflective about our own listening and that of NGOs, the next section turns to linguistic ethnography to further reflect on the relationship between language and society. What Linguistic Ethnography Can Bring

Although there has been considerable exchange between the fields of anthropology and development, to the extent that ‘development anthropology’ is seen as a research field in itself (Lewis & Mosse, 2006; Olivier de Sardan, 1995), studies in this area do not tend to pay much attention to the ethnography of communication. This section turns to research that has been conducted at the interface of linguistics and ethnography that may be of help in coming to a more sensitive concept of listening and of language. Rampton et al. (2015) draw our attention to the idea that language and social life are mutually shaping. The dynamic co-­construction of meaning through the interplay of language and social life calls for a closer examination of language-in-society (2015: 23). This includes both paying attention to small-scale, everyday situations as well as scaling things up into broader understandings of social life in a globalised world. Some of the concepts that researchers use to investigate and theorise the relationship between language and society can help in challenging the characteristics of NGO listening. Firstly, a concept of listening that emphasises the dynamic nature and situatedness of interaction reveals the relativity of meaning-making. As Blommaert and Jie describe, the ‘patterns of interpretations are never fixed (…) there is both a processual and a historical dimension to every act of language-in-society’ (2010: 9). This challenges NGOs’ focus on the present and on short-term projects, with experts being seconded overseas for short periods and a loss of institutional memory. It underlines the importance of relationality, continuance, and history. Secondly, understanding language and listening as constituting patterns, expectations of regularity, and the building blocks of institutions is valuable to counter the focus on quantitative and written evidence in the development field, which essentially forms part of a Western paradigm in which the truth of vision has dominated. It challenges the frameworks in which NGOs listen, particularly the Anglophone metadiscourse of development, which also shapes the forms that NGOs will use to listen in as part of their monitoring and evaluation mechanisms. Finally, an understanding of language as not fixed in time and space but as linked to individual speakers, each with their own personal, cultural, and socio-political background and history, will raise better awareness of

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the complexity of monolingual and multilingual meaning-making processes. This makes us more conscious of the fact that listeners come to particular interpretations through linking what is said to what they as individuals know and expect. Moreover, it also allows us to give more consideration to the language choices of individuals and institutions, which are linked to ideology and issues of power. In the words of Robinson, ‘development will not be owned by local people until they are able to discuss it amongst themselves and with outsiders without the barrier of someone else’s language’ (1996: 260). Conclusion: A Language-sensitive Concept of Listening

This chapter has reflected on the concept of listening, and the role of languages in listening, in the context of development, ethnography and academia. It has aimed to make a number of contributions. Firstly, in development, the chapter has moved away from a concept of listening that is linked to a neoliberal model of knowledge and evidence, where listening is contractual, standard, and quantifiable, and geared towards the donor. Rather than interpreting listening as an inward-looking process linked to specific projects, I have introduced an understanding of listening as linked to diversity and situatedness, where attention is given to the role of language, culture, and tacit power relationships. This interpretation also challenges the labelling of actors in development as binary categories, such as those of ‘donors’ vs. ‘beneficiaries’. Secondly, the visualisation of our ‘listening zone’ as researchers has laid bare some of the tensions in current-day academic listening, which are comparable to those of NGOs: the tendency to listen project-based; the emphasis on impact, evidence, and interdisciplinary work, which in its turn increases the power of other stakeholders; and the predominance of English and absence of reflexive practices on working multilingually. Lastly, the chapter argued that the increased emphasis on interdisciplinary collaboration, both within and outside of academe, has ­consequences for our methodologies and positionality, and how we as researchers listen. NGOs have been criticised for listening primarily to their donors (‘upwards accountability’) and not as much to their beneficiaries. This chapter has raised our awareness that a similar assertion could be made for academic research that is highly focused on creating impact, and that may therefore heavily emphasise listening to one particular group of stakeholders. Concerns about the effect on academic autonomy and creativity due to the increased role of impact have previously been raised (Gray, 2015; Martin, 2011; Smith et al., 2011), but little attention has been paid to research ethics and the implications for the researcher’s subjectivity. On the other hand, the chapter has also shown that collaborating with our non-academic partners has led to new forms of knowledge and understanding of their but also of our own practices.

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Allowing dialogue about their expectations and understandings has thus also meant a new way forward. What is essential then in current-day academia is a critical re-examination of the role of the researcher in social sciences and ethnographic research designs and methodologies in order to continue to produce high-quality and ethical research with valid results. Notes (1) The AHRC-funded project ‘The Listening Zones of NGOs: languages and cultural knowledge in development programmes’ (2015–2018; AH/M006808/1) was run by the University of Reading and the University of Portsmouth, with the support of the NGO training and research centre INTRAC. I would like to thank my project colleagues ­Hilary Footitt and Angela Crack for their comments on an earlier draft of this chapter and for sharing their work in our team. (2) See for example the ‘Time to Listen’ project, which concludes ‘If we did nothing else to improve the aid system, the very act of adding occasions and opportunities for aid providers to listen to people with whom we work, and to let them know that their ideas and judgments are valued, would by itself bring a fundamental shift in the relationship of aid providers with aid recipients (…) We should, in short, listen to what people say. To do so is fascinating; it is also helpful. And it is the responsible and respectful thing to do’ (Anderson et al., 2012: 146–147).

References Abu Sada, C. (ed.) (2005) In the Eyes of Others: How People in Crises Perceive Humanitarian Aid. United States: MSF-USA. Anderson, M.B., Brown, D. and Jean, I. (2012) Time to Listen: Hearing People on the Receiving End of International Aid. Cambridge: CDA Collaborative Learning Projects. Apter, E. (2006) The Translation Zone: A New Comparative Literature. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Back, L. (2007) The Art of Listening. Oxford: Berg. Banks, N., Hulme, D. and Edwards, M. (2015) NGOs, states, and donors revisited: Still too close for comfort? World Development 66, 707–718. Blommaert, J. and Jie, D. (2010) Ethnographic Fieldwork: A Beginner’s Guide. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Bond (2015) Tomorrow’s World: How Might Megatrends in Development Affect the Future Roles of UK-based INGOs? London: Bond. Bonino, F., Knox Clarke, P. and Jean, I. (2014) Humanitarian Feedback Mechanisms: Research, Evidence and Guidance. London: ALNAP/ODI. Buchanan-Smith, M., Corpus Ong, J. and Routley, S. (2015) Who’s Listening? Accountability to Affected People in the Haiyan Response. Woking: Plan International. Canagarajah, S. (2006) Ethnographic methods in language policy. In T. Ricento (ed.) An Introduction to Language Policy: Theory and Method (pp. 153–169). Malden, MA: Blackwell. Clifford, J. (1986) Introduction. In J. Clifford and G.E. Marcus (eds) Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography (pp. 1–26). Berkeley and London: University of California Press. Coleman, H. (ed.) (2011) Dreams and Realities: Developing Countries and the English Language. London: British Council. Cornwall, A. and Eade, D. (eds) (2010) Deconstructing Development Discourse: Buzzwords and Fuzzwords. Rugby: Practical Action Publishing with Oxfam GB. Crack, A.M. (2013) Language, listening and learning: Critically reflective accountability for INGOs. International Review of Administrative Sciences 79 (4), 809–828.

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Davey, E. and Scriven, K. (2015) Humanitarian aid in the archives: Introduction. Disasters 39 (2), 113–128. Djité, P.G. (1993) Language and development in Africa. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 100/101, 149–166. Dutta, M.J. (2014) A culture-centered approach to listening: Voices of social change. International Journal of Listening 28 (2), 67–81. Eyben, R. (ed.) (2006) Relationships for Aid. Abingdon and New York: Earthscan. Eyben, R. and Guijt, I. (2015) Introduction. In R. Eyben et al. (eds) The Politics of Evidence and Results in International Development: Playing the Game to Change the Rules? (pp. 1–18). Rugby: Practical Action Publishing. Gray, R. (2015) Has the research excellence framework killed creativity? Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing 22 (3), 155–156. IPSOS and ICRC (2009) Our World. Views from the Field. Summary Report. Geneva: ICRC. Leal, P.A. (2010) Participation: The ascendancy of a buzzword in the neo-liberal era. In A. Cornwall and D. Eade (eds) Deconstructing Development Discourse: Buzzwords and Fuzzwords (pp. 89–100). Rugby: Practical Action Publishing with Oxfam GB. Lewis, D. and Mosse, D. (2006) Development Brokers and Translators: The Ethnography of Aid and Agencies. West Hartfort, CT: Kumarian Press. Madison, D.S. (2004) Critical Ethnography: Method, Ethics, and Performance. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Martin, B.R. (2011) The Research Excellence Framework and the ‘impact agenda’: Are we creating a Frankenstein monster? Research Evaluation 20 (3), 247–254. National Audit Office (2008) Department for International Development: Operating in Insecure Environments. London: The Stationery Office. Olivier de Sardan, J.-P. (1995) Anthropologie et développement: Essai en socioanthropologie du changement social [Anthropology and Development : Understanding Contemporary Social Change]. Marseille and Paris: APAD and Karthala. Purdy, M.W. (2000) Listening, culture and structures of consciousness: Ways of studying listening. International Journal of Listening 14 (1), 47–68. Purdy, M.W. (2010) Qualitative research: Critical for understanding listening. In A.D. Wolvin (ed.) Listening and Human Communication in the 21st Century (pp. 33–45). Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Rampton, B., Maybin, J. and Roberts, C. (2015) Theory and method in linguistic ethnography. In J. Snell, S. Shaw and F. Copland (eds) Linguistic Ethnography: Interdisciplinary Explorations (pp. 14–50). London: Palgrave Macmillan. Robinson, C.D.W. (1996) Language Use in Rural Development: An African Perspective. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Roche, C. (2015) The politics of juggling multiple accountability disorder. In R. Eyben et al. (eds) The Politics of Evidence and Results in International Development: Playing the Game to Change the Rules? (pp. 79–94). Rugby: Practical Action Publishing. Sellick, P. (2001) Responding to children affected by armed conflict: A case study of Save the Children Fund (1919–1999). PhD thesis, University of Bradford. Shi-xu, Prah, K.K. and Pardo, M.L. (2016) Discourses of the Developing World: Researching Properties, Problems and Potentials. London and New York: Routledge. Smirl, L. (2015) Spaces of Aid: How Cars, Compounds and Hotels Shape Humanitarianism. London: Zed Books. Smith, S., Ward, V. and House, A. (2011) ‘Impact’ in the proposals for the UK’s Research Excellence Framework: Shifting the boundaries of academic autonomy. Research Policy 40 (10), 1369–1379. Wolvin, A.D. (2010) Listening engagement: Intersecting theoretical perspectives. In A.D. Wolvin (ed.) Listening and Human Communication in the 21st Century (pp. 7–30). Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Wolvin, A.D. and Coakley, C.G. (1996) Listening. London: Brown and Benchmark.

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

This chapter reflects on social science researchers’ narratives of learning and using languages. Through these accounts, the chapter identifies how notions of proficiency and fluency in the competent multilingual researcher are often conceptualised through a set of exclusionary value paradigms, rooted in forms of social inequality. The chapter grounds this in the contemporary academic context of neoliberal competition, and in doing so, demonstrates the intellectual, professional, and emotional risks and vulnerabilities involved in using languages in research. Based on this, the chapter suggests that ‘breaking the silence’ also involves ‘breaking the culture’ of a hegemonic value system which underpins the academic field. Introduction: Making Multilingual Researchers?

This chapter considers what factors shape the ‘making’ of the multilingual researcher: who is able to learn and use languages in ethnography, what kinds of multilingual researcher exist, and how does (not) practicing ethnography multilingually affect a researcher’s sense of their own competence and legitimacy as an academic?1 Examining a set of experiential stories of researchers who work (or attempt to work) using two or more languages, the chapter frames these within the context of contemporary academic culture – particularly with reference to the social sciences. In doing so, I demonstrate how the qualities which inform notions of proficiency and fluency in the competent multilingual researcher are often 207

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conceptualised through a set of exclusionary value paradigms, rooted in forms of social inequality. The chapter identifies a friction between multi- and monolingual practice in ethnography, and asserts that this provides a fruitful space for thinking through the relationship between forms of capital (Bourdieu, 1993) in academia and the way in which access to capital – particularly cultural and economic – also mediates access to ­language learning and subsequent use in ethnography. The stories in this chapter are not only those of the ‘successful’ multilingual researcher who learns and uses language in ethnographic fieldwork but also of those researchers who tried and couldn’t, or who practice their multilingualism shyly, tentatively, or self-consciously. The ability to work adeptly with multiple languages carries connotations of intellectual sophistication, academic prowess, and personal polish. By contrast, the difficulties thrown up in actually learning languages, or only being able to employ multiple languages in a tentative, rudimentary, or makeshift manner is perceived as suggesting a contrasting lack of academic capacity in the researcher. Attentiveness to the tensions present between different types of language use(r) reveal a set of hegemonic value paradigms underpinning what it means to be ‘legitimate’ in contemporary academia; these paradigms of legitimacy operate widely within contemporary academic culture, but can be seen in microcosm in the way they structure and shape how multilingual ethnographers are understood as linguistically ‘fluent’, and their subsequent legitimation as researchers and i­ ntellectuals. Further to this, the accounts in this chapter demonstrate researchers’ affective engagement with this value system, and the way in which these tenets become internalised as part of a sense of ‘self’. Lending focus to the emotional and experiential perspectives of language learning and use is important in continuing attempts to ‘break the silence’ (Gibb & Danero Iglesias, 2017) on the intricacies and intimacies of language learning and use in fieldwork. This chapter focuses on accounts from a selection of participants in the ethnographic research for my doctoral thesis. The thesis itself examines the relationship between how sociologists ‘craft’ their writing, and the production of ‘legitimate’ knowledge. I undertook a year-long ethnography with ten central participants, all of whom were employed in UK Sociology departments. This chapter also draws on two unstructured interviews conducted as part of the ethnography, but with social scientists who were not among the ten central participants. Participants have been anonymised and given a pseudonym. My analytical approach draws on Carol Smart’s (2013) invocation of the necessity of setting participants’ voices at the core of the research, and allowing their narratives to speak for themselves; the focus here is on these stories, and the way in which they intersect with scholarship on value and legitimacy in academic spaces. I particularly concentrate on the role of cultural capital in making multi- and monolingual researchers, especially how this access to cultural

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capital emerges in everyday practices, and affective relations, to tacitly import intellectual hierarchies into academic spaces. I begin the chapter with an analysis of the ‘rules of the game’ (Bourdieu, 1977; Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992), and the affect of these on those who move within the field. Here, I introduce the figure of the ‘competent researcher’ as an analytical conceit. This trope is a personification of the hegemonic-oriented value system of social scientific knowledge production. Reference to the figure supports an understanding of how participants comprehend themselves in relation to the academic field in which they operate – especially in terms of the expectations they feel are placed on them, and which they place on themselves. Building on this, participants’ narratives emphasise questions of who can become a multilingual researcher, and the way this is shaped by social class and cultural capital. Further, they cast light on the relationship between ‘fluency’, ‘proficiency’, and a value paradigm premised on inequality – particularly the emotional vulnerability and exhaustion which occurs when scholars attempt to maintain external façades of competence and cosmopolitanism. I finish by considering the literature on language learning/use and ethnography, in light of participants’ accounts, to argue that it is not only a ‘silence’ which needs to be broken but, ­moreover, an academic culture.

The Contemporary Academic Terrain: Embedding Ideals of Cosmopolitanism and Competency

Underpinning the stories of the research participants in this chapter is a particular value paradigm which is oriented around the work, ideas, and voices of particular privileged social structures: whiteness, masculinity, and dominant class position. This paradigm shapes the field of sociology (and academia more broadly), including the type of knowledge claims which can be legitimately made within the discipline (Burton, 2015). The presence of this value paradigm forms specific modes of structural social inequality and exclusion within sociology. Both Kate Hoskins (2010) and Diane Reay et al. (2009) discuss the way in which academic spaces form hostile environments for working class scholars, especially those who are also women and people of colour. Similarly, Katherine Sang’s (2016) research elucidates the way in which black feminist women academics experience an intersectional exclusion on the grounds of ‘race’ and gender, but also report feeling excluded from supposedly progressive feminist spaces within the academy. What is important to recognise in connection to this argument is how these social locations reflect highly valued forms of cultural capital – as Beverley Skeggs notes, ‘Gender, class, and race are not capitals as such, rather they provide the relations in which capitals come to be organized and valued’ (Skeggs, 1997: 9). Important context for the stories in this chapter is a recognition that academia always already

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arrives as a space which is classed, gendered, and racialised; this in turn refracts how our own relations of cultural capital are experienced and felt. The landscape of academia exists as a terrain which is deeply hostile to particular bodies and social identifications while putting others at a distinct advantage. This unequal access to feeling legitimate in sociology (and academia) is a distinct aspect of my argument in relation to capacity and ability to learn and use languages in ethnographic research. Ethnography, of course, is not immune to this structural and conceptual inequality – ethnographers have discussed at length the way in which the approach is fraught with unequal power, and the way this can reveal itself further in the power of the researcher themselves (Ellis, 2007; Nader, 1999). Moreover, if academia as a whole is classed, gendered, and racialised, then so is our pedagogical training in ethnography – and indeed researcher access to this. The cultural capital which supports access to, and ease of, learning and using languages is frequently obscured – see, for instance, Judith Okely’s (2012) lack of questioning regarding how anthropologists accessed language learning, or worked with interpreters. Robert Gibb and Julien Danero Iglesias identify the lack of discussion around language learning in ethnography as contributing to the researcher ‘mystique’ common in ethnography (Gibb & Danero Iglesias, 2017: 139). Notably then, our affective relationship with ethnography is not only about our entry to, and life in, our field sites, but also our entry to the methodology. It is revealed in what we bring to learning and experiencing ethnography, how we become – or fail to become – (multilingual) ethnographers, and how we relate to each other as ethnographers (Phipps, 2010). These issues can helpfully be considered in relation to the figure of the ‘competent academic’. This is a personification of the most lauded, authoritative, and highly valued properties of academic research. Indeed, one participant referred to the competent academic as ‘the ideal other, who always gets things right and knows what to do’. The competent academic is one who is dedicated to scholarship rather than ‘distracted’ by a life outside academia (Gill, 2009), ambitious – in terms of publications and grant income rather than teaching or pastoral care – and intellectually dexterous. It represents the scholar contemporary researchers are pushed to perform as part of current managerial-driven cultures of audit, but it is also indicative of a set of values used amongst academics to censure and rebuke one another. We can see this in the prevailing centrality of the individual in academia, in terms of ambition, achievement, and devotion to scholarship (Billig, 2013). Woven through the narratives below is a focus on ideals of competence, sophistication, and dexterity. Though participants differed in the context of their language learning and use, they share an implicit understanding that succeeding as a multilingual researcher is part of demonstrating their intellectual legitimacy. Inability to attain fluency or show ease with languages becomes felt as a personal failure, but also as something other academics would judge to demonstrate lack of erudition,

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culture, and cosmopolitanism. The figure of the competent academic is important in order to debunk notions of ‘proficiency’ and ‘fluency’ precisely because its identification as the ‘ideal other’ demonstrates the way in which these ideas have been ingrained into academic culture, as well as internalised by researchers as part of their sense of self. The competent academic appears across academic spaces, but language learning and use is an area in which it is most saliently shown. Research in the humanities and social sciences is strongly linguistically and verbally driven. Our intellectual aptitude and legitimacy is often understood to be indicated by how far we can master and marshal our skill with words into incisive and analytical practice (Becker, 1986). Ability in multilingual research is an extension of this high value cultural capital. It builds on verbal dexterity and ease of knowing how to do things with words, but augments this with other forms of cultural capital – travel, knowledge of other languages, geographies, and cultures, as well as being able to use the right accent, pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary. Moreover, implicit with language learning and use is the time taken to learn, practice, and retain ‘fluency’. Access to time has been demonstrated as deeply classed and gendered (England, 2010; Hile Bassett, 2005). To learn one or more new languages necessitates the time and money to attend lessons and practice – often by visiting countries where that language is spoken. Several of the multilingual ethnographers I spoke with indicated that barriers such as maternity leave/children, high teaching loads, or lack of doctoral funding had severely impeded their ability to begin or to continue learning the language(s) required for their ethnography. In the ethnographic data which follows I draw on these ‘ideals’ of competency to consider how being able to use languages ‘proficiently’ becomes tightly connected to an academic’s sense of legitimacy as a researcher and intellectual. Participants’ narratives indicate that struggling to be a multilingual researcher is perceived by others as a lack of linguistic dexterity. This is then felt affectively and interpreted as a personal failure – an obstacle to being a sufficiently slick, cosmopolitan, and adept researcher. Through examining the emotionally-oriented, embodied, and intimate experiences of sociologists it is possible to see the way that both vulnerability and aptitude in language learning and use are connected to structural social inequalities and power hierarchies – particularly, here, social class and forms of high value cultural capital. Class, Cultural Capital, and Competitive Academia: Who can become a Multilingual Researcher?

I want to begin by questioning who is able to learn and use languages in ethnographic research – what type of academic is privileged within, and supported by, the value system of academia to become a multilingual researcher? Further to this, what does it actually mean to learn and use

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languages in ethnography – what are the parameters for being understood as a multilingual researcher, and how do these intersect with a contemporary neoliberal culture of academic competition? In this section I examine the relationship between social class, cultural capital and competition in sustaining an academic culture where nothing less than ‘proficiency’ is acceptable. I further suggest the ways in which we ourselves may try to ‘break the silence’, as well as how we can also be complicit in upholding the conditions for being silent. Participants in my research indicated that social class strongly shaped their path to (not) becoming a multilingual researcher. The UK-born sociologists in my research found accessing language learning extremely difficult, and this was especially felt at the level of doctoral training. I spoke to several sociologists who were prevented at PhD level from straightforwardly accessing learning in both traditional secondary school languages, as well as ‘new’ languages such as those of Central and Eastern Europe, because they lacked post-16 qualifications in French and/or German. Owing to this ‘lack’, researchers were often required to undertake a lengthier (and more expensive) language programme, such as Masters study. Participants perceived this as unfair and exclusionary, in that these academics – who defined themselves as working class – had attended (or not attended, as was sometimes the case) state schools in which language provision was lacking. To then be excluded further from this at postgraduate level (and even during employment) was felt as both deeply elitist, but also shaming. The importance of cultural capital in researching multilingually is highlighted by Lukas and his experience of learning languages. Lukas was educated at a faith-based selective school in Germany and attributed his (relative) ease in learning new languages to his schooling. As part of his Abitur (broadly, the German equivalent to A-Level), he learned English, as well as several other European languages and Latin. This early learning was supported after he left school through volunteer work in South America – which in turn was, of course, made possible by having had the option to study Spanish to the age of 18. Lukas related that his frequent family holidays outside of Germany gave him the opportunity to experience other languages at a young age, and produced a sense of comfort and affective proximity to these languages. He expanded on this, noting that, ‘I decided to study [as an undergraduate] in the UK because we’d had a few family holidays there and I had liked it’. This perhaps throwaway comment emphasises the role of economic and cultural capital, as well as the (geographic) mobility accessed through these capitals, in learning languages. Lukas’s opportunities for travel were instrumental in shaping his ongoing access to language learning and – importantly – an understanding that language learning might be useful in his professional and social life. In contrast to this, less geographically and culturally mobile ethnographers in my study reflected on how language was not something they thought about until lack of access to learning became a barrier to their research.

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Some barriers to language learning in ethnography, however, also relate to the politics of the methodology itself, and the conventional assumption that ethnography entails travelling ‘elsewhere’ and researching that which is unfamiliar or ‘exotic’. Martin Forsey asserts that the ‘ghost of Malinowski’ (2010: 65) continues to haunt ethnographers through assertions that the prestige and heritage of ethnography lies in researching distant lands and ‘living with “natives”’ (Forsey, 2010: 65). One of my participants, Naomi, continued this line of thought. Naomi’s research centres on young Black and Asian men living in the UK, but who often speak multiple Asian and African languages. Even to be able to understand, if not converse in, these languages would be a distinct advantage to an ethnographer – given that participant observation and immersion is as much about listening as it is about looking. However, Naomi told me that ‘because my thesis was seen as “ethnography at home”, I wasn’t allowed to access any language training – they didn’t think it was worth it’. Naomi’s experience points to a troubling Anglocentrism in ethnography which assumes that it is only ‘out there’ in the lands of ‘natives’ that languages other than English are spoken and needed by fieldworkers. Moreover, it suggests a hierarchy in practices of ethnography. Naomi’s perspective was that, in not being understood to be undertaking ‘proper’ ethnography, she was not seen as requiring or deserving the same training and opportunities as other ethnographers. Not being deemed ‘worthy’ of language training affects how Naomi conceptualises herself as an ethnographer – frequently noting the ‘snobbery’ of social anthropology, and the way in which her monolingual practice has placed her form of ethnographic practice as existing within sociology instead. This hierarchy is also visible in a personal example. During the workshop which inspired this collection I lost count of the number of people who, on discovering that I am not a ‘fluent’ multilingual ethnographer, told me: ‘you’re so brave for coming here’. Comments such as these, kindly meant though they may be, reiterate a tacit gulf between an ethnographer’s proficiency and lack of such, when it comes to learning and using languages. They are especially surprising given the context of ethnographers challenging hierarchical standards of fluency. Am I to understand that I’m not ‘enough’ as an ethnographer because my research is done in English? Or that my experiential knowledge as a language learner/ user is not sufficient because I have yet to reach a level where I would term myself ‘proficient’ or design ethnography around multilingual practice? The repeated implications of hierarchy between mono- and multilingual practice, which come in everyday and mundane ways within the academy, only serve to confirm a notion as destructive to ‘competent’ multilingual researchers as to those of us who engage more tentatively and shyly: that part of what asserts you as a legitimate ethnographer and intellectual is your ability to gain linguistic competence with ease. I have already emphasised how my participants’ accounts point to a patchy, class-based language learning provision, and

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hierarchically-oriented access for ethnographers to this. In this context, internalising these narratives of lack and failure connected to difficulty in learning and using languages (at the root of which often is lack of access to learning), and pushing them onto others in the discipline, is arguably the very last thing we should be doing. Within overtures to debunking myths and breaking silences, it is important to be sensitive to the very subtle ways in which ethnographers remain complicit in upholding hegemonic categories through recourse to the ‘standards of ethnography’ and ideas regarding language proficiency. This complicity relates back to the role of competition in contemporary academia, and the way this is played out through the role of the ‘competent academic’ ideal. Michael Billig asserts that audit culture is ‘a culture of boasting’ in which ‘individuals and institutions must proclaim their achievements vigorously’ (Billig, 2013: 24). Within this framework the mundane, and even throwaway comments, such as those above seek to (re)assert the dominant position of the ‘proficient’ multilingual ethnographer. This is not to say that those making such comments are ‘proficient’ – but rather, that the subtle competitive comparison intimates that ‘proficiency’ remains the ultimate ideal. Considering the exclusions of class and cultural capital indicated above, the collision between the boastful neoliberal academy and the focus on cosmopolitanism and proficiency in using languages in research returns us to Skeggs’ question of ‘what if you cannot get on the field, much less play the game?’ (Skeggs, 2004: 84). Whose Standards of Fluency? Measuring up in the Academy

The context outlined above demonstrates that access to learning and using languages in field work is mediated by social class and cultural capital, but also that the ability to do so then further becomes indicative of a researcher’s social class and cultural capital. One’s capacity for language use is a tool in successfully traversing the academic field. This identification of the centrality of academia in notions of ‘fluency’ and ‘proficiency’ of language use pushes the question of who requires this fluency? Scholarship on ethnography and language learning/use has noted the importance of moving between languages in field sites, but is it the relationship with participants that sets standards of fluency for researchers? The reflections of participants in my ethnography suggest otherwise, and show a distinct difference between what ‘fluency’ means within the university and during fieldwork. This is shown neatly in Alison’s starkly different experiences of using a ‘second’ language in academia versus in her fieldwork. Alison, who practices ethnography in Polish, described her apprehension in speaking the language in front of other UK academics. She identified that ‘other academics are very snobbish. They want to see you fail’. This combative atmosphere of the university and other multilingual ethnographers produced in

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Alison an initial sense of unease and nervousness in using Polish with her participants, during her doctoral research. In the field, however, participants were unfazed by her grammatical slip ups. She confided in me that, ‘they all said that they didn’t have perfect grammar either, so why should I. And thinking about it, we don’t learn English grammar at school. I make [linguistic] mistakes when I’m speaking English as much as I do in Polish’. A distinct difference between field and university was also identified by Naomi. Her experience develops the relationship between aptitude in languages and the idea of correctly practicing cultural capital – here, in terms of ethnicity. As a woman of colour, Naomi was frequently assumed to speak a language other than English (she does not). She recalled to me instances in which her research participants would look at her in surprise and question, ‘you don’t speak Bengali?!’ Participants in fieldwork were, however, far more readily accepting of Naomi’s monolingualism than her university colleagues, and initial surprise was quickly superseded by acceptance. Academic spaces proved different. At a university dinner another woman of colour – a professor - turned to her and commented, in derision, ‘your Punjabi pronunciation is terrible’. ‘The inference,’ Naomi told me, ‘was that my pronunciation was terrible for a brown person. I went home and cried’. Naomi identified here how her lack of language ability was turned into an assertion of her lack of authenticity as a woman of colour – as well as not being a sufficiently serious, committed, or cosmopolitan ethnographer. While this disparagement seems ostensibly related to ethnicity, it is also a distinctly class-based judgement. Not possessing the cultural capital of Asian languages, Naomi is understood by her fellow diner as lacking the correct bourgeois comportment of ‘Asian-ness’; without it she is made to feel like, as she says, just another plodding, unsophisticated ‘working-­ class brown girl’. These judgements take hold in the affective lives of researchers – Naomi telling me that, ‘I just won’t even attempt Punjabi anymore’. Risking Cosmopolitanism: The Emotional Vulnerability of (Attempting) Linguistic Proficiency

In light of the forms of testing and censure outlined by Naomi and Alison, it is important to consider what is at stake in performing the correct style of cosmopolitanism and sophistication within academia, and how this can be seen in the microcosm of learning and using languages in research. Participants described clear emotional and professional vulnerability in not being able to present as competently cosmopolitan, as well as identifying an emotional strain involved in a ‘successful’ presentation of self. Philip’s experience exemplifies this intellectual, professional, and emotional vulnerability and further highlights the classed aspects of this provision. Philip spoke of a lack of opportunity for learning languages,

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both in terms of economic and cultural capital and related this to his struggling to learn and use French and German as an adult. Philip didn’t have the opportunity to travel during his teens and twenties, nor was he able to learn languages in a formal setting past the age of 16. Indeed, he identified the lack of importance afforded language learning in the comprehensive school system as a reason that he chose not to pursue it at A-Level or beyond. Further to this, Philip indicated that his inability to speak, read, or write in French and German was something he feels as a painful weakness. He describes moving in a world where ‘everyone just assumes that you can at least read French and German’. In this territory of assumed cultural capital and linguistic competence, revealing that you are monolingual is something participants felt as akin to admitting a lack of necessary skill, intelligence, or sophistication for academia. He confided in me that when this happens, ‘you feel a bit of a dunce’. This parallel between the dexterity and skill of multilingualism versus the flat-footedness of monolingualism repeatedly appears, and it shapes affective encounters between researchers. The reactions to ‘monolingualism’ shown by Philip and Naomi, and assumption by others of linguistic capital, imply a certain lack or failure in researchers who use multiple languages in a more tentative manner. These everyday interactions were consistently narrated by participants as doing tacit symbolic violence and upholding dominant class hierarchies within academic spaces. The emotional strain of actually being fluent is made clear by Lukas, who asserts the necessity of sustaining language learning through constant practice, and the way in which he understands fluency as something embodied. This identification again reveals the machinations of cultural capital in play – that one must have access to ‘linguistically competent’ spaces and interlocutors in order to maintain dexterity across languages. Lukas described his experience of moving from one language to another, with emphasis on how this has pushed him to reconsider fluency in relation to his ‘first’ language of German. Lukas adamantly returned to the idea that for a language to be successfully learned you must ‘make sure that the language you use academically isn’t totally disconnected from your social life’. He elaborated on this, noting that ‘the moment a language becomes “quasi-natural” – in inverted commas – the moment you use it in your social life, at least to some extent, I think it also becomes much easier to use that language as an academic language’. This approach to language learning and use, which attempts to make the language a habituated aspect of the person and weave it into daily practice, shapes the way Lukas experiences the move between languages. Indeed, he spoke of a kind of embodied translation – a period of translating yourself into your ‘formative mother tongue’. What is significant here is the length of time it takes to shift into an embodied pattern of language use in which it feels, to quote Lukas,

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‘quasi-natural’. He described how it ‘usually only takes a few months’ to fully move into working in an additional language, or one which has not been your primary mode of communication. However, he also framed this in the context of learning to speak English while living in the UK as a student, saying that ‘it was quite difficult for me in the beginning, but you know after three or four years it was fine’. Given that Lukas generally narrated his language learning and use as something which was straightforward and relatively privileged, his identification of the substantial periods of time it took him to feel ‘quasi-natural’ in English and in shifting to Spanish, French, and even his ‘first’ language, German, points to the weight of the undertaking of the multilingual ethnographer in attempting to attain fluency. What Lukas demonstrates here is how, even for someone who considers themselves comfortable and confident with language use, there is can be no simple or easy experience of ‘being multilingual’. Contrary to the individualist, ‘lone scholar’ notions often set out in the scholarship on ethnography (Forsey, 2010; Gupta & Ferguson, 1997), it is not possible to be self-sufficient or self-sustaining. Significantly, most ethnographers I spoke with discussed language use as another form of language learning and challenged the idea of ‘fluency’, often even within their ‘first’ language. This pushes ethnographers to reconsider our understanding of language use in fieldwork. Much of the (sparse) literature on language use in fieldwork begins from an implicit position that considers the difficulty of ‘bringing up’ skill and fluency in additional languages to the level of a ‘first’ language. This premise assumes an end point of equivalency in our use of languages and embeds a hierarchical relationship between languages (which can be seen in the terms we use to discuss language learning and use: ‘first’, ‘second’, ‘native’, ‘mother tongue’). Further to this, it also assumes that ethnographers begin with unfettered and equal access to their ‘first’ ­language – ignoring the use of slang, dialect, and the effect of accent on (first) language use and learning. Not using Standard English or Received Pronunciation (to take an Anglophone position as an example) certainly impacts on how others understand your cultural capital and symbolic power (Lawler, 2013), but it was rarely raised in my own ethnography as something participants felt marked them out or made them feel ashamed. But in the context of speaking French, or Polish, or whichever other language in use, participants spoke immediately of their shame at incorrect pronunciations, their silence because they know the correct word but are scared that their accent is wrong, or that they couldn’t understand their interlocutor but were too afraid to ask for repetition. Perhaps, as part of ‘breaking the silence’, it would be useful to contest ideas of fluency through attentiveness to nuanced reflection on how ethnographers already intellectually and affectively experience language learning and use through their ‘first’ language.

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Conclusion: Breaking the Silence, Breaking the Culture

The narratives of the sociologists in this study have outlined how learning and using languages in ethnography is a site of fraught power relations and hierarchies. The issues raised are not specific to ethnography, but rather are symptomatic of a much more widespread and pervasive academic culture which upholds serious institutional classism, sexism, and racism. The context of language learning and use in ethnography is a space in which structural inequalities of the academy are reproduced in a concentrated microcosm, and subsequently felt as affective relations to the process of language learning and use itself. In doing so, the problems encountered in language learning and use are often felt as personal rather than structural, or perceived as specific to issues of multilingual research. What is vital here is to locate the personal troubles of language learning and use with wider political issues of the academy – particularly the way in which these spaces, as well as methodologies and epistemologies, are classed and ordered through access and enaction of cultural capital. Rosalind Gill notes that the anxiety and stress induced through living and working in a space of almost constant audits has ‘not resulted in collective action to turn down the heat, but instead to an overheated competitive atmosphere’ (Gill, 2009: 238). Academics are encouraged to compete, and to be overtly vocal regarding ability, skill, and accomplishments. In the context of intellectual attainment, being multilingual is interpreted as high value cultural capital – it connotes suavity, cosmopolitanism, and refinement. To reveal oneself as struggling with this is to be positioned as gauche, naïve, awkward. Arguably, part of what stops ethnographers discussing their struggles in being or becoming multilingual is the way in which this sits in direct opposition to succeeding or surviving in an academy which prizes competition and boasting. The experiences of participants in this study show how ethnography in the UK continues to endorse ideals of the upper/middle-class lone adventurer who travels to distant lands – unencumbered by children, financial pressures, teaching, administration, or requirements to produce internationally renowned articles for the Research Excellence Framework (REF) submission. Holding ourselves – and others – to tight standards of fluency and immersion in multilingual ethnography is shown here as conspiring with already-existing unequal positions within academia. None of us want to be Naomi, castigated by her fellow academic for her ‘bad’ pronunciation. Exposing the toil, strains, and setbacks of language learning and use in our ethnography also means exposing ourselves and our tenuous grip on power, comfort, and access to hierarchies of academic knowledge. Breaking the silence on the problems, fears, stumbles, and difficulties encountered in learning and using languages is important to the creation of a more equal and productive social science research environment. However, breaking this silence also requires giving voice to a

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recognition of the issues of hierarchy, inequality, and mythologising within multilingual ethnography as related to a much wider academic culture. Note (1) This work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council grant number B106424E. I would like to thank all participants who generously gave their time to the research.

References Becker, H. (1986) Writing for Social Scientists: How to Start and Finish your Thesis, Book, or Article. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Billig, M. (2013) Learn to Write Badly: How to Succeed in the Social Sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bourdieu, P. (1977) Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bourdieu, P. (1993) The Field of Cultural Production. Cambridge: Polity. Bourdieu, P. and Wacquant, L.J.D. (1992) An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology. Cambridge: Polity. Burton, S. (2015) The Monstrous ‘White Theory Boy’: Symbolic capital, pedagogy and the politics of knowledge. Sociological Research Online 20 (3), 14. Ellis, C. (2007) Telling secrets, revealing lives: Relational ethics in research with intimate others. Qualitative Inquiry 13 (1), 3–29. England, K. (2010) Home, work and the shifting geographies of care. Ethics, Place and Environment 13 (2), 131–150. Forsey, M.G. (2010) Ethnography and the myth of participant observation. Studies in Qualitative Methodology 11, 65–79. Gibb, R. and Danero Iglesias, J. (2017) Breaking the silence (again): On language learning and levels of fluency in ethnographic research. The Sociological Review 65 (1), 134–149. Gill, R. (2009) Breaking the silence: The hidden injuries of neo-liberal academia. In R. Flood and R. Gill (eds) Secrecy and Silence in the Research Process: Feminist Reflections. London: Routledge. Gupta, A. and Ferguson, J. (1997) Discipline and practice: ‘The field’ as site, method and location in anthropology. In A. Gupta and J. Ferguson (eds) Anthropological Locations: Boundaries and Grounds of a Field Science. Berkeley: University of California Press. Hile Bassett, R. (2005) Introduction. In R. Hile Bassett (ed.) Parenting and Professing: Balancing Family and Work With an Academic Career. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press. Hoskins, K. (2010) The price of success? The experiences of three senior working class female academics in the UK. Women’s Studies International Forum 33, 134–140. Lawler, S. (2013) Unequal persons: A response to Simon Susen. Social Epistemology 27 (3–4), 275–279. Moi, T. (2003) Discussion or aggression: Arrogance and despair in graduate school. The GRIND: The Graduate Student Newsletter (Duke University) 4 (1), 4–5. Nader, L. (1999) [1972] Up the anthropologist: Perspectives gained from studying up. In D. Hymes (ed.) Reinventing Anthropology (pp. 284–311). Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Okely, J. (2012) Anthropological Practice: Fieldwork and the Ethnographic Method. London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic.

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Phipps, A. (2010) Ethnographers as language learners: From oblivion and towards an echo. In P. Collins and A. Gallinat (eds) The Ethnographic Self as Resource: Writing Memory and Experience into Ethnography (pp. 97–110). Oxford and New York: Berghan Books. Reay, D., Crozier, G. and Clayton, J. (2009) ‘Strangers in paradise’? Working-class students in elite universities. Sociology 43 (6), 1103–1121. Sang. K.J.C. (2016) Gender, ethnicity and feminism: An intersectional analysis of the lived experiences feminist academic women in UK higher education. Journal of Gender Studies (Early online publication). Skeggs, B. (1997) Formations of Class and Gender. London: Sage. Skeggs, B. (2004) Exchange, value, and affect: Bourdieu and ‘the self’. In L. Adkins and B. Skeggs (eds) Feminism After Bourdieu (pp. 75–96). Oxford: Blackwell. Smart, C. (2013) Touching lives: Writing the sociological and the personal. In J. Stacey and J. Wolff (eds) Writing Otherwise: Experiments in Cultural Criticism. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

17 Conclusion Robert Gibb, Annabel Tremlett and Julien Danero Iglesias

What do we stand to gain by having a more open and honest discussion about our attempts to learn and use different languages in order to conduct ethnographic research? Why is it important, both for ourselves and for other researchers, that we describe and analyse these attempts in detail, whether they were successful, unsuccessful or something in between? Why should we write about the hopes, fears and anxieties we experienced as language learners and users, before, during and even after fieldwork? The preceding chapters have provided rich and varied answers to these questions, highlighting the benefits of breaking the silence that still tends to surround language-related issues in ethnographic research. In this conclusion, we reflect on some of the common themes that have emerged over the course of the chapters, relating these back to the three main aims of the volume we presented in the introduction. We also identify particularly promising directions for future work suggested by the contributors’ accounts of their experiences of learning and using different languages for research purposes. Language Learning Memoirs and Ethnographic Research

Learning and Using Languages in Ethnographic Research includes many examples of what the applied linguist Aneta Pavlenko has described, following Alice Kaplan (1994), as ‘language learning memoirs’ (Pavlenko, 2001, 2007). We encouraged contributors to write texts of this kind, given that that one of the principal aims of the volume was to document and analyse processes and practices involved when researchers at different stages of their academic career learn and use other languages in order to carry out their work. In our view, first-person accounts have a valuable role to play in stimulating further discussion of the significance of language-related issues in ethnographic research (see Gibb & Danero Iglesias, 2017: 138–141). As Pavlenko points out, however, language learning memoirs are ‘discursive constructions’ shaped by the ‘cultural and sociohistoric conventions’ of the literary genre to which they belong: cross-cultural 221

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autobiographic writing (2001: 214–5). Drawing on an analysis of 16 booklength autobiographies and seven essays, she argues, more specifically, that such memoirs are a ‘gendered genre’ (2001: 224) in which male and female authors use different metaphors and other rhetorical strategies to construct their respective narrative voices. Pavlenko highlights the fact, for example, that ‘male memoirs in the corpus [she examined] emphasize individual achievements and obscure contributions of others to their language learning’, whereas ‘female memoirs accord high importance to personal relationships, commitments, and interactions’ (2001: 232, 231). As she notes, this particular difference between male and female authors has also been found in other studies of Western autobiographic writing (2001: 231). It is interesting, then, that all the memoirs in the present volume, regardless of the author’s gender, acknowledge the crucial role played in the researcher’s language learning by their encounters and relationships with other people. In fact, what emerges clearly from this set of memoirs is that a remarkably wide range of individuals can have an impact on an ethnographer’s experience of learning and using another language. As could be expected, professional language teachers feature prominently in many of the chapters, but they are by no means the only figures mentioned. Authors also discuss the consequences for their language learning of prolonged relationships or more fleeting interactions with an impressive cast of other actors: interpreters, research participants, field assistants, research associates, senior colleagues, members of funding body assessment panels, PhD supervisors, peers, friends and family members. This focus on the language learning researcher’s relationships and encounters with others avoids what Suresh Canagarajah has described as a ‘bias’ in the field of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) studies, namely, viewing ‘language acquisition as an individual activity’ (2007: 928). In contrast, the language learning memoirs and other chapters in this volume carefully document and analyse how ‘the individual’s proficiency is shaped by collective and contextual factors’ (2007: 928). These include but are not limited to relationships with a range of other actors both ‘in the field’ and outside it. As we discuss in the final section of this conclusion, what Sarah Burton (this volume) calls ‘the making of the multilingual researcher’ is a process also affected by language ideologies and hierarchies, the unequal distribution of economic and cultural capital, and the organisation of contemporary academic institutions. If an individual’s language learning is shaped by their links with a range of other people, language in turn is central to the development of relationships between a researcher and participants during fieldwork. It has long been understood that ethnographic research depends on close, sustained contact with the members of a given group; the preceding chapters show how this is facilitated by learning and using languages. In so doing, they also express a series of important points about the nature of language in

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general (and not only in the context of field research), as Angela Creese highlighted, when commenting as a discussant on early v­ ersions of five of the chapters presented at the initial workshop we organised. Creese drew attention to the fact that they shared: a sense that language is an involvement strategy for building relationships between people. It’s about communication rather than about learning a code. It’s about meaning, rather than encoding or decoding processes. It’s about relationships rather than speakers and listeners. Fundamentally it’s about encounters in the social world. (2016: 10)

This summarises well the view of language that tends to inform the collection as a whole. Implicitly, or in a few cases explicitly, the preceding chapters are, in other words, broadly concerned with what Jan Blommaert and Ben Rampton have described as ‘a linguistics of communicative practice’ (2016: 27, italics in original). As Blommaert and Rampton explain, such an approach is characterised by a focus on communication as ‘situated action’ and on meaning-making as a process (2016: 27). The chapter by Susan Frohlick and Carolina Meneses provides a particularly interesting exploration of the connections between language, relationships, communication and meaning in ethnographic research. Frohlick, an Anglo-Canadian anthropologist, recruited Meneses as a bilingual (Spanish-English) field assistant when embarking on fieldwork in Costa Rica about youth, sexual health and global tourism. Working in a multilingual tourism town where language was a political issue, they reflected constantly on their own linguistic practices as well as those of the research participants. Together they have written a fascinating account of how their ‘mutual involvement in the embodied politics and emotions of language’ and their ‘entangled co-presence in the field’ led over time to the emergence of a collaborative relationship and to the co-production of meanings and knowledge. Similar processes are analysed by the other contributors to this volume, although their chapters concentrate more on how language is fundamental to the development of relationships between the fieldworker and research participants. To conclude this brief discussion of language learning memoirs and ethnographic research, we would like to suggest two ways in which future work might build on the personal narratives collected here. Firstly, given that many contemporary ethnographers rely on interpreters and/ or field assistants at some point during their fieldwork (see Borchgrevink, 2003; Middleton & Cons, 2014), the publication of more reflections on ­language-related issues co-written by both parties could yield important new insights. In their chapter, Frohlick and Meneses show how the perspectives of a researcher, on the one hand, and a bilingual field assistant, on the other, can be skilfully integrated into a coherent account, without losing the distinctiveness of each author’s voice. Language learning memoirs

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jointly produced by researchers and their language teachers would be valuable additions to the genre too. Another type of narrative, exemplified by Teresa Piacentini’s chapter, is that of the ‘practitioner-turned-researcher’. To help her explore language ‘unlearning’ as well as learning in the field, Piacentini is able to draw on her professional experience as a qualified interpreter before becoming a researcher. Hopefully other researchers with a practitioner background will be encouraged by this chapter to publish their own reflections. Secondly, debates about learning and using languages in ethnographic research would benefit from more language learning memoirs and other interventions from ‘mid-career’ and senior colleagues. It is striking that the majority of chapters in this volume have been written by doctoral and post-doctoral researchers (this was also true of the responses we received to our call for papers in relation to the initial workshop we organised in 2016). Why might this be? Considering the reasons for the silence about ‘language competence’ and the use of interpreters in anthropology, Axel Borchgrevink highlights the danger that ‘bringing up language problems undercuts the authority of the anthropologist’ (2003: 113). This is likely to be the case, although perhaps to a lesser extent, in other disciplines. More established researchers may therefore be concerned that being open about language-related issues they encountered in their work could damage their professional credibility, and so they prefer to remain silent (some notable exceptions are mentioned in Gibb & Danero Iglesias, 2017: 137–138). However, doctoral and post-doctoral researchers surely run even more of a risk, given that they have yet to obtain a permanent academic position, and that competition for one is intense. The ‘early-career’ ­researchers who have contributed to this volume have nevertheless been prepared to provide detailed accounts of their attempts to learn and use different languages in their work. We have much to learn too, though, from senior colleagues with multiple experiences of field research. Key Issues in Multilingual Ethnographic Research

What kinds of issues are likely to arise when we use a second or additional language to conduct ethnographic research? What are some of the epistemological, methodological, conceptual, theoretical and practical implications of ‘researching multilingually’ (Holmes et al., 2013)? The second aim of the present volume was to explore possible answers to these questions. In the following section, we highlight some of the key points made by the contributors as they have described and evaluated their own experiences of preparing for and carrying out multilingual ethnographic research. We organise our discussion around four themes that were prominent in many of the chapters: the advantages but also the practical difficulties associated with learning a field language; language learning as a continuous process; language anxiety; and the epistemological value of

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reflecting on breakdowns in communication during fieldwork. As we consider each of these in turn, we will suggest ways that future scholarship could build on the contributors’ insights. Since at least the 1920s, ethnographers have periodically debated the costs and benefits of learning a field language (see, for example, Malinowski, 1978 [1922]: 1–25; Mead, 1939; Lowie, 1940; Burling, 1984: 1–9). Reviewing some of this work, the geographer Elizabeth Watson has outlined three ‘theoretical arguments for language learning’ (2004: 63): first, that knowledge of the ‘local’ language enhances the researcher’s understanding of the worldview and experiences of the people in question; second, that such knowledge facilitates the development of rapport with research participants; and third, it makes direct contact possible with members of marginalized groups, who may not speak a lingua franca (2004: 61–63). Evidence in support of all three arguments can be found in the preceding chapters. We would like to draw particular attention, however, to Lydia Medland’s thought-provoking discussion of ‘language learning as research rehearsal’. As Medland shows, the months she spent learning Moroccan Arabic in a language school in Morocco also provided her with invaluable opportunities for cultural learning, interpretation and exploration prior to starting fieldwork. The language school was like a ‘rehearsal space’ for her subsequent research, she argues: through the conversations she had with her language teachers, she acquired not only linguistic skills but also crucial cultural knowledge about gender norms and ‘taboo’ topics that helped her to prepare and then undertake research about the experiences of seasonal workers in Morocco. This highlights the desirability, but also the challenges, of in-country language training, points which we return to below. Medland and other contributors make clear, however, that there are costs as well as benefits associated with language learning for research purposes, not to mention quite difficult practical problems sometimes to be overcome. Most obviously, language learning requires time and usually money (for courses and other resources), and forms of social inequality ensure differential access to both of these (see Burton, this volume). Even where these costs can be met, it can often not be straightforward for a researcher planning to work in a multilingual setting to decide which ­language – or languages – they should attempt to learn. This was the case for Medland, and for Charo Reyes and Iolanda Vasile, and all three ­contributors reflect in their chapters on the reasons behind the choices they made with respect to language learning. As Reyes’ account powerfully demonstrates, important questions about learning and using languages arise not only for ethnographers carrying out fieldwork in a different country, but also for those working ‘at home’, i.e. in their country of origin or residence. It is possible that researchers in such a situation face specific challenges. The experience of one of the ethnographers interviewed by Burton certainly suggests, for

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example, that accessing language training may be more problematic if your research does not entail moving ‘elsewhere’. The publication of more reflections on language-related issues by researchers undertaking projects ‘at home’, like the chapter by Reyes included here, would help to throw further light on particular difficulties this group may encounter. Other practical problems identified by the contributors to this volume relate to the accessing of appropriate resources to assist the language learning process. Daniella Jofré notes that she needed to make a 60-minute journey across the border from Chile to Peru in order to find a teacher of the Aymara language she was learning for her doctoral fieldwork. Similarly, Robert Gibb reports that when he started to learn Bulgarian no courses in the language were available in the Scottish city where he lived. For his part, Dominic Esler provides an extremely interesting account of the practical challenges he faced when trying to learn the colloquial register of Tamil for his doctoral research in Sri Lanka. The learning materials and formal teaching (both courses and individual lessons with a teacher) he found in the UK tended to focus on literary Tamil, and his ‘colloquial Tamil competence’ developed mainly after he arrived in Sri Lanka. Once in the country, he improved his colloquial Tamil ‘primarily through exposure’ to the language he heard being spoken around him and the strategies he devised to support his own learning, rather than the lessons he took with local teachers (which were useful in other ways). In the chapter, Esler explains how this personal encounter as a language learner with Tamil diglossia – the existence of literary and colloquial varieties of the language – increased his awareness of its centrality to wider questions of language ideology and Tamil identity. As he emphasises, reflecting on language learning can enhance significantly an ethnographer’s understanding of key features of the culture or society in which they are working. Susan Rodgers (2012: 11) made this point too in her own language learning memoir, and it is one that merits further discussion on the part of ethnographers. A second theme that emerges in many of the chapters is the continuous nature of the language learning process. A particularly interesting perspective on this is offered by several contributors who already held academic or other professional qualifications in a given language before they embarked on multilingual ethnographic research. One of the reasons their accounts are so valuable is that they highlight the fact that even researchers with a high level of linguistic competence or fluency usually have not only to engage in further language learning but also to address potentially complicated language-related issues in their fieldwork. Teresa Piacentini, for example, worked for 10 years as a French community interpreter in Glasgow before starting a PhD project on Francophone African refugee and migrants associations in Scotland. As she explains, she quickly found that she had to ‘unlearn’ the ‘correct French’ acquired over a long period at school and then university, and to learn new ways of using the language

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in order to carry out her fieldwork successfully. Similarly, Lara Momesso had studied Mandarin Chinese at university in Italy and worked in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) before taking up an opportunity to research migration for marriage between Mainland China and Taiwan. In her chapter, she shows that moving to Taiwan required her to ‘re-learn’ fundamental aspects of the Chinese language, and that this proved to be a much less simple matter than she had originally expected. Specifically, she struggled to shift from the simplified version of Chinese characters she had learned as a student, and that is used in the PRC, to the traditional writing system that exists in Taiwan. As we discuss in the next section, her experience of travelling as a researcher between Mainland China and Taiwan also led her to reflect more generally on the relationship between language (learning), power and politics. Momesso’s honest acknowledgement that she experienced a significant loss of confidence in using the Chinese language as she tried to adjust to the Taiwanese context points to the third theme we wish to explore here: language anxiety. This has recently been described as ‘the most widely studied emotion in SLA’ (MacIntyre, 2017: 11), and it features prominently in many of the contributions to the present volume too. When commenting as a discussant on versions of five of the chapters presented at our initial workshop, Hilary Foottit (2016) noted that she was ‘very struck by the anguish’ apparent in these accounts. In most of the other chapters, there are also frequent references to feeling anxious, angst-­ ridden, ashamed, embarrassed, inadequate, troubled, lonely or uncomfortable in the context of learning and using a field language. Reflecting on her PhD research in Tanzania, Laela Adamson draws attention to the fact that even after an ethnographer has left the field they can still be ‘plagued with anxiety’ about their language skills. For example, she notes how the process of translating and analysing interview transcripts after she returned to the UK reignited feelings of vulnerability and anxiety about her own linguistic abilities. We should perhaps not be surprised that many language-learning researchers experience some form of language anxiety, given how common the phenomenon appears to be among language learners in general (Daubney et al., 2017: 1). However, might other factors be at play as well? Even if they are not, how can ethnographers try to reduce the anxiety associated with learning and using other languages for research purposes? Several of the contributors to the volume throw light on the first of these questions. As Frohlick points out, ethnographers with a background in anthropology can feel pressure to conform to a perceived disciplinary ideal, rooted in Malinowski’s prescriptions about fieldwork, quickly to become fluent in the ‘native language’ (see also Borchgrevink, 2003: 98). Discussing her own ‘angst-ridden’ attempts to learn Spanish, she argues that such an expectation about fluency was ‘not helpful’. The institutional and socio-economic processes characteristic of ‘fast academia’ further

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increased her anxiety about language learning, she explains, and we will return to these wider contextual factors in the final section below. For his part, Esler suggests that some of the language anxiety experienced by many fieldworkers may result from the combined effect of two other factors. He writes that [ethnographers] often learn independently and rarely describe their experiences – of specific languages or language learning in general – in their published work, nor participate in the pedagogical scholarship on secondary language learning. Part of the anxiety surrounding language skills may therefore arise simply from the fact that many fieldworkers do not know how to learn a language successfully, particularly alone and, as is the case with many languages, with a minimum of resources.

In other words, the current silence about language-related matters in ­ethnographic research and a frequent failure to engage with relevant SLA scholarship are liable to leave ethnographers particularly prone to ­language anxiety. If this is true – and we believe it is – the implications are clear. Ethnographers can take two immediate steps to lessen the anxiety many of them feel when they have to learn and use other languages in their research. On the one hand, more of them can publish language-learning memoirs as well as detailed accounts of how they actually used different languages before, during and after fieldwork. These will be valuable sources of practical advice, ideas and encouragement for other ethnographers, helping to undermine the sense many currently have of effectively being left to find solutions to language-related issues on their own. As we explained in the introductory chapter, the present volume aims to make this kind of contribution. On the other hand, ethnographers would benefit considerably from drawing more on SLA research into language anxiety and other aspects of language learning. For example, SLA scholars have proposed ‘a series of interventions for classroom use and for independent, autonomous learning and self-awareness’ designed to mitigate language anxiety (Gkonou, Dewaele & Daubney, 2017: 220). As the title of a recent book chapter by Rebecca Oxford (2017) puts it, ‘anxious language learners can change their minds’. This could apply to ethnographers too, if they acquaint themselves more with the ideas and strategies suggested by SLA r­ esearchers (see also Oxford, 1999). The experience of one of the contributors, Julien Danero Iglesias, illustrates how useful the SLA literature can be to ethnographers. Danero Iglesias explains in his chapter that he developed a desire, when learning Romanian, to speak the language ‘like a native’, and that over time this became an ‘obsession’. Reading SLA scholarship critical of the concept of ‘native speaker’, however, helped him later to reflect more deeply on

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his own language practices, with the result that he ‘started to be more relaxed’. Matthew Blackburn is another contributor who explores in his chapter the effects of what he refers to as ‘the self-applied pressure to “pass as a native”’. In addition, his account brings out clearly how anxieties about being ‘competent’, both as the speaker of second language and as a researcher, can make multilingual ethnographic research especially challenging. We hope that the chapters by Esler, Danero Iglesias and Blackburn, and others in this volume, will encourage ethnographers to follow more closely debates about language anxiety, and language learning more generally, within the SLA field. At the same time, we believe that ethnographers’ accounts of their own attempts to learn and use other languages for research purposes are likely to contain valuable insights for SLA scholars. The latter have tended to focus in their research on the influence of the affective domain in general and anxiety in particular on language learning in a classroom context (see, for example, Arnold, 1999 and Gkonou et al., 2017, respectively). In contrast, the authors of the preceding chapters are more concerned with the relationship between emotions and language use in field settings – with language anxiety ‘in the wild’ rather than in the classroom (to borrow a distinction introduced by Pavlenko, 2015). Their reflections therefore have the potential to enhance SLA researchers’ understanding of how learners can develop forms of language anxiety in a broad range of social situations. In short, we would argue that both ethnographers and SLA researchers stand to gain from a fuller engagement with each other’s work. A prominent question in recent SLA scholarship has been whether language anxiety is ‘facilitating’ or ‘debilitating’ (see MacIntyre, 2017). While not denying the often negative effects of language anxiety, several contributors to this volume suggest that reflecting on breakdowns in communication and moments of anxiety, embarrassment or awkwardness during fieldwork can have very positive results indeed. This is the final theme we wish to consider here; it is one that represents, in our view, an extremely promising area for future work. In a previous publication, Annabel Tremlett (2009) argued that her experience of being ‘less-than-fluent’ in Hungarian during her doctoral research in a primary school in the South Great Plain region of Hungary caused her to problematise the claims to knowledge she could make. Epistemological issues are also a central concern of the chapter she contributes to the present volume. Drawing on both her initial fieldwork and a follow-up project completed some years later, she analyses a series of moments when she was, in her own words, ‘inarticulate’, ‘incompetent’, ‘anxious’ or ‘embarrassed’. As she demonstrates, reflecting on these incidents led her to important insights into not only the school environment but also her relationships with research participants. Her thought-­ provoking conclusion is thus that paying attention to ‘breakdowns’ of

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communication or confidence can result in ‘potential breakthroughs’ in a researcher’s understanding of their fieldwork. Adamson’s discussion of her research in two Tanzanian secondary schools where English was the medium of instruction provides a further illustration of the fruitfulness of this approach. As she explains, ‘a turning point’ occurred in her fieldwork when she realised that the ‘feelings of vulnerability, anxiety and shame’ she regularly experienced as a learner and user of Swahili in the field were similar to those experienced by many of the school students learning in English. Thereafter she devoted more attention to the role of emotions and sense of self, as well as power, in shaping the students’ relationship to language in the schools. In different ways, then, Adamson and Tremlett show the epistemological value for researchers of examining seriously their own – and other people’s – experiences of language anxiety or socio-linguistic ‘incompetence’. It is clear that ethnographers have much to gain by reflecting on embarrassing moments and communication breakdowns during fieldwork, and we hope that many of them will be inspired by these chapters to do so. Multilingual Ethnographic Research in Context

In this final section, we discuss two ways contributors addressed the third main aim of the volume, which was to explore how researchers’ experiences of learning and using languages in ethnographic research are shaped by wider structures of power, hierarchy and inequality. The first of these involved drawing attention to features of the contemporary ­academic and institutional context. The second focused on the careful analysis of issues of power and control in the context of a researcher’s relationships with participants in the field. What both approaches h ­ ighlight, it seems to us, is the importance of contextualising multilingual ethnographic research in relation to forms of power and inequality. As we have already mentioned, Frohlick argues in the chapter she co-wrote with Meneses that her attempts to learn Spanish were adversely affected by workload and time pressures characteristic of neoliberal ‘fast academia’. How the current organisation of universities impacts on the development of multilingual researchers is examined at even greater length in Burton’s chapter, which draws on material from interviews with ten researchers employed in UK Sociology departments. Burton emphasises that the making of a multilingual researcher is a process, and one that is notably conditioned by a combination of social class, cultural capital and a ‘neoliberal culture of academic competition’. These social structural and institutional factors have a significant impact, she maintains, on an individual’s ability to learn and use languages in ethnographic research. Other contributors also direct attention to the important influence aspects of the academic context can have on the experiences of ethnographers learning and using languages for research purposes. Wine Tesseur,

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for example, considers how the ‘impact agenda’ in the UK university system and the dominance of English as the language of international academic communication both affect her research on the role of languages and listening in the work of international UK-based development non-governmental organisations (the effects of language hierarchies on the researcher are also mentioned by Danero Iglesias in his chapter). For his part, Gibb highlights the crucial role played by research funding bodies in making financial support for language training available to both PhD students and more established researchers. He argues that ‘demystifying’ multilingual ethnographic research must also involve an open discussion with research funders about expectations of ‘linguistic expertise’. Finally, Momesso raises the issue of language teaching within universities. Describing herself as ‘the product of a system which prioritised, without problematising it, the model of the PRC [the People’s Republic of China]’ when training students in Mandarin Chinese, she calls for the incorporation of a more critical perspective on the connections between language, power and politics. All these authors are concerned, in one way or another, with dimensions of the wider structural context and forms of hierarchy within which language learning takes place. Those whose work we will now discuss ­ contribute to the volume’s third aim by focusing instead on how a r­esearcher’s use of a given language is shaped by their evolving ­relationships with participants in the field. Contemporary ethnographers often carry out research in what Jofré terms ‘contested language terrains’, ­multilingual sites where choice of language as well as styles of communication are often highly politicised and personalised. How is the researcher to navigate their way through such a situation? As Piacentini and Tremlett both make clear, ethnographers try to establish rapport and build relationships of trust in the field, but they cannot fully control how they are positioned by participants. While this is true for all fieldworkers, those who carry out their research multilingually may find themselves in a particularly complicated position. Piacentini writes about how, whilst her prior knowledge of people and political structures in the asylum process as a community interpreter was often highly valued, she was at times excluded from certain conversations as participants felt suspicious that she might be ‘spying’ for the UK Home Office. She writes about how she had to work hard to reflect on power relations and reestablish rapport at certain moments. Tremlett acknowledges that we may never really know how we are positioned by others. Through her fieldwork that has taken her back to the same town in Hungary for nearly two decades, she reflects on the stories she has heard participants tell about her. Such stories often position Tremlett as a ‘foreigner’, emphasising her outsider status. Seemingly in contradiction to that, these same stories could also be used and re-used in intimate, affinity-building moments in work and family life. Whilst we cannot always fully comprehend all the

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power relations at play, focusing on our evolving relationships with people in our research can reveal telling constructs and resistances to the hierarchies of associations and narratives that surround us. We have only been able in this section to touch on some of the points raised by contributors in relation to issues of power, hierarchy and inequality as these affect the learning and use of languages in ethnographic research. Even these brief comments should nevertheless be sufficient to show that future research in this area could develop in a broad range of directions. It would be interesting, for example, to compare different institutional and national contexts with respect to the provision – or lack of provision – of language training for ethnographic research. Similarly, more studies of the multilingual researcher’s position and relationships with participants in the field would be likely to reveal other important influences on how languages are used in practice. Conclusion

We introduced this volume by inviting you to put yourself in the position of a researcher whose fieldwork required them either to learn a new language or to use a second or additional language they already knew. We asked you to think about how you would try to learn the new language and about the kinds of issues you might have to address when ‘researching multilingually’. Perhaps for you this is not in fact a hypothetical situation, but instead one that is all too real: you actually are learning a new language at the moment as part of preparation for fieldwork, or you are currently in the process of conducting ethnographic research using one or more other languages. If so, we hope that by reading all the reflections and analyses collected here you have been helped to make more informed decisions about language-related matters when designing and carrying out your own research. At the end of this chapter, you will find a box containing some ‘Top tips for researchers learning and using other languages for research’, based on the varied experiences of the contributors to the volume. As well as being a resource for individual researchers, Learning and Using Languages in Ethnographic Research aims, more generally, to stimulate a wider debate among scholars about the nature of multilingual ethnographic research. Over the past few decades, a small but growing number of ethnographers from different disciplinary backgrounds have publicly criticised the silence or mystique that to a large extent still surrounds language-related questions in fieldwork. The present volume responds to their call for a more open and wide-ranging discussion of the epistemological, methodological, conceptual, theoretical and practical issues associated with learning and using different languages for research purposes. The contributors’ frank and often moving accounts of their own and other researchers’ experiences are full of rich insights into the benefits, the difficulties, the stresses and strains, but also the pleasures of

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‘researching multilingually’. We hope that the work collected here will encourage other ethnographers to add their voices to what is a long-­ overdue debate about the multilingual aspects of ethnographic research. Top tips for researchers learning and using other languages for research (1) When planning and then conducting your research, look for relevant information and resources to help you make informed decisions about how to learn and/or use different languages. Making informed decisions about learning and using different languages is important at each stage of a multilingual research project, from the initial research design to the dissemination of the results. Which languages (or language varieties) are spoken in your intended fieldsite, and what linguistic resources are you likely to need in order to carry out your work successfully? If you decide that you will need to learn a new language, how will you go about doing this? What resources (e.g. classes, textbooks) are available to support your learning? How will you continue to study the language once in the field? What language(s) will you use when writing your fieldnotes? If you are ‘less-than-fluent’ in a field language, what steps will you take to check your understanding as you go along? In which language(s) will you publish the results of your research? Look for the information and resources you need to help you weigh up the different options and ask peers, mentors and other colleagues for advice and suggestions based on their own experience. Use the engaging and accessible accounts of language learning and use written by the contributors to this book, and the other sources they discuss, to help you make your own decisions. (2) Identify the time and other resources you need for language learning, and seek appropriate support from your research funder, PhD supervisors and/or line manager. Language learning requires time and usually also other resources, such as financial support for language courses. Identify the time and resources you will need for language learning in order to carry out your research, and make sure that you factor these carefully into your research proposal and application for funding. Allow time not only for language learning before you start your fieldwork, but also for ongoing learning and reflection when actually carrying out the research, and in the analysis and writing-up stages. Prepare a detailed case for the time and resources you need, and then seek appropriate support from your research funder, PhD supervisors and/or line manager. If you are a PhD student, discuss with your supervisor a realistic time-plan that would allow sufficient time for language learning. If you already hold an academic position, talk to

234  Learning and Using ­Languages in Ethnographic Research

your line manager about having language learning recognised in your workload. Given that time and resources are often in short supply in contemporary ‘fast academia’, characterised as it is by increasing workloads, budget cuts, casualisation and a pressure to produce rapid ‘outputs’, these may not be easy conversations to have. However, draw on the arguments presented in this book, and in the other sources it discusses, for taking time over research, particularly when this involves ‘researching multilingually’. Point to the key positive role that research funders, PhD supervisors and line managers can play in supporting multilingual ethnographers to carry out their work to the highest standard. (3) Document and reflect systematically on your experiences of learning and using different languages for research, and consider publishing an account of these as a potential resource for other researchers. Taking time to document and reflect systematically on your experiences of learning and using languages for fieldwork might seem like a distraction from the main focus of your research. As this book shows, however, writing regular fieldnotes and reflections about how you are learning and using languages in your work can in fact help you to develop a deeper and more critical understanding of both the research topic and of the actual process of conducting the research. There are different ways to document and reflect on learning and using languages in research, as the various contributions to this book show. One practical suggestion would be to include a section on ‘language learning/communication issues’ in every fieldnote you write. This would prompt you to record on an ongoing basis the kinds of issues you are encountering, the decisions you are making, and the evolving nature of your interactions and communication with research participants. You might also consider writing monthly ‘reports’ for supervisors, mentors or like-minded colleagues in order to explore the main points in more detail and receive valuable feedback on these from other researchers. For example, you could select a number of ‘telling examples’ from your daily fieldnotes that relate to language and communication, and reflect on these more fully. Another option would be to collect embarrassing or anxiety-provoking experiences relating to language and communication during fieldwork in a personal diary that you do not show anyone else, but which could become a source of extremely rich material at a later stage in your research. If the accounts of learning and using languages for research contained in this volume have helped you with your own work, please consider publishing an account of your experiences as a potential resource for other researchers. Add your voice to what is a long-overdue debate about the multilingual aspects of ethnographic research!

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(4) Remember that there are ways to reduce anxiety about language skills, and that analysing breakdowns in communication during fieldwork can lead to breakthroughs in understanding. At some point or other during your research, and maybe on a continuous basis, you are likely to experience anxiety about your language skills, not to mention other complex emotions surrounding your learning and use of other languages, such as apprehension, obsession, joy and frustration. It is important to remember that most language-­learners feel ‘language anxiety’ and that there are ways to reduce it. The contributors to this volume describe in detail the specific strategies or ad hoc solutions they adopted. The literature on Second Language Acquisition also contains many useful suggestions. More generally, however, one of the key messages of the present book is that the maintenance of a ‘silence’ or ‘mystique’ around the learning and using of languages in ethnographic research can leave many researchers feeling unnecessarily anxious or uncertain about how to handle these matters in their work. Following the previous three tips, and talking to colleagues and peers, should help you to demystify language-related issues in your own research and to make more informed decisions about them. This should, at the same time, reduce your level of anxiety. Remember too that analysing embarrassing moments or breakdowns in communication during fieldwork can lead to potential breakthroughs in your understanding. Do not worry too much about being worried, therefore; harness it for critical thinking. (5) Think carefully about how your experiences of learning and using languages are shaped by power relations, hierarchies and inequalities. Power relations, language ideologies and institutional structures will inevitably shape your development as a multilingual researcher. For example, as contributions to this volume highlight, social structural and institutional factors can have a significant impact on an ­individual’s ability to learn and use languages in ethnographic research. In multilingual fieldsites, choice of language and styles of communication are often highly politicised issues, and a researcher will also need to think carefully about how to navigate their way through such a situation. Draw on the accounts provided by the contributors to this volume to help you analyse the impact of wider structures of power, hierarchy and inequality on your own experiences before, during and after fieldwork. Finally, as researchers we should not forget that for many other people, including those with whom we often work, learning another language is not a choice – as it ultimately is for most of us – but a quest for survival; it is an essential part of experiences such as fleeing civil war or destitution; holding down a job or going to school in a new country; fighting for one’s rights; or reacting to and challenging discrimination.

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References Arnold, J. (ed.) (1999) Affect in Language Learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Blommaert, J. and Rampton, B. (2016) Language and superdiversity. In K. Arnaut, J. Blommaert, B. Rampton and M. Spotti (eds) Language and Superdiversity (pp. 21– 48). Abingdon: Routledge. Borchgrevink, A. (2003) Silencing language: Of anthropologists and interpreters. Ethnography 4 (1), 95–121. Burling, R. (1984) Learning a Field Language. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Canagarajah, S. (2007) Lingua franca English, multilingual communities, and language acquisition. The Modern Language Journal 91, 923–939. Creese, A. (2016) Discussant’s comments presented at International Workshop on ‘Language Learning and Ethnographic Fieldwork’ held at the University of Glasgow, Scotland, on 11–12 April 2016. Daubney, M., Dewaele, J.-M. and Gkonou, C. (2017) Introduction. In C. Gkonou, M. Daubney and J.-M. Dewaele (eds) New Insights into Language Anxiety: Theory, Research and Educational Implications (pp. 1–7). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Foottit, H. (2016) Discussant’s comments presented at International Workshop on ‘Language Learning and Ethnographic Fieldwork’ held at the University of Glasgow, Scotland, on 11–12 April 2016. Gibb, R. and Danero Iglesias, J. (2017) Breaking the silence (again): On language learning and levels of fluency in ethnographic research. The Sociological Review 65 (1), 134–149. Gkonou, C., Daubney, M. and Dewaele, J.-M. (eds) (2017) New Insights into Language Anxiety: Theory, Research and Educational Implications. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Gkonou, C., Dewaele, J.-M. and Daubney, M. (2017) Conclusion. In C. Gkonou, M. Daubney and J.-M. Dewaele (eds) New Insights into Language Anxiety: Theory, Research and Educational Implications (pp. 217–223). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Holmes, P., Fay, R., Andrews, J. and Attia, M. (2013) Researching multilingually: New theoretical and methodological directions. International Journal of Applied Linguistics 23 (3), 285–299. Kaplan, A. (1994) On Language Memoir. In A. Bammer (ed.) Displacements: Cultural Identities in Question (pp. 59–70). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Lowie, R.H. (1940) Native languages as ethnographic tools. American Anthropologist 42 (1), 81–89. MacIntyre, P.D. (2017) An overview of language anxiety research and trends in its development. In C. Gkonou, M. Daubney and J.-M. Dewaele (eds) New Insights into Language Anxiety: Theory, Research and Educational Implications (pp. 11–30). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Malinowski, B. (1978 [1922]) Argonauts of the Western Pacific: An Account of Native Enterprise and Adventure in the Archipelagos of Melanesian New Guinea. London: Routledge. Mead, M. (1939) Native languages as field-work tools. American Anthropologist 41 (2), 189–205. Middleton, T. and Cons, J. (2014) Coming to terms: Reinserting research assistants into ethnography’s past and present. Ethnography 15 (3), 279–290. Oxford, R.L. (1999) Anxiety and the language learner: New insights. In J. Arnold (ed.) Affect in Language Learning (pp. 58–67). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Oxford, R.L. (2017) Anxious language learners can change their minds: Ideas and strategies from traditional psychology and positive psychology. In C. Gkonou, M. Daubney and J.-M. Dewaele (eds) New Insights into Language Anxiety: Theory, Research and Educational Implications (pp. 177–197). Bristol: Multilingual Matters.

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Pavlenko, A. (2001) Language learning memoirs as a gendered genre. Applied Linguistics 22 (2), 213–240. Pavlenko, A. (2007) Autobiographic narratives as data in applied linguistics. Applied Linguistics 28 (2), 163–188. Pavlenko, A. (2015) Learning languages in the classroom and ‘in the wild’: Second language learning and embodied cognition. Psychology Today, 28 January 2015, accessed 31 March 2016. www.psychologytoday.com/blog/life-bilingual/201501/learninglanguages-in-the-classroom-and-in-the-wild. Rodgers, S. (2012) How I learned Batak: Studying the Angkola Batak language in 1970s New Order Indonesia. Indonesia 93 (April), 1–32. Tremlett, A. (2009) Claims of ‘knowing’ in ethnography: Realising anti-essentialism through a critical reflection on language acquisition in fieldwork. Graduate Journal of Social Science 6 (3), 63–85, accessed 24 October 2016. www.gjss.org/content/claims‘knowing’-ethnography-realising-anti-essentialism-through-critical-reflection Watson, E.E. (2004) ‘What a dolt one is’: Language learning and fieldwork in geography. Area 36 (1) 59–68.

Index

Academia 33, 167, 200, 203, 204 contemporary academic culture 207–220, 230 ‘fast academia’ 32–34, 42, 227–228, 230, 234 figure of ‘competent academic’ 210–211, 214 neoliberal 9, 12, 31, 33, 42, 207, 212, 214, 230 Western 98–99, 102, 105, 107 Accent 77, 119, 144, 147–148, 153, 172, 211, 217 Accountability 175, 195, 200–202, 204 Agar, Michael 4–5, 90, 116, 120, 162 Age 25, 40–41, 212, 216 Agency 37, 47, 186–187 AHRC, see Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Andrews, Jane 1, 12, 45, 59, 188, 224 Anthropology 5, 33, 71, 80, 83, 116, 127, 203, 213, 224, 227 cultural 6 disciplinary expectations about linguistic fluency 31–32, 213, 227 linguistic 4 social 4, 6 Anxiety, see Language anxiety Applied linguistics 80 critical 8 Arabic (language) 35, 178, 183 Moroccan 12, 17, 19, 21–22, 180–181, 225 Standard Modern 21–22, 180–181 Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) 58, 66–67, 200, 202 Attia, Mariam 1, 12, 59, 188, 224 Aymara (language) 11, 12, 126–139, 226

Blommaert, Jan 5, 8, 46, 48, 99, 118, 185, 203, 223 Borchgrevink, Axel 1, 4, 32–34, 42, 58, 60, 67–68, 79, 83, 94, 116, 117, 223–224, 227 Borders 126, 149, 193 Bulgarian (language) 12, 57–59, 60, 62–65, 66–67, 226 Burling, Robbins 3–4, 225 Canagarajah, Suresh 99, 201–202, 222 Capital (forms of) 208, 209 cultural 12, 47, 207–220, 222, 230 economic 208, 216, 222 linguistic 187, 216 symbolic 66 Caste 72–73 Catalan (language) 12, 177–189 Class (social) 22, 72, 76, 143, 154–155, 159, 173, 181, 182, 209–216, 218, 230 Codeswitching 38 Collaboration 131, 200, 202 interdisciplinary 204 researchers 62–63, 64 researchers and field assistants 9, 31–43, 116, 223 researchers and interpreters 167 researchers and research participants 173 Colonialism 21–23, 47, 77, 98, 132, 134, 135, 153–156, 157 Communication 19, 21, 89–90, 93, 119, 203, 231 concepts and theories of 81–82, 88, 94, 196–198, 223 as embodied practice 89, 187 and emotions 118 intercultural 169–170 and language 11, 29, 41–43, 45, 178, 217, 223, 234 and meaning 27, 28 miscommunications 128, 133, 135

Bilingualism 11, 40, 42, 129, 148, 150, 161, 178–190 Blackledge, Adrian 9, 32, 62, 180, 181

238

Index 239

different modalities of 186–187 problems 10, 76 as social practice 180 value of reflecting on breakdowns in 113, 115, 122, 123, 225, 229–230, 235 See also Competence, communicative Competence 129, 153, 178, 209–210 bilingual 171 communicative 4, 9, 71, 79 lack of 149–151, 185 linguistic 4, 11, 60, 73–76, 79, 142, 149–151, 165, 175, 213, 216, 224, 226 linguistic incompetence 67, 122, 187, 230 ‘nearly-native’ 141, 145, 147 and participation 119–120 sociolinguistic 60, 61–64, 68 See also Academia, figure of ‘competent academic’ Conceptual issues, see under specific concepts (e.g. Communication) Confidence (in learning and using other languages) building 103, 141–142, 156, 158, 169 lack of 7, 62 linked to confidence in research project 53 loss of 102, 227 naive 64 Copland, Fiona 2, 47, 59 Council of Europe approach to language learning 8 definition of plurilingualism 178 Creese, Angela 2, 9, 32, 47, 59, 62, 180–181, 223 Cultural difference 127, 128, 135 Cultural Studies 4, 6, 202 Dales, Laura 4, 6, 165, 172 Danero Iglesias, Julien 1, 4, 9, 11, 59, 62, 84, 94, 116–117, 147, 165, 208, 210, 221, 224, 228, 229, 231 Davies, Alan 8, 141, 143, 145 Dialects 71–73, 74, 98, 102 Diglossia 10, 70–82, 101, 226 and language learning 73–77 See also Registers, linguistic Disciplines (academic), see under individual disciplines Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)

distinction between four groups of languages 3 ‘Postgraduate Funding Guide’ 2–3, 63 support for ‘language training’ 24, 62, 64, 67, 81 Embarrassment when speaking and using other languages 7, 148, 227 value of reflecting on embarrassing moments in fieldwork 10–11, 113–125, 229–230, 234–235 Emotions conflicting 38–39 and fieldwork 166, 171, 230 and language 7, 9–10, 45, 118, 174, 208, 223, 227, 229, 230, 235 in interviews 161 positive emotions and language learning 117–118 emotional support between researchers and field assistants 32 value of analysing moments of intense emotion during fieldwork 116, 122–123 See also under individual emotions (e.g. Vulnerability) Empathy 32, 36, 153 English (language) 9, 12, 19, 23, 24, 28, 33, 34–39, 44–56, 60, 74–77, 78–79, 81, 86, 88, 91, 92, 105, 113–114, 142, 150, 159, 168, 180–181, 213, 215, 217, 230 dominance of 100, 185, 196, 201–202, 204, 231 as lingua franca 33, 194, 196 ‘re-thinking’ English language concepts 11, 127, 131 Epistemological issues 2, 12, 32, 84, 94, 116, 152–153, 162, 218, 224–225, 232 relationship between language and knowledge production 6, 10, 11, 20, 99, 105–108, 229–230 ESRC, see Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Ethical issues 11, 39, 40, 166, 174, 179, 182, 186, 202–203, 204, 205 Ethnicity 72, 128, 172, 215 Ethnography different definitions of 4–6, 32, 116, 123, 198, 210, 213–214 language learning as 79–81 team ethnography 62 See also Ethnographic research and Linguistic ethnography

240 Index

Ethnographic methods See Interviews and Participant observation Ethnographic research barriers to multilingual 2, 212–213 as embodied process 80 ‘at home’ 179, 188 multi-sited 11, 85, 126, 133 ‘top tips for researchers…’ 233–235 See also Ethnography; Fieldwork; Gatekeepers; Interviews and Participant observation Fay, Richard 1, 12, 59, 188, 224 Fear when carrying out ethnographic research 116–117 importance of discussing 218, 221 of making mistakes (language learners and users) 52 as part of motivation for language learning 64 Field assistants bilingual 9, 31, 35, 43, 223 decisions about hiring 35 challenging voicelessness of in written accounts 9, 32, 36–39, 42, 223–224 Field language choosing and using a 6, 9, 11, 12, 19–24, 60, 65, 91, 141, 179, 181, 185–6, 231, 232–235 costs and benefits of learning and using a 24–26, 29, 158, 225–226, 232–233 Fieldnotes 32, 58, 59, 64, 81, 114, 118, 166, 234 analysis of 36–39, 40–42, 50, 53–54, 60–63, 86–87, 90–91, 133–134 language of 60, 83–84, 88, 233 Fieldsites 34, 210, 214 decisions about 33, 59, 66 multilingual 32, 35–37, 41, 233, 235 negotiating access to 11, 22, 27, 35–37, 45, 49–51, 55, 92–93, 103–104, 145–151, 165–166, 173, 202 politics of language within 85, 231, 233, 235 Fieldwork decisions about how to carry out 40, 175 mystique about 32, 65, 94, 116, 164 performative aspects of 11, 169–170, 175

practical issues arising in multilingual 2, 12, 84, 224 importance of ‘small talk’ in 10, 83–96 See also Ethnographic research; Fieldsites; Gatekeepers; Identity, field; Rapport and Researchers Fluency 4, 11, 31, 49, 51, 62, 63, 74, 84, 129, 150, 155, 174, 208, 217, 226, 227 being ‘less than fluent’ 24–25, 65, 67, 90, 142, 160, 165, 175, 213, 229–230, 233 as embodied 216 lack of 61 levels of 2, 21, 22, 24–25, 33–34, 37–38, 66–67, 87, 168–171 notion of ‘working ability’ 3 French (language) 10, 12, 17, 19, 21–23, 28–29, 58–64, 86, 88, 90–94, 141, 142, 143, 145, 148, 150, 212, 216–217, 226 Gatekeepers 21–23, 50, 165–166, 172–174 Gawlewicz, Anna 4, 84, 87, 91 German (language) 12, 21, 35, 212, 216–217 Gender 18, 158, 172, 175, 209–210, 211, 225 as grammatical category 156, 161 identity 25 and language classes 27 and language learning memoirs 222 Geography (academic discipline) 4 Gibb, Robert 1, 4, 9, 10, 59, 66, 84, 94, 116–117, 165, 208, 210, 221, 224, 226, 231 Gill, Rosalind 33, 219, 218 Globalisation 23, 179, 193, 201, 203 Gottlieb, Alma 34, 42, 59, 66–67 Grammar 3, 24, 26, 65, 87, 142, 156–157, 211, 215 Gupta, Akhil 32, 34, 39, 42, 85, 217 Hammersley, Martyn 5, 6, 84, 90, 165 Herzfeld, Michael 4, 58, 80 Hierarchies 2, 6, 84, 95, 154, 164, 211, 222, 230–232, 235 power hierarchies in fieldwork 39, 113, 182–183 in practices of ethnography 213 within universities 12, 209, 216 See also Language hierarchies; Power relations and Power structures Holmes, Prue 1, 12, 59, 188, 224 Hungarian (language) 10, 12, 113–125, 229

Index 241

Identity 70, 77, 153, 180, 182, 186, 226 field (of researcher) 11, 25, 164–176 national 11, 48, 99–100, 103, 106, 107, 127, 128, 166, 169 politics 84, 126–139 See also Gender, identity Inadequacy (researcher’s feelings of) in relation to language skills 7, 31, 33, 46, 92, 227 Inequalities 2, 6, 208, 211, 225, 230–232, 235 between ethnographer and research participant 95, 172–173 within sociology 209 within universities 12, 218 Ingold, Tim 5–7, 132 Insider-outsider (researcher as) 94, 104 categories 25 dynamic 165, 171–172, 175 status 89 See also Positionality Interdisciplinary research 67, 202, 204 Interpreters 58, 85–94, 226, 231 roles in fieldwork 4, 25 role in researcher’s language learning 222 use of by researchers 6, 21, 27, 34, 35–39, 83, 146, 210, 223–224 Interviews 5, 12, 19, 24, 36, 47, 51–52, 80, 104, 119, 149, 156, 158–161, 166, 167–170, 172–173, 175, 185, 187, 201, 202, 208 conducted using different languages 37, 39, 142, 148 analysis of extracts from 37–39, 52–53 Kimbundu (language) 12, 153, 157–159 Krzywoszynska, Anna 4, 122 Language barriers 24–25, 90, 130, 172, 186, 204 concepts and theories of 98, 99–100, 106–107, 157, 184, 203–204, 222–223 distinction between ‘first’ and ‘second’ 183–184 embodied politics and emotions of 31–32, 36, 223 as a political issue in fieldsites 6, 35, 36, 38, 87, 92, 148, 184–185, 223, 231, 235 and power 36, 45, 47, 78, 87, 99, 108, 235 problematic notion of ‘a’ language 11, 60, 152–163

See also Field language and under individual languages Language anxiety 1, 7, 9–10, 12, 117–118, 224, 227–230 after fieldwork 55, 160–161, 227 during fieldwork 42, 45, 51–55, 123, 170–171 and language learning 33, 65, 80, 165 strategies to reduce 81, 228–229 value of analysing 116, 229–230 Language hierarchies 8, 23, 45–46, 47, 131, 217 English as a dominant language 33, 100, 201, 204, 230–231 learning non-dominant languages 23–24 local languages 23, 31, 33, 36, 48, 51, 55, 101, 102, 157–158, 196, 201, 225 national languages 3, 44, 48, 100, 102, 127, 153–155, 159 official languages 21–22, 36, 48, 100, 180–181 Language ideologies 73, 185, 222, 235 See also Nationalism, linguistic Language learning as complex activity 60, 94, 95 as continuous process 29, 224 documenting process of 1, 9–10, 57–69, 84, 144, 234 as embodied process 70 as part of fieldwork 70, 79–81 memoirs 221–224, 228 practical challenges 10, 35, 73–74, 76–77, 224, 226 and ‘relearning’ 2, 9, 10, 74, 128–130 as ‘research rehearsal’ 9, 19, 25–27, 29, 225 ‘top tips for researchers…’ 233–235 and ‘unlearning’ 2, 10, 84, 88–89, 94–95, 224, 226–227 ‘in the wild’ 8, 57–58, 63, 65, 140, 229 as work 65 See also Emotions; Language anxiety; Language teaching; Resources and Time Language policies 45, 47, 98, 100, 184, 199 Language teaching 48, 51, 74, 75, 77 availability of language teachers 23–24, 128, 226 content of 18, 27, 74–75, 130 refusal of teachers to translate taboo terms 26

242 Index

researcher’s relationship with language teachers 6, 222, 223–224 role of language teachers in assisting research 25, 27, 225 within universities 10, 99, 102, 231 See also Resources Line managers 233, 234 Lingala (language) 93–94 Lingua franca 33, 44, 142, 182, 194, 225 Linguistic anthropology, see Anthropology, linguistic Linguistic ethnography 2, 9, 118, 203–204 Listening 11, 65, 76, 130, 143, 167–168, 193–206, 213, 231 concept of the ‘listening zone’ 198–199 Loneliness 7, 65, 227 Mandarin Chinese (language) 10, 12, 97–110, 227, 231 in Mainland China/People’s Republic of China (PRC) 101, 104 in Taiwan/Republic of China (ROC) 98–99, 101, 103 Martin-Jones, Marilyn 32, 45, 47 Mentors 233, 234 Methodological issues 2, 11, 12, 80, 83–84, 91, 106, 162, 182–183, 224, 232 ethnography as a methodological orientation 5–6 methodological choices 90, 183, 187–188 ‘small talk’ as a methodological tool 92 See also Interviews and Participant observation MFL, see Modern/Foreign Languages (MFL) Mobile phone communication 102 Modern/Foreign Languages (MFL) 4, 117–118 Monolingualism 8, 183, 204, 215–216 monolingual bias 183 monolingual contexts 158, 181, 182, 185, 187 monolingual practices 208, 213 monolingual speakers 78, 159, 208 Multilingualism 8, 38, 178, 183, 185, 208, 216 Nationalism 11, 142, 166 linguistic nationalism 78

Native speakers 25, 37, 45, 48–49, 55, 65, 71, 73, 76–77, 78–79, 91, 128, 136, 183 challenging the ‘native speaker model’ 7–9, 32, 33, 42, 118, 141, 217, 227, 228–229 passing as a native speaker 11, 140–151, 165, 169–172, 175 Neoliberalism 127, 198, 204 See also Academia, neoliberal Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) 11, 23, 45, 75, 86, 146, 193–206 Oakley, Ann 90–91, 120 Okely, Judith 80, 116, 210 Participant observation 5, 7, 20, 47, 61, 70–71, 80, 85, 90, 120, 133, 183, 185, 213 Pavlenko, Aneta 8, 45, 58, 62, 63, 118, 123, 140, 221–222, 229 PhD supervisors 59, 167, 222, 233, 234 Phipps, Alison 26, 67, 80, 142, 165, 167, 210 Plurilingualism 8, 178 Pollard, Amy 117, 166 Portuguese (language) 12, 152, 156–157, 159, 160, 161, 162 Angolan Portuguese (AP) 158, 159–160 Brazilian Portuguese (BP) 158 European Portuguese (EP) 11, 157–158, 160 as plurinational and pluricentric 157 Positionality (of researcher in the field) 21, 22, 80, 83–84, 93–94, 165, 171, 175, 201, 204 See also Insider-outsider Postcolonialism 22, 47, 126, 134, 135, 198 Powerlessness (researcher’s feelings of) 10, 45, 52, 54 Power relations 115, 123, 150, 194, 196, 202, 204, 218 nation-states 100 researchers and field assistants 39, 43 researchers and interpreters 83 researchers and research participants 11, 25, 45, 48, 49–50, 55, 93, 153, 162, 172–175, 187, 210, 231–232 within universities 12, 211 Power structures 2, 6, 106, 198, 230 Proficiency 11, 32, 58, 165, 169, 171, 178, 185, 209, 211, 212–214 bilingual 24, 29 levels of 2, 24, 46, 47

Index 243

shaped by different factors 172, 222 and writing 65 Race 209 Race Theory 187 Racism 218 Rampton, Ben 2, 8, 118, 122, 202, 203, 223 Rapport 25, 26, 120–123, 172, 173, 180, 181, 225, 231 Registers, linguistic 10, 71–72, 76–77, 88, 160, 172, 226 See also Diglossia Religion 26, 72, 86 Repertoires communicative 180 linguistic 8, 181–183, 185–186, 188 Research assistants, see Field assistants Research design 19, 54–55, 67, 202, 205, 213, 232, 233 Researchers doctoral/post-graduate (PhD) 1, 2–3, 9, 10, 18–19, 21, 29, 45–47, 58, 59–65, 116–117, 120, 147–149, 152, 157–161, 165–173, 182, 188, 212, 233–234 ‘early career’ 224 ‘midcareer’ 59, 66–67, 224 post-doctoral 224 practitioner-turned-researcher 10, 84, 87, 94, 224 senior 222, 224 See also Field assistants; Interpreters; Line managers; Mentors and PhD supervisors Research funding 3, 10, 35, 58, 169, 211, 222 decisions and opportunities for language learning 67 and expectations of ‘linguistic expertise’ 65–68, 231 See also Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Research participants researcher’s relationship with 11, 20, 29, 40–42, 48–49, 118–119, 120–122, 222–223, 229, 230–232, 234 See also Positionality and Rapport Resources (for language learning) access to 23, 208, 210, 212–214, 225–226 availability of 3, 74, 77, 80–81, 188, 226, 231, 233

dictionaries 28, 65, 74, 146 financial support 65, 225, 233 language classes and courses 8, 18, 24, 26–27, 32, 46, 62–66, 72, 74–75, 79, 102, 118, 128–130, 140, 142, 148, 154, 156, 228–229, 233 language exchanges (informal) 24, 182 language lessons (individual tuition) 27, 62, 64–65, 74–75, 226 language schools 9, 18–19, 23, 25–29, 225 self-study materials 63–65, 141–142 teaching materials 26 textbooks 3, 27, 63, 74, 76, 233 See also Language teaching Roberts, Celia 4, 167, 169–172, 202 Rodgers, Susan 4, 64, 87, 92, 165, 226 Romanian (language) 11, 12, in Moldova 147–149 in Romania 140–147 in Serbia 149–150 in Ukraine 149–150 Russian (language) 12, 148–9, 150 in Moldova 147 in Russia 11, 164–176 Schmitz, John Robert 8, 141, 144 Second Language Acquisition (SLA) studies 8, 222, 227 relevance for ethnographers 2, 228–229, 235 Self (sense of) close connection with language 9–10, 45 researcher’s 116, 175, 181, 208, 211 research participants’ 230 Sexism 218 Shame experienced by language learners and users 7, 38, 52, 54, 55, 119, 217, 227, 230 fostered by ‘fast academia’ 33 Silence encountered during fieldwork 53–54, 89, 92 about learning and using languages in ethnographic research 1, 4, 7, 12, 34, 42, 58, 59, 65, 79–80, 83, 116–117, 152, 165, 178, 208, 212, 214, 217–219, 224, 228, 232, 235 SLA, see Second Language Acquisition (SLA) studies Smith, Fiona M. 4, 21, 28 Sociolinguistics 8, 9, 71, 79, 116, 118, 184

244 Index

Sociology 4, 6, 169, 173, 198, 208, 209–210, 213, 230 Spanish (language) 12, 19, 21–23, 28, 212, 217 in Chile 127, 129, 130–131, 136, 142 in Costa Rica 9, 31–43, 223, 227, 230 in Spain 180–181, 183, 184–185 Spradley, James P. 120, 164, 172 States 101–102, 149, 154, 166, 212 multinational states 147 nation-states 99–100, 184 resistance to 126–139 Superdiversity 8, 178, 179, 184 Swahili (language) 9, 12, 44–56, 93, 230 Taboo topics 26, 225 Tamazight (language) 22, 23, 180 Tamil (language) 10, 12, 70–82, 226 Tanu, Danau 4, 6, 165, 172 Temple, Bogusia 1, 4, 84, 88, 178, 183 Theoretical issues in multilingual ethnographic research 2, 10, 12, 224 ethnography as a theoretical approach 5 theoretical arguments for language learning 225 See also under individual concepts (e.g. Communication) Time costs associated with language learning 24 required to become fluent or proficient in a language 2, 3, 21, 33, 65, 67, 81, 211 time-consuming nature of language learning 25, 65, 217, 225, 233–234 See also Academia, ‘fast academia’ Tonkin, Elizabeth 4, 60 Transcription 42, 55, 63, 106–107, 136, 157, 160–161, 185, 227 Translanguaging 8, 89, 94, 178, 180–181, 185, 189

Translation concern about mistranslation 55 between several different languages 131 and diglossia 75 dilemmas 80 discussion of with research participants 54 embodied 126 from English 76, 196 failure to discuss issues around 65 in qualitative research 28 non-translatable concepts and terms 19–20, 28–29, 168, 174 reliance on research participants for translation 46, 187 role of researcher as translator/ interpreter 84, 88, 142, 146 of transcripts 55, 227 use of translators in ethnographic research 21, 32, 39 Tremlett, Annabel 1, 4, 6, 10–11, 58, 59, 67, 68, 116, 117, 118, 142, 150, 165, 229–230, 231, 232 Trust researcher and field assistant 35 researcher and research participants 25, 26, 93, 153, 172–173, 231 Uncertainty 1, 7, 33, 39, 235 Universities, see Academia Urdu (language) 182, 185, 188 Van Maanen, John 84, 116, 120 Vocabulary (learning of) 18, 24, 27, 46, 51, 65, 75, 86, 87, 92, 158, 211 Vulnerability (researcher’s feelings of) when learning and using other languages 7, 10, 39, 45, 49, 51–53, 55, 211, 215, 227, 230 Watson, Elizabeth E. 4, 6, 20, 24–25, 29, 225 Wei, Li 89, 178, 180–181