Sustainable Pluralism: Linguistic and Cultural Resilience in Multiethnic Societies

• Main Authors: Noyes, Dorothy, Joseph, Brian
• Other Authors: Miller, DeAnna
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: English
• Published: Ohio State University. Mershon Center for International Security Studies 2014
• Subjects: Minorities; multiethnic societies; cultural practices; Greenland; Orleans; Alaska
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1811/69747

Turning away from policy discourses of preservation, protection, and heritage, we look at the grassroots strategies by which minority languages and cultural practices are sustained in plural societies. Weak actors defend themselves and pursue their goals through the arts of accommodation, avoidance, and nichemaking. But cultural flourishing is not identical with human flourishing. How do the two intersect and diverge over time? Our international case studies come from Tibet, New Orleans, Mongolia, the Philippines, Greenland, Jewish Krakow, Russian Alaska, indigenous Honduras, Kyrgyzstan, the Lake Michigan Potawatomi, the Senegambian borderland, western China, and beyond. Ohio State University Mershon Center for International Security Studies Center for Folklore Studies Department of Linguistics Department of Comparative Studies Event Web page