Eroding Dichotomies: Description, Analysis and Publishing in African Linguistics

These workshops provides training and mentoring for early career researchers (ECRs) in linguistics, with a focus on Eastern and Southern Africa. It does so through two interrelated activities: 1) a hands-on training workshop where ECRs present their work (with drafts submitted in advance) and receive feedback and guidance from peers, established researchers and experienced editors of linguistics journals, and 2) guided discussion during the workshop on research contexts, writing and publishing, focusing on (perceived) dichotomies which in many ways are constitutive of the discipline – such as North-South, theory-data, description-analysis, local-regional, regional-international, Open Access-established journals.

The workshops will help develop for each ECR participant a piece of research ready to be submitted to a high-level journal, improved writing skills, new and stronger links between individual researchers, ECRs and journal editors, and increased awareness for all participants about the wider research contexts, imbalances and differences in different academic environments.

Workshop Team: Dr Hannah Gibson, University of Essex; Dr Kristina Riedel, University of the Free State; Professor Lutz Marten, SOAS University of London; Dr David Barasa, Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology