Orchid, my sister: Identities, relationality, and language documentation (Language Documentation and Identity in Hrusso Aka)

Note: This talk has not gone through a process of peer review, and findings should therefore be treated as preliminary and subject to change.

SOAS Linguistic Webinars

Language Documentation and Identity in Hrusso Aka
Orchid, my sister: Identities, relationality, and language documentation

Vijay D‘Souza (University of Oxford)

Abstract: Human communities constantly construct, deconstruct, and recalibrate their identities based
on their past heritage, present attitudes and future aspirations. Since identities are essentially based on
people’s perception of themselves vis-à-vis other beings around them, relationality, the web of relationships between humans, animals, plants, and nature, plays a central role in making and maintaining identities. Can language documentation be an opportunity for a language community to reflect on and reassess their identities and relationalities? I reflect on this question with the
help of three recordings (‘The dumb son-in-law’, ‘Orchid, my sister’, and ‘Tage Raja’) my collaborators and I collected during our recent documentation work among the Hrusso Aka language community in India.