Language Policy and Linguistic and Racial Conflicts: An Ethnography of a Canadian Human Rights Tribunal

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Abstract

Based on a large multi-sited ethnography regarding diverse Chinese communities in Canada, this paper examines how official language policy has been interpreted and used by various individuals in an ongoing human rights tribunal (HRT) case in Richmond, British Columbia, Canada, to demonstrate how language policy contributes directly to linguistic and racial conflicts in Canada today. In December 2015, AK, an English-speaking White Canadian male owner led a group of four residents and filed a HRT case against their townhouse’s Strata Council, alleging racial discrimination because he as an observer attended a Strata Council meeting that was conducted in Mandarin-Chinese and he did not understand the proceedings. After a failed mediation in spring and summer 2016, the case continued to fall 2016, and is still ongoing in summer 2017.

This paper draws on two sets of data: a corpus of relevant reports published from December 2015 to November 2016 in mainstream English-language media in Canada and overseas, and ethnographic data. Media analysis reveals the prominent voice of AK, and his folk interpretation of Canada’s Official Bilingualism Acts (1967, 1985) as demanding English for public and private businesses which underscored his case. At the early stage, some media outlets, politicians, and AK supporters repeated and validated his folk interpretation, while the Strata Council largely remained silent. I then analyze ethnographic data collected with members of the Strata Council, uncovering some long-standing tensions and conflicts accumulated when Richmond has undergone a demographic shift. I document and analyze how the strata council members of various Chinese origins are grappling with the contradictions of being the numerical, linguistic and racial majority in Richmond, BC, Canada but remaining minority in all these terms at national level, and how they have responded to this legal conflict rooted in the challenges of living in a multilingual society.

Finally, I situate and examine the timing and the contexts of this HRT case in historical and contemporary contexts, informed by the view of language functioning as a barometer of social relations (Edwards, 2012) and an important form of symbolic capital that plays a critical role in producing and reproducing socioeconomic inequalities (Bourdieu, 1977, 1991). I contend that this HRT case, along with other language-focused incidents in Canada, signifies, and indeed, constitutes, increasing economic and racial conflicts in BC and in Canada in general. I argue that language policy shapes identity politics and socioeconomic possibilities by positioning various groups and individuals differently, which may deepen existing and generate new tensions and conflicts in multilingual societies. I call on social scientists and stakeholders of all walks to scrutinize language conflicts in social life to better understand and deal with racial tensions underpinned, and/or aggravated by, socioeconomic problems, which has the potential to help us to co-exist more peacefully in the diverse world we live in

Author

• Huamei Han, Simon Fraser University