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Exploring Languages Preservation in Kham Tibet, Learning From "Discourse in the Novel," and Writing a Dialogical/Bakhtinian Ethnography
Journal article   Peer reviewed

Exploring Languages Preservation in Kham Tibet, Learning From "Discourse in the Novel," and Writing a Dialogical/Bakhtinian Ethnography

Dongjing Kang and William K Rawlins
Qualitative inquiry, Vol.23(8), pp.618-630
10-01-2017

Abstract

Social Sciences Social Sciences - Other Topics Social Sciences, Interdisciplinary
This essay pursues three interrelated and reflexively challenging objectives. First, we celebrate Mikhail Bakhtin's "Discourse in the Novel" as constituting a singular primer for writing and accomplishing dialogical ethnography. Second, we exemplify and dramatize its lessons by relating stories and practices of the first author's 4-year ongoing field study and involvement with languages preservation, community enhancement, and social transformation in Kham Tibet. Finally, we accomplish these first two purposes in a self-consciously reflexive manner seeking to embody Bakhtin's suggestions even as we describe them. We close with a tentative description of languages and voices we notice in writing this essay.

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