Closing Plenary & Ceremonies
Channel: ICLDC YT
Date: 04/05/2021

TITLE: Language Reclamation Through Relational Language Work


PRESENTER: Wesley Y. Leonard


ABSTRACT: Through the broad and explicitly decolonial approach to reversing language shift that I call language reclamation, language documentation and conservation work is engaged with and responsive to community needs and ways of knowing at all stages. With its focus on identifying and addressing the ruptures and power structures that underlie community language shift, language reclamation promotes community wellness and regenerative futures. In this talk, I draw upon my lived experiences as a Miami linguist and myaamia language learner to consider how language documentation and conservation work, when situated within a frame of reclamation, calls for recognizing, drawing from, and building relationships while also privileging additional R-word concepts that ensue from a relational lens, such as respect, responsibility, rights, and reciprocity. Focusing on recurring themes explored and debated at ICLDC, I imagine a future of Indigenous language work where a relational reclamation approach is the norm, and offer thoughts on how this can be brought about.