TY - JOUR
T1 - Decolonizing research methodologies
T2 - Insights from research on Indigenous sign languages of Australia
AU - James, Bentley
AU - Adone, Marie Carla Dany
AU - Maypilama, Elaine L.
PY - 2020/1/1
Y1 - 2020/1/1
N2 - This article incorporates themes from ethnolinguistics, linguistic anthropology, sign linguistics, and decolonization of research methods. We examine a Yolŋu-led collaboration to save their endangered Yolŋu Sign Language (YSL) in Australia’s remote North East Arnhem Land. YSL is an alternate bimodal language for hearing Yolŋu and the primary language of Deaf Yolŋu. In light of dissimilar worldviews between indigenous Yolŋu people and the Australian state, we describe opportunities for ethical research and equitable collaboration, with a practical guide to strategies of local action research. We deploy ethnographic insight to describe a globally rare and distinctive metaphysics of place and language.We find that long-term, embedded, place-based collaborative research, through local language, bestows a deeper understanding of Yolŋu spiritual connection to kin and country. Further, we found the affirmation of Yolŋu life space—as embodied in life on the homelands—provokes a different, empowered, non-subordinate cultural future. This embodied cultural future supports the critical intergenerational transmission of the Yolŋu ancestral inheritance, of kin and country, and its languages, signed and spoken, while resisting internal colonization.
AB - This article incorporates themes from ethnolinguistics, linguistic anthropology, sign linguistics, and decolonization of research methods. We examine a Yolŋu-led collaboration to save their endangered Yolŋu Sign Language (YSL) in Australia’s remote North East Arnhem Land. YSL is an alternate bimodal language for hearing Yolŋu and the primary language of Deaf Yolŋu. In light of dissimilar worldviews between indigenous Yolŋu people and the Australian state, we describe opportunities for ethical research and equitable collaboration, with a practical guide to strategies of local action research. We deploy ethnographic insight to describe a globally rare and distinctive metaphysics of place and language.We find that long-term, embedded, place-based collaborative research, through local language, bestows a deeper understanding of Yolŋu spiritual connection to kin and country. Further, we found the affirmation of Yolŋu life space—as embodied in life on the homelands—provokes a different, empowered, non-subordinate cultural future. This embodied cultural future supports the critical intergenerational transmission of the Yolŋu ancestral inheritance, of kin and country, and its languages, signed and spoken, while resisting internal colonization.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85081386216&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1353/sls.2020.0000
DO - 10.1353/sls.2020.0000
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85081386216
SN - 0302-1475
VL - 20
SP - 201
EP - 230
JO - Sign Language Studies
JF - Sign Language Studies
IS - 2
ER -