Designing Indigenous Language Revitalization

Retrospective analysis, Design-based research

This article uses retrospective analysis to look at language revitalization efforts and an interactive multimedia project: Ojibwe movie-making camps. This article calls for more generative theory in language revitalization, moving away from a deficit-victim narrative, treating language as alive rather than as dying. This article offers an explanation of design-based research (DBR), and ways that DBR can be retooled toward language revitalization.

Research is based in values of respect and reciprocity. Language is treated as living, and language learning is framed as a relational process.

This project embodied a generative theory and approach to Indigenous language revitalization. Language is alive - and we are in relation to it. It is not content to be learned, and it is not something "dying" that we are "saving" or "preserving". The focus of the project shifted away from generating language content towards facilitating a generative event.

Recordings, Transcripts, Short movies

Recordings, Transcripts, Short movies were made available for use by the community

"The idea that Ojibwe and all Indigenous languages are alive extends and frames language work in a way that is not possible when we only imagine that our languages are dying or that language is simply academic content" (p. 389-390)

"The need for more generative theory for language revitalization cannot be overemphasized… Documentation has been the territory of anthropologists, where language becomes fetishized or fossilized. This approach has no theory of change that is of benefit to Native communities" (p. 398).

Education
Language