Transcript Linguistic Rights Today in Three Spheres of Justice:

LINGUISTIC RIGHTS IN THREE SPHERES OF JUSTICE
• Presentation by Wilfrid Denis (St. Thomas More
College, U Saskatchewan) and Yvonne Hébert
(University of Calgary)
• Session on Academic Freedom, with Terry Gillin, Chair.
• Annual Conference of the Canadian Sociology
Association
• 29 May – 02 June, 2012
• University of Waterloo & Wilfrid Laurier University
1. INTRODUCTION
• Recognition of linguistic rights for OLM in Canada educ reform
• Charter and Official Lgs Act silent on access to postsecondary education in OLM
• Issues of recognition, organization & delivery of French
language instruction vary across English-dominant
Canada
• Tripartite model of social justice (N. Fraser, 2009)
• Focus: embedded faculty member & program in AB & SK
FRASER’S TYPES OF JUSTICE & REMEDIES, 1995
Type of Remedies
What
Justice?
Redistributi
on
(politicaleconomic)
Affirmation
1. Liberal Welfare State
Surface reallocations of existing
goods/resources to existing groups;
supports group differentiation; can
generate misrecognition
Recognition 3. Mainstream Multiculturalism
(cultural)
Surface reallocations of respect to
existing identities of existing
groups; supports group
differentiation
Transformation
2. Socialism
Deep restructuring of relations of
production; blurs group differentiation; can
remedy some forms of misrecognition
4. Deconstructionism and reconstructionism
Deep restructuring of relations of
recognition; blurs group differentiation
TRIPARTITE MODEL OF SOCIAL JUSTICE (2009, 2010)
• Redistribution in the economic sphere - issues of
misdistribution
• Recognition in the socio-cultural sphere - issues of
misrecognition
• Representation in the political sphere - issues of
misrepresentation, misframing
• Who? What? How? - criteria for decision making
• All subjected principle
PURPOSE OF OUR PAPER
• To apply the three-part Nancy Fraser model (2009,
2010) at a medium range or institutional level, rather
than at the abstract, global level
• Anticipated problems of categorization into types
• Questions of who, what and how difficult to establish
• Incomplete hegemony, open to slippage
• Institutional incoherence, contradictions
• Who has right to make claims & nature of such claims
NATIONAL CONTEXT OF POST-SEC INSTITUTIONS
•
Two official languages enshrined in the Canadian constitution
•
Section 23 on official minority language rights
•
AUCC, University Affairs operate in both official languages
•
CAUT/ACPPU also supportive - bilingual national organization (Allain, 2008)
•
Tangible support over the years for French language in university and post-secondary
institutions
•
CAUT – only 5/45 presidents were Francophones
•
CAUT instituted a Francophone Committee & designated a Francophone position on
its Executive, both in 2004
•
Parallel movements in Québec & Canada
•
CSA ceased French language communication in 2012 with office move, QC to ON
SORTING OUT 3 QUESTIONS: WHO, WHAT, HOW ?
WHO ?
WHAT?
~ 2000-3500 individuals
-
teaching in French in
Anglophone Universities
-
-
Institutional arrangements
between oppressed &
oppressor
Continuum of institutional
settings:
1. Stand alone U
2. Bilingual U
3. Federated College
4. Minority Units
5. Embedded
units/persons
-
-
Nature, extent,
significance of justice
claims increase as
faculty members move
on continuum from #1
to #5
Direct impact on working
conditions
Teaching, research &
publication, and
community service tend
to be reduced in
significance on
continuum, #1 to #5
Lack of weight given to
Francophone faculty
member’s dossier
SORTING OUT 3 QUESTIONS: WHO, WHAT, HOW?
HOW?
Four dimensions:
- Course & program
approval structures;
1.
Absence of French lg services
pertaining to research
- Performance Reports;
2.
- Merit, tenure,
promotion procedures;
Absence of Fr lg services for
students
3.
Obligation to translate
towards English
4.
Erasure of Francophone
presence, participation and
worth
- Two cases:
- U Calgary,
U Saskatchewan
INTERPRETATION
• Three dimensions to be emphasized in considering two
cases:
1. Difficulty of determining instances of misdistribution or
economic penalties, i.e., so serious as to attract an
appeal; possible silencing of such possible claims;
invisibility of French language issues in these universities;
2. Anti-hegemonic forces may be more astute in their
strategies and frame these in a broader framework,
unforeseen by Fraser;
3. Efforts to reframe these issues so as to raise the profile of
French as a national language on Anglophone
universities, a political gesture that challenges Anglodominant hegemony;
tend to reduce scope, scale of
those subjected whereas
tend to prefer
broader definitions
CONCLUSIONS
• Interplay between economic, political & cultural dimensions are very
complex
• Issues of recognition seem to impact on economic and political
issues
• Tendency for issues to take on a collective dimension, not just the
sum of isolated individual experiences
• All subjected, all affected principles need more reflection as the
benign takes on greater proportions in hindsight (or with greater
insight?)
• Effects of limitations discussed herein amount to forms of
surveillance and control of French and Francophone scholars, in the
‘conduct of conduct’
• Scholars & students are disciplined to accept to be minoritized, to
being subject to lacks of representation, recognition & redistribution