Co-elaborative research and the transformation of language practices: Notes from the Wichi community of Los Lotes (Chaco, Argentina)

UNAMUNO, VIRGINIA; MASATS, DOLORS; BALLENA, CAMILO

Translanguaging as Transformation: The Collaborative Construction of New Linguistic Realities,

Multilingual Matters

Año: 2020; p. 76 - 94

The aim of this chapter is to present a research educational experience carried out in the Wichi community of Los Lotes, sited in the Argentine province of Chaco, with the objective of developing the Community Educational Linguistic Project of the indigenous-led primary school in the area. As an introduction, we will first present a brief historical outline on bilingual education in Argentina and the presence of indigenous languages in schools hosting indigenous children. Secondly, we will discuss why the development of bilingual educational programmes must stem from what we call co-elaborative research, that is, a perspective that empowers the indigenous communities and sets their members in the core of all discussions and collective agreements adopted with regards to the organisation of learning. Then, we will introduce the Wichi community of Los Lotes by referring to a sociolinguistic study we conducted with Wichi families with children enrolled in the primary school. Later, we will outline the steps we followed to conduct our research whose final objective was to co-elaborate and pilot a bilingual educational programme conducted by Wichi teachers. We will focus on the social relationships established during the process, on the decisions taken and the lessons learnt, especially with regards to the use of translanguaging as a transformative pedagogy and a tool to revalorise the multilingual competences of Wichi students and teachers.