Call for Papers: #RhodesMustFall
Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies, Volume 35, Issue 3, 2017 will be a special issue titled, “Advanced language politics in South Africa’s higher education post #RhodesMustFall.”
Since 2015 South Africa has witnessed student driven protests concerning socioeconomic inequality such as outsourcing, redress and compromised access and a strong demand for ‘decolonisation’ of the curriculum and university constituencies.
A consequence to the #RhodesMustFall and #FeesMustFall was a language-specific #Movement in the form of #AfrikaansMustFall.
Guest Editors, Munene Mwaniki, Dionne Van Reenen and Leketi Makalela, note that inasmuch as how language dynamics intersected with the three discourses that permeated the #Movements were foregrounded by the #AfrikaansMustFall movement, very little research literature exists on this latter movement in contrast to a sizeable corpus of research literature on the #RhodesMustFall and #FeesMustFall movements.
“Effectively, there is a hiatus in the research on the critical role of language dynamics in the post #RhodesMustFall South African higher education dispensation. This hiatus, notwithstanding preliminary analysis of language politics in South Africa’s higher education and its accompanying baggage post #RhodesMustFall indicate that the #Movements ushered an advanced language politics into the sector specifically and the country in general.”
This is a brand of language politics that goes beyond the traditional (and somewhat normalised) realm of the analogous relationship between language and the nation(-state) and language as a marker of ethnic identity onto the realm of language as terrain, marker and means to (re)affirm core progressive constructs such as human dignity, (social) justice, diversity, fluid and multiple identities, fraternity, equality and egalitarianism, among others.
Both empirical and theoretical papers that address, problematize and interrogate various aspects of this advanced language politics in South African’s higher education are especially welcome.
To contribute to the Special Issue, submit a 200 word abstract to:
mwanikimm@ufs.ac.za or VanReenen@ufs.ac.za
Submission schedule:
04 August – Abstracts Due
1 September 2017 – First Draft of the Paper Due
30 October 2017 – Final Draft Due