‘Shifting the Landscape’, Indigenous Immersion and Bilingual Education in Mexico:Tosepan Kalnemachtiloyan. Language planning, Buen Vivir, and Representations of indigenous identity in the Sierra de Puebla, Mexico

Abstract

My research focus is an indigenous, immersion and bilingual school in Mexico, from an indigenous cooperative: Tosepan Titataniske ('United we will prevail', in Nahuat). Tosepan Kalnemachtiloyan ('The School of All') is located in the unequal and diverse context distinctive of Latin America and its former 'colonial' countries, in a geographical location, often perceived as distant. I examined the language planning within Tosepan Kalnemachtoliyan. Their work for indigenous language revitalization, and their inclusion of indigenous knowledge and values in the curriculum, seem to enable students to 'reframe' their indigenous identity in a positive and constructive way. This is highly unusual in the Mexican context where discrimination and language shift are widespread. Through critical ethnography and focusing initially on their language planning, I extended my view to include a wider panorama of the holistic work of this indigenous community-based educational effort. I identified three elements that are central to the positive apparent reframing of the students' indigenous identity in the school. The three elements of my study are 1) the school's language planning (for which I proposed an adapted model), 2) the school's work towards Yeknemilis, a Nahuat indigenous concept referring to 'vida buena' and 'buen vivir', ('good living' opposed to the Western notion of 'development'), and 3) the local representation of indigenous identity through the linguistic landscape. I argue that these three elements establish a trialogic interaction (in the sense of dialogue, and continual, mutual effect) that fosters a positive reframing of students' indigenous identity. This, in turn, supports students' school work, and a more symmetric interaction, less distant, between indigenous people and mestizos in the region. In other words, not only are the three mentioned elements helpful in understanding this indigenous -intercultural- immersion and bilingual school, but are also central to the process of reframing indigenous identity through schooling in this site. I maintain that the particular trialogic interaction observed in the school, has the potential to illuminate a way to support indigenous bilingual schools in Mexico, and elsewhere, as they challenge the inequality indigenous students face in education, and the discrimination and exclusion indigenous communities have long endured.