Spatio-linguistic practices in a transnational context: Social differentiation and agency in the bateyes of the Dominican Republic

• Applicants: Professorin Dr. Silke Jansen; Dr. Stefan Kordel
• Subject Area: Individual Linguistics, Historical Linguistics ; Human Geography
• Term: since 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 443070760

The island of Hispaniola is shared today by the nation states Haiti and the Dominican Republic. The hegemonic narrative of Dominican national identity constructs Haiti as an opposite on the basis of differences in language, skin color and religion. Since the late 19th century, the idea that defending the national language is tantamount to defending the national territory (and vice versa) has been a core element of metalinguistic discourses and linguistic policies. It also pervades current debates on migration, which are a source of fierce controversy in Dominican politics and society. The complex and conflictive interplay between language, space and the construction of national identity is particularly acute in the Dominican bateyes. Those are rural settlements created at the beginning of the 20th century for the temporary housing of cane plantation and sugar production plant workers, who, in the Dominican context, are mainly migrants from Haiti. Since then, the bateyes have become a laboratory for transnational mobilities in a rural setting. The present study takes the bateyes as microcosmos in order to analyze the interplay between language and the construction of space in migration contexts. It focuses on spatio-linguistic practices (SLP) a concept the applicants propose for practices related to language with allow people to produce and negotiate space, as well as to position themselves in (social and geographic) space through language. Under an interdisciplinary framework that integrates approaches from sociolinguistics and human geography, the following research questions will be addressed: 1. Which SLP can be identified among the inhabitants of the Dominican bateyes?2. How do the inhabitants of the bateyes produce social differentiation through SLP? 3. Which relations can be traced betweenSLP, constructions of spaces, and the inhabitants’ accumulation of agency? The project aims at integrating sociolinguistic and geographical approaches to develop novel methodologies for the study of language and space in relation to transnationalism. SLP will be documented through biographic narratives gathered in semi-structured interviews, using a time line tool and a social and spatial mapping tool. In addition, socio-linguistic questionnaires will be applied for triangulation. The interviews will be transcribed and analyzed under an interpretative paradigm, with a special focus on spatial and social reference management, indexical use of language and language variables, and discursive constructions and representations of the (trans)national space. Taking the bateyes as a laboratory of transnationalism in a rural setting on the micro-scale, this study will energize interdisciplinary research on migration, space and language in innovative ways, giving at the same timea voice to migrants themselves.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants