Abstract Summary
This talk will showcase the language policies and practices of a Djiboutian refugee camp with an eyewitness account. Instructional materials will be explored through post-colonial literature, through the lens of imagined community, and investment (Norton). These theoretical frames will help trouble the idealistic, imagined or imposed identities the children in the refugee camp must cope with in the (neo)colonial/liberal realities of today.
Abstract :
The Somali diaspora communities of the world are multilingual and transnational, new and old, and large and small given that the exodus from Somalia has been going on for more than 20 years. What is less nuanced in the educational literature is an equally diverse image of (pre)migration circumstances out of the Horn of Africa. It is common to meet refugees who passed through Dadaab, often spending seven or more years there. Tragic narratives often repeat and limited formal schooling is an overarching assumption among educators when they meet a refugee-background student from Dadaab.
In this talk, I will describe the Ali Addeh refugee camp in Djibouti, which has 30,000 refugees from Eritrea, Somali, and Ethiopia. Ali Addeh does have K-12 schools that most children attend and it is possible to earn a Djiboutian high school diploma by attending these schools. Furthermore, the Ministère de l'Education Nationale supports multilingual materials development for Djiboutian students as well as materials specifically created for the children in the camp. These materials are in English while the language of instruction throughout Djibouti is French. Given that access to a refugee camp, as well as curricular materials are rare if not impossible for most educators, I will report on and theorize my own experience at Ali Addeh. I will share an initial analysis of their textbooks, created for youth who aspire to an adulthood that includes the use of English. I will explore these materials through post-colonial literature (Lok, Pennycook, Said, Phillipson), through the lens of imagined community (Anderson), and investment (Norton). These theoretical frames will help me trouble the idealistic, imagined or imposed identities the children in the refugee camp must cope with in the (neo)colonial/liberal realities of today.
