Ett seminarum med Naltalia Volvach, GERGU-postdok på Institutionen för kulturvetenskaper, Göteborgs universitet, i seminarieserien Flerspråkighet och Svenska som andraspråk (FlerSva).
In contexts of war-forced migration, individuals’ relationships to their linguistic repertoires shift. Not only do people reorient to and revalue existing languages, but they also develop new strategies for linguistic survival (Busch, 2017). In this talk, I present findings from a two-year ethnographic research project with Ukrainian migrant women residing in Sweden after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The project followed a multi-stage design that included digitally assisted PhotoVoice (Stage 1), open-ended interviews (Stage 2), language portraits (Stage 3), and figure-crafting workshops (Stage 4). This talk focuses specifically on how multilingual selves were performed during audio-recorded workshops (Stages 3 and 4).
The workshops were invitations for participants to reflect on the use of different languages in their everyday life in Sweden. During language portraits (Stage 3), they placed languages on bodily silhouettes and at Stage 4, the women crafted figures by cutting and pasting different materials and objects, allowing them to focus on crafting, rather than speaking. At the same time, sharing a breathing space, while engaged in a subject-centered activity, allowed conversations to emerge (Busch & McNamara, 2020). As participants crafted their multilingual selves, they shared experiences of (un)learning languages and recollected their pasts and presents, weaving in the fragments of war and migration. The workshops created space for stories that required a response, underscoring that not only telling but also listening became crucial for sharing vulnerability (De Fina et al., 2020; Holmes, ftc).
This talk concludes with a discussion of the potential and limitations for arts-based research methods when studying multilingual life-worlds in times of unfolding war. Grounded in ethnographic practice where the production of knowledge unfolds in embodied encounters of the project participants and the researcher, this talk seeks to engage in methodological, ethical and political debates relating to conducting research during increasing uncertainty.
Busch, B. (2017). Expanding the notion of the linguistic repertoire: On the concept of Spracherleben – The lived experience of language. Applied Linguistics, 38(3), 340–358.
Busch, B., & McNamara, T. (2020). Language and trauma. Applied Linguistics, 41/3: 323–333.
De Fina, A., Paternostro, G., Amoruso, M. (2020). Learning How to Tell, Learning How to Ask: Reciprocity and Storytelling as a Community Process. Applied Linguistics, 41/3: 352–369.
Holmes, L. (forthcoming). Languaging as Sirening: Pre-emptive Listening and the Ethical Event. In: Volvach, N. & Kerfoot, C. (Eds.). The Sociolinguistics of the Spectre: Language, Space, and Memory. Bloomsbury.