Language fluency shapes what an ethnographer can actually learn overseas
Evidence
My monolingual identity is a major inhibitor to my communication internationally, and to that of most Americans. The hodgepodge of French, Portuguese, Swahili, Spanish, and Arabic that I can utter does not substitute for the multilingual fluency needed for nuanced discourse. For example, if I must use male translators to ask uneducated Palestinian women how they feel about their lives, how am I to judge the filtered responses? What editing has occurred? What facial and tonal nuances have I missed because of my primary English-speaking identity? — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1181
Categorization
- XREF: Echoes feminist standpoint-theory points elsewhere in the vault about the researcher’s situated position shaping what counts as knowledge. — connects to: Language fluency and cultural knowledge create rapport before interviews begin — Neda Maghbouleh, The Limits of Whiteness: Iranian…, 585; Pre-existing value-forms channel how foreign cultural vocabularies enter. — Donna Landry and Gerald MacLean, The Spivak Reader: Selected Works of…, 2072; Language and culture cannot confer national belonging without shared experience — Frantz Fanon, A Dying Colonialism, 572 (+1 more)
Broader Connections
- Language fluency and cultural knowledge create rapport before interviews begin
#expands(0.90) — Neda Maghbouleh, The Limits of Whiteness, 585 - Fluency with prevailing speech patterns is mistaken for genuine knowledge and relevance
#complicates(0.80) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 996 - Language and culture cannot confer national belonging without shared experience
#qualifies(0.75) — Frantz Fanon, A Dying Colonialism, 572 - Pre-existing value-forms channel how foreign cultural vocabularies enter.
#expands(0.72) — Donna Landry and Gerald MacLean, The Spivak Reader, 2072