‘Nehiyawewin Askîhk’: Cree Language on the Land: Language Planning Through Consultation in the Loon River Cree First Nation

Ethnography of language planning and policy

“…Mortimer 2013 Bottom-up LPP studies underscore how artifacts, semiotic resources, writing, and Indigenous multimodal literacies can be mobilized to support co-participatory development of authentic educational materials for bilingual intercultural education in Mexico (Léonard, Gragnic & González 2013) and of storybooks based on Cree elders' oral histories (Schreyer 2008); to facilitate intergenerational bonding and dialogue and potentially shape language use in urban Inuit families (Patrick et al 2013); and to contribute to raising the status of the Cree and Tutchone languages in their respective speech communities by the use of place names and linguistic landscapes with an Indigenous language matrix (Ferguson 2010;Schreyer 2008).…”

“…Bottom-up LPP studies underscore how artifacts, semiotic resources, writing, and Indigenous multimodal literacies can be mobilized to support co-participatory development of authentic educational materials for bilingual intercultural education (BIE) in Mexico (Léonard, Gragnic & González 2013) and of storybooks based on Cree elders’ oral histories (Schreyer 2008); to facilitate intergenerational bonding and dialogue and potentially shape language use in urban Inuit families (Patrick et al 2013); and to contribute to raising the status of the Cree and Tutchone languages in their respective speech communities by the use of place names and linguistic landscapes with an Indigenous language matrix (Schreyer 2008; Ferguson 2010). Moreover, Lin & Yudaw (2013) show how choices regarding the type of semiotic resources to be used may frame who can participate in community-based language revitalization initiatives and how, while also providing a detailed example of grassroots LPP negotiation leading to a re-centering from use of print literacy and the Romanized alphabet to use of local resources such as seeds, agricultural tools, and embodied knowledge (in contrast to top-down imposition of Indigenous literacy; see Paciotto 2004).…”

“…Important to an understanding of the top-down/bottom-up dynamic, studies of bottom-up LPP activities and processes have served to highlight how implementational activities in one LPP level or layer, e.g., an Inuit family literacy center (Patrick et al 2013) or BIE teacher workshops (Léonard et al 2013), can and do influence language education and choices across other LPP levels, e.g., homes and classrooms, respectively. Moreover, Schreyer describes how promising Cree language planning activities started as a ‘serendipitous outcome’ (Schreyer 2008: 458) of land planning activities in Cree territory in Canada, showing the possibilities of joint language planning across diverse disciplines. Reciprocally, Nagai (1999) describes a case in which a collaboratively developed vernacular educational model in Papua New Guinea was recognized at the national level by the government as a model school for vernacular education and also as a formal elementary school.…”

“…Drawing on a creative and expanding range of conceptual, analytical, and methodological frameworks—including, for example, ethnography of communication (van der Aa 2012), ecology of language (Goodman 2014), discourse analysis (Johnson 2011; Mortimer 2013; Zavala 2014), CHAT (Lin & Yudaw 2013), sociolinguistic ethnographies (Jaspers 2015; Pérez-Milans 2015a; Relaño Pastor 2015), language socialization (Ren & Hu 2013; Chaparro 2017), language management theory (Kekvapil & Nekula 2006), and nexus analysis (Hult 2012)––we have seen that ethnographers of LPP are particularly adept at tracing relationships across and within layers of language planning activities. Studies with a micro-level and bottom-up LPP lens, for example, illuminate LPP processes beyond macro-level policies (McCarty et al 2009; Ferguson 2010; Hornberger 2014b), exploring connections and disconnects across the LPP layered onion (Léonard et al 2013; Patrick et al 2013), often making visible unintended consequences and covert ideologies (Bekerman 2005; Curdt-Christiansen 2009; Lin & Yudaw 2013), as well as the crafting of ideological and implementational spaces in support of multilingualism and social justice (Nagai 1999; Schreyer 2008).…”

Anishinaabeg Elders’ Land-based Knowledge: Enacting Bagijigan for Health and Well-being

“…2 The knowledge derived from land-based research recognizes that the "land and cultural traditions have healing power that can enable individuals in distress deal with pain and self-hurt" (Radu et al, 2014, p. 87). The land is also an important factor in reconnecting with traditional foods (Bagelman et al, 2016) and in the regeneration and preservation of traditional Indigenous languages (Baloy, 2011;Schreyer, 2008), as well as traditional medicines (Manitowabi & Shawande, 2012). Despite the positive benefits achieved through engaging in land-based activities among Indigenous peoples, there were noted barriers to participation in these activities, which include, but are not limited to, ongoing impacts of settler colonialism that creates a barrier for participation, including land loss, displacement, and unequal power relations (Bagelman et al, 2016;Delormier et al, 2017;Tomiak, 2017).…”