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Chikashshaat asilhlhat holissochi [Chickasaws are asking and writing]: Enacting Indigenous protocols in academic research and writing
As Chikashsha (Chickasaw) scholars and Chikashshanompa’ shaali’ (Chickasaw language learners/carriers), we utilize a dialogic and autoethnographic approach to explore the continuance between ancestral and community protocols for research. An account of the Chickasaw Nation’s language revitalization efforts is followed by a discussion of how Indigenous scholars engage in the writing…
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Storying an interconnected web of relationships in Indigenous language reclamation work and scholarship
Indigenous language work is manifested in a diversity of community-led responses of resilience and persistence. Indigenous persons who are reclaiming their languages have entered academia with goals of contributing to community language reclamation efforts and broader resurgence movements. Adapting Archibald’s (2008) concept of storywork—experiential narratives that privilege a cultural lens—we…
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Weaving words: Conceptualizing language reclamation through culturally-significant metaphor
When the Creator called us to our homelands to become a distinct people, Chickasaws received the gift of our language—Chikashshanompa’—with which to speak to each other, the land, the plants, the animals, and the Creator. Chickasaws have held sacred the gift of our living language, passing it from generation to…
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Chikashshanompa’ ilanompohó̲li bíyyi’ka’chi [We will always speak the Chickasaw language]: Considering the vitality and efficacy of Chickasaw language reclamation
This dissertation is grounded in stories of how Chickasaw people have restructured and dedicated their lives to ensuring the continuance of Chikashshanompa’, their Indigenous heritage language. Building on an earlier study of what motivates Chickasaw people-across generations-to engage in language reclamation, these pages explore how: 1) Chickasaw young adult professionals…
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Claiming space: An autoethnographic study of Indigenous graduate students engaged in language reclamation
This article explores the critical role of an emerging generation of Indigenous scholars and activists in ensuring the continuity of their endangered heritage languages. Using collaborative autoethnography as a research method, the authors present personal accounts of their pursuit of language reclamation through graduate degree programs. These accounts speak to…
