Session Information
99 ERC SES 04 C, Interactive Poster Session
Poster Session
Contribution
People on the move frequently spend months or even years in the condition of “waiting” (Conlon 2011) in so-called “transit countries” on the periphery of Europe, such as Serbia and Bulgaria (Panayotova & Petrova 2020; Galijas 2019; Lukic 2016; Kogovsek Salamon 2016). This happens mostly due to political aspirations to limit immigration from Africa and the Middle East, the totality of which can be conceptualised as „geopolitical whiteness“ (Rexhepi 2023).The Balkans, which have historically been crucial to European bordering processes along ethnic and religious lines, are still an important site for border-making and identity-construction in the present day (ibid.: 7). These processes have sharpened following the most recent forced migration movement from Ukraine (Açit 2022). Arguably, one of the most fortified borders runs right through the heart of the Balkan peninsula, demarcating the inside and the outside of the European Union. This reality results in highly different legal frameworks regarding migration. Regulations such as the Dublin Regulation[1], which apply in Bulgaria but not in Serbia, lead to different reception conditions and different strategies employed by forced migrants. These in turn impact aims, requirements and provisions regarding language education programmes.
It has been established that civil society actors are crucial for adaptation processes of forced migrants (Galera et al. 2018; Spencer & Delvino 2018; Stock 2017; Van Dyk, Dauling & Haubner 2015), and states rely on civil society to provide necessary services (Tietje et al. 2021; Lorey 2012). This is even more pronounced in transit countries (Norman 2019: 43). In Serbia and Bulgaria there are currently no public programmes for language education as part of public migration policy, as opposed to most EU states at the core of Europe (Simpson & Whiteside 2015). Instead, adult education programmes are facultative and offered exclusively by civil society organisations. Due to historical developments and the aforementioned geopolitical positions the civil society organisations working in the field of forced migration vary widely between Serbia and Bulgaria. In Serbia the landscape is comprised mostly by local NGOs, many of which are rooted in the humanitarian crisis following the Yugoslav wars in the 90s, while in Bulgaria global NGOs such as Caritas or the Red Cross are most relevant. This project explores how ideologies about language(s) are governing discursive practices in spaces of civil society organised adult language education courses and how they can affect participants’. Specifically, the project combines a micro-analysis of communicative practices in different language classrooms (see: Heller 2015; Kern et al. 2015) with extensive analysis of interview data generated in conversation with teachers, learners and programme managers. In accordance with the principles of critical ethnography (Madison 2005), the aim is to map the language related rules and norms in the classroom, as well as the (self-)positioning of participants within the community of practice. Exploring Bourdieu’s sociolinguistic concepts of (il-)legitimate speech (see e.g.: Bourdieu 2017) and more recent perspectives on “raciolinguistic ideology” (like Rosa & Flores 2015) and “linguicism” (Dirim 2010), the project aspires to show discursive practices reinforcing and/or contesting linguistic stigmatization and racialised perceptions of the self and others.
[1] Council Regulation (EU) No 604/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 June 2013, Official Journal of the European Union L180/31
Method
Following data collection methods are used: classroom observation and qualitative semi-guided interviews. More specifically, the following data are analysed: 1 Observation protocols and sheets focusing on the interaction structure and language related discursive practices in four different civil society organisations. 2 Interviews with language class participants learners, focusing on individual linguistic repertoires, language learning experiences, strategies and attitudes towards language learning. 3 Interviews with language teachers, focusing their use of students’ linguistic repertoires, experiences in teaching heterogenous groups and dealing with multilingual classrooms as well as their reflection on the teacher’s role in the learning environment. 4 Interviews with the programme managers of each organisation, focusing on the aims and conditions of the language education programme, the curriculum, eligibility and choice of participants as well as major obstacles in providing civil society organised adult education. Nexus analysis (Norris & Jones 2005; Jocuns 2018), also known as mediated discourse analysis (Scollon 1998; Scollon & Wong 2013) is used as (meta-)methodology (Hult 2017). Discourse is hereby understood as recurrent and systematic ways of interacting and performing social identities (see: Norris & Jones 2005: 10). Like critical discourse analysis, nexus analysis uses discourse as a window through which social problems can become visible (ibid.: 9). However, contrary to critical discourse analysis, the research subject of mediated discourse analysis is not discourse itself, but its role in concrete social interactions (ibid.:10). The project described here aims to show which language related discourse(s) are influential on different levels of classroom interaction. Such a combination of methods is considered particularly well-suited for analysing ethnographic data in the area of language policy (Wodak & Savski 2018), and has been applied effectively for the analysis of classroom interaction in recent years (Hoch 2019). While nexus analysis is used as methodology, framing both research design and process, for the micro-analysis of interview data the project will use mapping methods informed by situation analysis (Clarke et al. 2022; Wolf & Wegmann 2020).
Expected Outcomes
While the theoretical body on linguicism and raciolinguistic ideologies is growing, few of the reviewed contributions has yet sought to link this new body of research to Bourdieu’s theory of habitus. Combining these theoretical approaches might contribute towards a better understanding of the embodiment of habitus and its social construction in the context of race. Hence, the study could potentially contribute towards filling a theoretical gap, which is necessary for understanding raciolinguist practices and combatting racism in and beyond education. Additionally, exploring this interrelation in the understudied context of transit countries potentially poses a highly relevant contribution to critical postcolonial scholarship because the Balkans have been historically, and are still, a region where bordering processes between Europe and “the rest” are taking place. This prospect becomes ever more relevant as diversity within populations and the forced migrant population itself is growing. Further, the findings are expected to show considerable differences to discursive practices in countries such as Austria or Germany, with compulsory public language education programmes (see: Integrationsvereinbarung 2017; Zuwanderungsgesetz 2004). Such policies and corresponding programmes in Austria and Germany have received manifold criticisms (Plutzar 2010; Dorostar 2013; Heinemann 2017; Rosenberger & Gruber 2020). One important aspect refers to the curricula for language and cultural learning, which tend to omit not only the realities of protracted migration processes and multiple displacements (including multiple stopovers in transit zones), but also reproduce colonial images of the “migrant other” (Muftee 2015; Kittl 2020) and mostly fail to make use of existing language competences and language repertoires (Busch 2017). The results of this project will contribute to address some of the important criticisms that integration policies and language programmes have received in Austria and Germany by researching language education programmes in transit countries and their potential for enhancement of participants’ agency.
References
Apostolova, R. (2016), The Real Appearance of the Economic/Political Binary: Claiming Asylum in Bulgaria. Intersections. East European Journal of Society and Politics, 2(4): p. 33-50. Bourdieu, P. (2017): Sprache. Berlin [Suhrkamp]. Busch, B. (2017): Mehrsprachigkeit. Wien [facultas]. Clarke, Adele, Washburn, Rachel & Friese, Carrie (2022)2: Situational Analysis in Practice. Mapping Relationalities Across Disciplines. Routledge/New York & London. Conlon, D. (2011), Waiting: Feminist perspectives on the spacings/timings of migrant (im)mobility, Gender, Place & Culture, 18, pp. 353–360. Dirim, I. (2010): „Wenn man mit Akzent spricht, denken die Leute, dass man auch mit Akzent denkt oder so.“ Zur Frage des (Neo-)Linguizismus in den Diskursen über die Sprache(n) der Migrationsgesellschaft. In: Mecheril, Paul/Dirim, Inci/Gomolla, Mechtild/Hornberg, Sabine/Stojanov, Krassimir (Eds.): Spannungsverhältnisse. Assimilationsdiskurse und interkulturell-pädagogische Forschung. Münster [et al.]: Waxmann, S.91-113. Flores, N. & Rosa, J. (2015): Undoing Appropriateness: Raciolinguisitc Ideologies and Language Diversity in Education. In: Harvard Educational Review (85/2). Galera, G./ Giannetto, L & and Noya, A. (2018), The Role of Non-state Actors in the Integration of Refugees and Asylum Seekers, OECD Local Economic and Employment Development (LEED)Working Papers 2018/02. Galijas, A. (2019): Permanently in Transit. Middle Eastern Migrants and Refugees in Serbia.In: Südosteuropa 67(1), S. 75-109 Kern, F./Lingnau, B. & Ingwer, P. (2015): The construction of ‘academic language’ in German classrooms: Communicative practices and linguistic norms in ‘morning circles‘. In: Linguistics and Education 31(2015), S.207-220.. Kogovsek Salamon, N. (2016): Asylum Systems in the Western Balkan Countries: Current Issues. In: International Migration 54 (6), S. 151-163. Lukic, V. (2016): Understanding Transit Asylum Migration: Evidence from Serbia, International Migration 54 (4), S. 31-43. Madison, D.S. (2005): Critical Ethnography: Methods, Ethics and Performance. Thousand Oaks CA: Sage. Norman, K. (2019): Inclusion, exclusion or indifference? Redefining migrant and refugee host state engagement options in Mediterranean ‘transit’ countries. In: Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 45(1), p. 42-60, DOI: 10.1080/1369183X.2018.148220 Panayotova, S. & Petrova, D. (2020): Republic of Bulgaria – Transit Country for Refugees. In: Trakia Journal of Sciences 18, S. 460 – 466. Rexhepi, P. (2023): White Enclosures. Racial Capitalism & Coloniality along the Balkan Route. Durham / London: Duke University Press. Simpson, J. & Whiteside, A. (2015, Eds.): Adult Language Education and Migration: Challenging Agendas in Policy and Practice. London & New York / Routledge. Spencer, S. & Delvino, N. (2018): Cooperation between government and civil society in the management of migration: Trends, opportunities and challenges in Europe and North America, COMPAS.
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