Reclaiming Voice, Resisting Silence: Reimagining Multilingual Futures through a Duo-autoethnographic Study of Tanzania’s Language-in-Education Policy

• In Event: Language, Borders, and Belonging: Multilingual Futures and Immigrant Students

Abstract

This duo-autoethnographic study uses personal narratives from two researchers to examine the lived effects of Tanzania’s language-in-education policies (LEPs) and offer possibilities for resistance and reforms. Grounded in Critical Language Policy and Postcolonial Theory, and drawing on Bourdieu’s symbolic power and Fairclough’s view of language as social practice, we explore how English and Swahili were internalized through classroom practices, family beliefs, and institutional silences. Using Currere and Dialogical Narrative Analysis, we analyze recorded conversations and written reflections to trace how our stories about LEPs were shaped by, and in turn, challenge wider social, political, and institutional discourses. Our findings surface voices of shame, aspiration, and resistance, offering personal narrative as a tool to reimagine more just multilingual educational futures.

Authors

• Donather Daudi Magabe, University of North Carolina - Greensboro

• Scholastika Paul Massawe, University of Massachusetts - Amherst