Ŋyonmo aha ni ehishi: Analyzing how linguistic (in)justice influences how Ga people navigate their relationships to land and community.

• In Event: Poster Session 2
  In Poster Session: Ŋyonmo aha ni ehishi: Analyzing how linguistic (in)justice influences how Ga people navigate their relationships to land and community.

Proposal

Drawing on the case of the Ga people of Ghana, who have expressed that “their language is dying” (Simpson, 2008) because of Accra’s cosmopolitan nature, this research investigates how potential asymmetric bi/multilingualism influences how Ga people navigate their relationships to land and community. Using the theoretical framework of linguistic justice and understanding that it serves as a “form of intercommunity cooperative justice” (Van Parijs, 2002), it is important to understand how the use of, and lack thereof, language gives way to identity development, group formation, and understanding of self. Analyzed alongside decolonial theory which is rooted in decentering the “epistemologies of the North” that have long influenced social understandings and theory (de Sousa Santos, 2018), this research focuses on understanding how dominant languages that are seen as resources have supported the “colonial matrix of power” that underpins Ghanaian and global society at large (Mignolo, 2018).

I consider changes in language policy developments in lower primary school between the years of 1970–2002 and 2004–2006 with a focus on youth ages 18-35. This qualitative study draws on 22 semi-structured interviews with Ga people ages 22- 58 to interrogate whether Ga people still feel that their language is dying and to explore how language, identity, and culture converse with civic engagement in a Ga context. After developing a codebook and analyzing transcriptions with NVivo software, the data reveals a rich description on the importance of land, culture, language acquisition, and community engagement. Results show that while all participants expressed the importance of speaking Ga so that one is not “lost” among the ethnic group, youth find frustration in not having great command of the Ga language and having a greater understanding of English. Where language in education policies mandated the use of the L1 in classrooms, in practice, participants who attended lower primary schools in the early 1970s disclosed that they would receive a verbal warning for speaking Ga in class whereas those who attended in the late 1980s to early 2000s were accustomed to corporal punishment which later affected some in their relationship to the Ga language. Additionally, participants find the loss of land to be intrinsically tied to the loss of culture and heritage. Still yet, many participants found the education and governmental systems to be needing of reform and all participants found an importance in giving back to community. I conclude by examining the implications of these results for linguistic and civic education scholarship.

Author

• Kella Merlain-Moffatt, Teachers College at Columbia University