Segunda entrega
Luisa Martín Rojo
This travelogue is organized into two installments, the first of which is now being published. Both the trip and the publication are part of the action research we are developing within the European project ReDes_Ling, Resisting Linguistic Inequality (Staff Exchanges ref. 1011131469). In this research, we aim to understand linguistic inequality in order to reverse it, taking into account: – Asymmetrical relationships between linguistic groups that result in social differences, economic disadvantages, unequal access to rights, lack of material and emotional well-being, or an inability to develop one’s potential (Bonnin 2013). – Linguistic discrimination is as widespread as other forms of discrimination based on race, ethnicity, sexuality, or gender (Baugh 2003; Lippi-Green 1997; Urciuoli 1996). – Bridging the gap between academic research and society’s perception of language, with exchanges between interdisciplinary teams of academics and organizations. Thanks to Virginia, Lara, and Lucía for sharing this journey with me.
The tree of impossible words
Chaco is officially a multilingual province, with a large indigenous population. Despite this, Creole people often don’t see the need to learn indigenous languages, nor does the administration promote it. In Sauzalito, for example, the Wichí community received plots of land to settle on. The plots are Wichí territory, islands where other ways of life are evident: no domestic animals, no chickens, no goats, only stray dogs; other ways of building houses, with plants growing on the roofs; other ways of relating to nature: listening to it, without domesticating it.
Photo 7: Wichí territory, what remains of the plunder
In the neighborhoods and outside of that territory, there are only bilingual schools in the preschool and primary stages. In one of the classrooms we visited, there were three children between six and seven years old alone with their Spanish teacher. The Creole teacher was dynamic, fun, open, and friendly. She immediately started a game with me, a kind of riddle: Where does the teacher come from? The children chose nearby places or ones they thought were farther away, like Formosa, and I added questions like “How did I come? Did I come by sea?” or I gave them clues: “I came by plane.” The teacher showed a drawing of an airplane she used for Spanish literacy training. Finally, the teacher suggested we should put a map somewhere in the library or a globe of the world. While some boys displayed great shyness, speaking in Spanish at a very low, barely audible volume and lowering their gaze, others, especially some 6-7 year-old girls, were extremely cheerful and open in their communication, which demonstrated their familiarity with intercultural interaction, perhaps also influenced by issues of social class within the community
Photo 8: Spanish class in a bilingual primary school classroom.
The situation I describe was somewhat exceptional, as Creole-speaking teachers are usually accompanied by a language assistant (ADA), since they often do not speak the students’ language, which at this early stage is usually Wichí monolingualism. When someone considers a language to be legitimate within a community—not only acknowledging that the community is culturally and linguistically diverse—they also feel a desire to learn that language. On the other hand, if the other language is perceived as secondary or subordinate, or if its speakers are not seen as full citizens, the response will be: Why bother learning it? To transform these judgments, this lack of recognition, and even contempt, it is necessary to unlearn many assumptions acquired throughout one’s primary and secondary socialization—be it in the family, school, or through social norms. Facing one’s own habitus is not an easy task.
During one of these classroom visits, I experienced an episode about literacy that can only be understood through the lens of such ingrained dynamics. A monolingual teacher was teaching literacy in Spanish to children who were not yet fully bilingual—or at least not all of them. I would say most were still learning Spanish. With great pride, they showed me their notebooks, and as they did, I started a little game to have them teach me words in Wichí. In one girl’s notebook, I saw a beautifully drawn tree, with words written inside bubble shapes that looked like fruits. I think the tree was a copy of an institutional poster I had seen on the school walls. Inside the bubbles, the girl had written (or rather, copied) abstract and complex words: love, respect, justice, solidarity, peace. These seemed like very difficult words for six- or seven-year-olds, and explaining them—especially in Spanish at what was likely a B2 level—was no easy task. In that moment, I didn’t know which word to ask them to teach me in Wichí. I hesitated between “love” and “peace.” In the end, I chose “love” as the easiest. The girl looked at me nervously, then at the teacher, who didn’t know how to help her. Finally, she said a word in Wichí, which I repeated clumsily—prompting laughter from everyone.
This is a problem that several teachers and former students from Sauzalito have pointed out: children often memorize activities in Spanish without understanding their meaning. Spanish thus becomes a language restricted to the school context—only used in formal settings and disconnected from the everyday lives of the children. However, due to the lack of bilingual secondary education, they are soon forced to immerse themselves in Creole language and culture—facing a kind of forced immersion where they must “sink or swim.” The current bilingual project tends toward subtractive bilingualism, paving the way toward monolingualism in the dominant (and colonial) language. In contrast, a bilingual program that teaches in both languages would break through the coloniality of knowledge, allowing other knowledges, values, and ways of life to circulate.
So what happens then? The outcome is disheartening: many Wichí students drop out of school. From the very beginning, they are labeled as “aboriginal” and must face prejudice and low expectations. Those who manage to learn Spanish beyond merely copying it in primary school are considered the “good ones” in the language of others, and this becomes the standard by which they are assessed. This externally imposed hierarchy of values and competencies is alien to them.
As a result, they not only feel out of place due to different routines, values, knowledge, methods, and vocabulary, but also face contempt for their own culture and language. The participation of those who do not play the game is limited—or they limit themselves in order to avoid being ridiculed or singled out. The inequality already apparent in primary school becomes entrenched in secondary school, consolidating a system that marginalizes and silences.
The way language intersects with this inequality during the educational process became evident in an experience led by our colleague Lara in a secondary school. When she used riddles in Wichí as a teaching tool with mixed groups (Indigenous girls and non-Indigenous boys), ethnic and gender dynamics were disrupted. It was the Indigenous girls—not the Creole boys—who contributed the most to solving the riddles, thanks to their knowledge of both languages and the associated knowledges. And yet, at times, their input was ignored, treated not as “logos,” but as “noise,” as Rancière once put it.
Photo 9: Wichí educational materials
In this sense, Wichí riddles challenge the symbolic distribution of resources in these schools, since knowledge of the Wichí language acquires value as legitimate knowledge. When this knowledge has value in the school setting, those who possess it are recognized as legitimate participants in that context. Finally, in addition to transforming the distribution and recognition of knowledge, these riddles also transform participation: traditionally assigned roles are modified, and the voices and agency of Indigenous students are strengthened.
A question of braces
One day, we accompanied Lara to a school for her proposal on didactic sequences in the Wichí language. Upon arrival, we were greeted by a teacher who welcomed her kindly. I understood that this teacher needed to approve Lara’s presence in the classroom for the activity to take place, and they agreed on a time. I was struck by how well-dressed the teacher was—wearing heels and lipstick—which is unusual given the heat and dust conditions in El Impenetrable. This detail reminded me of a story I had heard from a bilingual teacher, who recounted how, early in her career, a Creole school principal forced her to wear heels and makeup at school. These reflections led me to consider how clothing and makeup can function as ethnic and racialized markers, distinguishing Creole women from Indigenous women and highlighting cultural differences between the two groups.
It was then that I made sense of a gesture I had noticed earlier but had not fully understood. It happened in a classroom shared by a Creole teacher and a bilingual assistant. I observed the Creole teacher paying close attention to the assistant’s clothing, adjusting the strap of her smock several times. What had initially seemed like an insignificant act began to take on a deeper meaning. As with place names, literacy, clothing, and bodies do not simply signal cultural differences—they reflect a much deeper issue of social inequality.
Dress codes, like linguistic norms that determine which languages are spoken and where—and which ones are considered worth learning—are not superficial rules. They are closely tied to the question of who is considered a legitimate participant, a first-class citizen, within institutions. Inequality sets in when cultural difference limits participation—when a person is not recognized as a legitimate actor in an institutional space like education. This results in school dropout, and restricts opportunities for participation, upward mobility, and recognition within that space.
We close this account by offering an initial response to the ReDes_Ling project—one that resonates with other observations across different yet strikingly similar contexts: maintaining Indigenous languages in schools is a political project of the community—a form of resistance to colonialism and capitalism, one deeply connected to land rights, ways of life, and cultural survival.
For further reading:
Unamuno, Virginia (2020). Hegemonic communication, participation, and subaltern voices: Notes from classrooms with Wichí children. Diálogos sobre Educación. Temas actuales en investigación educativa, 11(20).
Unamuno, Virginia (2019). N’ku Ifweln’uhu: Collaborative ethnography and the collective production of bilingual intercultural education from Wichí language and culture (Chaco, Argentina). Foro de Educación, 17(27), 125–146.
Unamuno, Virginia, Lara Messina & Lucía Romero (forthcoming). Fighting is teaching: activism, teaching and perspectives on plurilingual education from the lands of Chaco. Language and Intercultural Communication.
