The Colonial Geography of Linguistics

Abstract

Abstract The colonial structure of the field of linguistics is rooted in its history and is also deeply entrenched in its geography. Wealth, power, and prestige are hoarded in elite institutions of the Global North, in ways that shape who can be a professional linguist, and whose concerns are considered important to the field. Drawing on their experiences of being linguists in the Caribbean, the authors discuss some of the ways in which this colonial geography structures and upholds unequal access to opportunities and reproduces a parochial outlook which tends to overlook rich traditions of linguistic study from outside the current centres of institutional power. The chapter provides a brief sketch of one such tradition from the Caribbean and argues that the rootedness in place and explicit commitment to linguistic liberation provides a powerful model for linguists elsewhere committed to advancing liberatory linguistics.