“Promises in policy” and “policy as participation”: Equity and language in and across the wilderness of contemporary human life

Abstract

Abstract While promises of equity mark (inter)national declarations and laws that contemporary democratic societies subscribe to, accessibility and participation for-all continues to remain out of reach for increasing numbers of people and “named-groups” across the global-North/South. Going beyond issues regarding gaps between progressive policies and people’s accounts of their experiences, this paper illuminates the mundane nature of participation by putting the spotlight on people’s everyday lives in and across different societal sectors. By doing so, it illustrates the mundane nature of processes that constitute the “policies of equity and language as participation”. Issues of promises in policies in contemporary democratic societies like Sweden are discussed as framings that need to be decentered and troubled through a multi-scale analytical gaze at the mundane, messy and wild nature of human life. The study draws on data from three projects where data generation has and is taking place through (n)ethnographic fieldwork and cross-scale policy sourcing. Drawing inspiration from the entanglements of two theoretical framings of significance to participation and equity – sociocultural integrationist perspectives and decolonial Southern theories, this paper maps human geographies and performative co-agencies, and illustrates how practices intrinsic to one arena are disrupted or maintained through practices in others. The study also discusses representations of “named-language”, “named-modality” and “named-identity” through a Southern analytical aperture that calls for acknowledging the roles of different types of semiotic resources when human meaning-making is made salient.