For some time now second language acquisition (SLA) research has been hampered by unhelpful debates between the "cognitivist" and "sociocultural" camps that have generated more acrimony than useful theory. Recent developments in second generation cognitive science, first language acquisition studies, cognitive anthropology, and human development research, however, have opened the way for a new synthesis. This synthesis involves a reconsideration of mind, language, and epistemology, and a recognition that cognition originates in social interaction and is shaped by cultural and sociopolitical processes: These processes are central rather than incidental to cognitive development. Here I lay out the issues and argue for a language socialization paradigm for SLA that is consistent with and embracive of the new research.WE ARE AT THE BEGINNING OF A PARADIGM shift in the human and social sciences that is revolutionizing the way we view mind, language, epistemology, and learning, and that is fundamentally transforming second language acquisition (SLA) and educational theory and research. This paradigm shift is being stimulated by new research in the cognitive sciences (Churchland,

Ethnography has recently become fashionable in ESL, second language classroom, and educational research. But many studies bearing the name ethnographic are impressionistic and superficial rather than careful and detailed. This article addresses two questions: What is ethnography? And what can it do for us in ESL? Ethnography is defined, and some principles of quality ethnographic work are discussed, including the focus on behavior in groups, holism, emit‐etic perspectives, comparison, grounded theory, and techniques of data collection and treatment. The promise of ethnography for research and for improving teaching and teacher training is then addressed.

Around the world today indigenous ethnic groups are asserting the validity of their own ways of knowing and being, in resistance to the intensifying hegemony of mainstream epistemology from the metropolitan powers. This assertion is not happening only among third-world scholars familiar with the challenges to Anglo-European cosmology and epistemology fro m p o s t m o d e rnists over the past several decades. It is also happening among rural villagers with little or no schooling or awareness of the debates going on internationally in philosophy and the social sciences. More o v e r, the a s s e rtion is not only about ethnic identity and revitalizing culture. Vi l l a gers are also themselves exploring how they construct knowledge: instead of always being the subject of re s e a rch by outsiders, which they often see as exploitation, they are undertaking the re c o rding and writing of their own cultures based on their indigenous epistemologies. Indigenous epistemology refers to a cultural gro u p 's ways of theorizing knowledge, as we discuss later. The Kwara'ae Genealogy Project is just such an assertion by a group of rural villagers in West Kwara'ae, Malaita, Solomon Islands (map 1). Officially constituted in early 1994 by members of several small villages, the p roject has continued to grow and to involve multiple activities. We examine how project members are doing indigenous epistemology as the basis of their re s e a rch. Not only are they discussing, arguing, and re c o rding cult u re, but they are also critiquing and examining in a self-reflexive process their own indigenous strategies for creating knowledge. Indigenous projects like the one examined here offer us Native Pacific Islander scholars a direction for the next stage of decolonization-d e h e g em o n i z a t i o n. 1 To bring decolonization to the level of dehegemonization means that we Native Pacific Islander scholars need to find our own 55

Unless the South learns to harness the forces of modern science and technology, it has no chance of fulfilling its developmental aspirations or its yearning for an effective voice in the management of global interdependence. All its societies must therefore mount a determined effort to absorb, adapt, and assimilate new technological advances as part of their development strategies.Julius Nyerere and others , The Challenge to the South Traditional knowledge has frequently been over-looked in the search by outside professionals to find solutions to the development problems of the poor. . . . However, increased use of t r a d i t i o n a lk n o w l e d ge m a ym a ke d e v e l o p m e n t p ro g r a m s m o re appropriate to local conditions, provide innovative solutions to certain problems, contribute to a sense of self-worth and collective self-esteem among local people, and enhance popular participation and empowerment. [ T h e re f o re] development programs should start with the premise that poor people . . . are knowledgeable and skillful managers of their own environment. John Bro h m a n , Popular Development

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