Presentation by Tony Capstick, University of Reading on Language, Resilience and Ethnography, at the Participation Lab workshop on Migration, Care, Language & Identity, University of Reading, 3 November 2016.

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LANGUAGE, RESILIENCE & ETHNOGRAPHY
Migration, care, language and identity: MultidisciplinaryPerspectives
Dr Tony Capstick
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Department of English Language
and Applied Linguistics

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OUTLINE
1. Researching migration from multidisciplinary perspectives
2. Language for Resilience research project
3. Research participants
4. Methodology
5. The findings
6. Next steps
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RESEARCH QUESTIONS
• Migration literacies (Capstick 2016): how are texts reused and
recontextualized as they move between physical and social spaces? How
are these literacies part of migrants’ wider language practices?
• How can Critical Discourse Analysis be combined with ethnography to
explore the help that text producers and consumers seek in their
migration literacies (three waves of migration)
• What knowledge is required to interpret the discourses of migration
instantiated in visa texts and Facebook postings by literacy mediators and
cultural brokers (Capstick 2016)?
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2. LANGUAGE FOR RESILIENCE PROJECT
The Language for Resilience project takes the position that the role of
language is central to building resilience and envisages that there are
language learning interventions which can be transformational in
supporting people’s ability to overcome the effects of the current crisis.

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RESILIENCE
‘the ability of individuals, households, communities and institutions to
anticipate, withstand, recover and transform from shocks and crises.’
(UNICEF 2014)
Regional Refugee and Resilience Plan 2015 -2016: the need for interventions
to build resilience among individuals, communities and institutions across
sectors is central
(UNHCR 2015)

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RESILIENCE
• Identifying protective factors: e.g. personal qualities such as
‘autonomy’ or ‘high self-esteem’
• Understanding underlying protective processes: how child, family
and environment contribute to positive outcomes
• To design appropriate prevention and intervention strategies for
individuals facing adversity (Luthar 1993; Masten et al 1990)

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RESILIENCE AND SOCIOLINGUISTICS
The key issue has been the shift in the level of analysis
from research on students’ competences and
acquisition processes in linguistic programmes to
concern over the effects of the social distribution of
linguistic resources (Martin Rojo 2010).

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https://www.flickr.com/photos/dfid/1117405266
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RESEARCH QUESTION
How does language enhanceas well as constrain Syrian refugees’ resilience
oncethey have arrived in Jordan, Kurdistan region of Iraq, Lebanonand
Turkey?
Lebanon: November 2015
Turkey: December 2015
Jordan: December 2015
Kurdistan region of Iraq: January 2016

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3. RESEARCH PARTICIPANTS
School teachers, coordinators and principals who (1) have and (2) have not
participatedin teacher development initiatives designed to help refugees and/or
their teachers.
School students who are ideally taught by the teachers in (1) and (2) above and are
old enough to be interviewed about their language and learning.
(3) Parents of school-aged children
(4) Children and parents outside formal education
(5) UN; Government; NGO; Civil Society; Donors; about their programmes

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4. METHODOLOGY
• Multiple methods (including participant observation)
• Understanding the participants’ perspectives – the ‘emic’ perspective
• Reflexivity about researcher’s position: issues of representation
• Often (but not always) critical
Generate understandings from descriptive (often textual) data, by:
• Identifying patterns (and deviations from patterns) across the data, and
• Describing complexities of specifics in detail
• Reducing a big dataset to a manageable-sized set of meanings
NOT: Language extracted and studied as an autonomous system
BUT: Language-in-use or language as a cultural practice (language as used
by specific people in specific contexts)

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5. THE FINDINGS
1. Home language and literacy development: creating the foundations for shared identity,
belongingand future study through home language use
2. Access to education, training and employment: Language competence provides access
to, and engagement in, the world of education, training and employment
3. Learning together and social cohesion: Language learning activities as a basis for
developingindividual resilience, ensuring dignity, self-sufficiency and life skills
4. Addressingthe effects of trauma on learning: Language programmes as a supportive
interventionand a way to address the effects of loss, displacement and trauma on
behaviour and learning
5. Building the capacity of teachers and strengthening educational systems to create
inclusiveclassrooms: Professional training for language teachers to build institutional
resilience
(Capstick and Delaney, 2016)
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REFERENCES
Capstick, T. (2016) Multilingual Literacies, Identities and Ideologies: Exploring chain migration from Pakistan
to the UK. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan
Capstick, T. and Delaney, M (2016) Language for Resilience.British Council: British Council London. Available
at https://www.britishcouncil.org/sites/default/files/language-for-resilience-report-en.pdf
Garc´ıa, O., Skutnabb-Kangas, T., & Torres-Guzman, M. E. (2006). Weaving spaces and (de)constructing
ways for multilingual schools: The actual and the imagined.In O. Garc´ıa, T. Skutnabb-Kangas, & M. E.
Torres-Guzman (Eds.), Imaginingmultilingual schools: Languages in education and globalization (pp. 3–50).
Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.
Heller, M. (2007) Bilingualism as ideology and practice. In Heller (Ed), Bilingualism: A Social Approach (pp.1-24).
Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Masten, A. (1994) Resiliencein individual development:Successful adaptation despite risk and adversity. In
Wang, M., Gordon, E (Eds). Educational resilience in inner-city America: Challenges and prospects. Erlbaum:
Hillside.
UNICEF (2014) The UNICEF Strategic Plan 2014-2017: Realizing the rights of every child, especially the most
disadvantaged. Available at http://www.unicef.org/strategicplan/
UNHCR (2015) 3RP Regional Refugee ResiliencePlan 2015-2016. Available at
file:///C:/Users/gt912774/Downloads/3RPRegionalOverview2016-2017.pdf
Werner, E. and Smith, R. (1992) Overcomingthe odds: High risk children from birth to adulthood. Cornell
University Press: Ithaca, NY.
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QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS
tony.capstick@reading.ac.uk
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