Abstract:

In this commentary, I discuss this collection of articles by Wertheim, Ahlers, Adkins and Davis, and Leonard focusing on gender and language revitalization in order to draw out sites of overlap and difference. I identify the following 4 themes as emerging from these pieces: the construction of diverse types of gendered selves; gender as implicated in divides between public and private spheres of interaction; the production of authenticity as central to language revitalization and heritage movements more broadly; and how such projects involve a balance between individual selves and goals and those of the community, arising from the many points of hybridity, overlap and conflict that arise between these and the dominant communities in which they are embedded.

Author: Jillian R. Cavanaugh