From bilingual education and racial epithets to gendered pronouns and immigration discourses, language is a central concern in contemporary conversations and controversies surrounding social inequality. Developed as a collaborative effort by members of the American Anthropological Association’s Language and Social Justice Task Force, this innovative volume synthesizes scholarly insights on the relationship between patterns of communication and the creation of more just societies. Using case studies by leading and emergent scholars and practitioners written especially for undergraduate audiences, the book is ideal for introductory courses on social justice in linguistics and anthropology.
Laura R. Graham is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Iowa.
Laura R. Graham's current research focuses on politics of indigenous representation to broad publics among indigenous peoples of lowland South America, specifically Xavante of central Brazil and Wayuu of Venezuela and Colombia. She is interested in language use in national and international arena and notions of cultural consciousness, cultural and intellectual property, and representations of indigeneity in politics and advocacy, indigenous media and human rights. Her work promotes engaged ethnography and participant advocacy. She is author of the award-winning book, Performing Dreams: Discourses of Immortality Among the Xavante Indians of Central Brazil (University of Texas Press, 1995), which is also available in Portuguese, and has published many articles on Xavante and Wayuu. Her work on Xavante oral culture has been featured on the NPR Program, Pulse of the Planet. Graham’s latest book (with H. Glenn Penny), Performing Indigeneity:Global Histories and Contemporary Experiences, came out in 2014 with University of Nebraska Press.