Thanks so much, Petteri and Johanna, for this fascinating discussion. I’m so glad that LOTM readers have this chance to have a window into your interesting and thought-provoking rants, and also your research. Looking forward to reading your post, Johanna!

Thanks Johanna for taking the conversation ahead! I am not sure if you had a question there, but I think you have been doing an important job in showing how racism is present in the Finnish society and education, as I am afraid most of it still remains hidden for most people in Finland not suffering from it. I also look forward to reading about your findings how it operates and in which situations + how different practices in educations could be changed to treat all knowledge equally. I also hope your message will be heared by those with power to change the system.
I am looking forward to your rant!

Thanks, Ingrid for making the distinction between the two kinds of language activism! I could not agree more. In the case of language itself, there is a diversity of opinions among the minority and majority speakers alike, and a lot depends on the context and particular situation.

Thank you Laura for your insightfull comment and the follow-up question!
Your blog post is a nice example how the common beliefs (also found in much mainstream research) about the interview as an objective and neutral one-way information gathering tool can lead to misunderstandings and wrong conclusions. I wonder if the interview can serve a purpose in such fundamentally hierarchical situations at all.
I think debunking — I would use “analysing” here — ideologies most often lead to their critique. I think most dangerous ideologies (such as the myths you debunked) are those that are taken for granted (such as the ideas about the interviewer not having an influence on the interviews outcome). And yes, we have ideologies too, but if we reflect on them critically and are ready to accept diversity of opinions, then I reckon we would be on the safe side.

I loved Ingrid’s and Laura’s posts (and relate on so many levels, both personally and professionally). I agree there a different types of research endeavors and for each researchers have to do the complex work of figuring out their “truth”, their curiosity-driven questions, their positionality (see my upcoming rant), the hopes, interests, and resources of a community, as well as how to please the academy enough to be able to participate in it (see Taina’s rant). It’s a big job.

Thanks Johanna for these questions, there is a difficult one and a hard one!
1) The expression “place on the map” was used by one of my participants, as was the expression “forgotten”. I had those moments in mind when a participant I was interviewing stating that it felt good that somebody is interested in their lives, or when returning to a field, another participant had mentioned that my article in a local language was read by her and others and how they felt good that now their village was “put on the map”. I was not thinking about our academic circles here, but still doing research in unconventional regions and lesser known languages surely increases the scope of our understanding as well. All that being said, I share the concern about our maps getting smaller and smaller in many ways.
2) My research has not addressed such issues where there would be a clear cut “truth” or “power” to speak. Of course I would not suggest anybody should remain silent or “neutral” in cases such as what Johanna brings up. However I have hard time in seeing myself a researcher in such situations. Instead of speaking, which I do too much! I have tried to learn is to listen more/first, and thus to learn the different perspectives and views, especially those not my own. Speaking truth to power appears to me as there is nothing to learn or to be critical about, which are the basic motivations to do research for me. I know this does not suffice as an answer, but lets keep the conversation going!

Thanks, Johanna and Laura, for great questions! I’ll be looking forward to Petteri’s response. In the meantime, my take on language activism is that there are two types of language activism: one deals with injustices resulting from linguistic arrangements – the right to a fair trial, for instance, as in your example, Laura. In such cases, we have a moral duty to intervene, as I argue at some length in Linguistic Diversity and Social Justice. However, there is a second type of language activism where language itself – rather than justice – is at stake, as is the case in language revitalization efforts. These, I feel, are much more morally ambiguous and different responses – support for language maintenance or language shift – may be equally ethically valid, as I explain here drawing on Moradewun Adejunmobi’s powerful book Vernacular Palaver.

I too do a lot of work on language ideologies, and similar to Johanna, this has included research relating to refugees. Actually, my PhD thesis explored the discursive construction of truthfulness or credibility in refugee decision-making procedures. I would identify it as activist in the sense that I used CDA to identify and then challenge the language ideologies underlying credibility assessments in refugee claims. I did this by drawing on existing sociolinguistic research to argue, like you do above, that the “facts” and language produced in asylum interviews “are co-constructed by the interviewee and the interviewer”. This (and some other points) helped challenge the legitimacy of asylum credibility assessments in their current form. I’ve blogged about this research recently https://languageonthemove.com/five-language-myths-about-refugee-credibility/

My follow-up question from the post and from Johanna’s comment is to ask is it possible to debunk someone else’s problematic and inequality-reinforcing ideology without relying on an alternative one? At what point can relying on a developed and tested body of academic inquiry move beyond being an ideology? Or is more a matter of accepting that ideologies underlie everything we do, but that our approach is ethically sound because we have taken steps to identify and critically reflect upon the ideologies underlying the work we do and the work we rely upon in constructing our version of the truth, and that it would be ethically more problematic to say nothing?