Language Work is the title of our monthly forum within the project Recalibrating Afrikanistik. This forum opens the space for different contributions which speak to, with and through Language Work(ers). With Language Work we mean (perspectives on) engagements with, practices of, and reflections on language that go beyond the boundaries of disciplines and academia in general. This is why broad intelligibility and accessibility are key for the concept of this forum, which will take place every first Tuesday of the month, starting from January 2025. This regular exchange is a stepping stone towards a digital, multimodal project publication that wants to bring Language Work to life as a transdisciplinary way of collaborating.

For us, the notion of Language Work is at least two-pronged: firstly, it refers to working with language. This means that it brings together various actors (language workers) and practices involved in producing, learning, and attentively using language in all its varieties and forms. This facet of Language Work results in practiced and embodied language knowledges. Secondly, Language Work also directs the focus towards knowledges that are brought forth about language, inside and beyond academia. It includes reflections on how (African) language(s) work and how they come to matter differently in situated practices. Languages – but also fluid ways of languaging – come with their own affordances for meaning, structure and embodiment, which co-produce our (notion of the) world, and hence unsettle the idea of universal knowledge.

When we say Language Work as practiced and embodied knowledges, we think of Language Workers: people who regularly (if not professionally) and attentively engage with, and/or produce language in its various written and oral manifestations and manifold media. They include, but are not limited to, poets, authors, teachers, actors, activists, journalists, grassroot communities and researchers. Throughout the project, we have seen how their different ways of getting in touch with language open up knowledges beyond ‘traditional’ linguistics (specifically Afrikanistik) or literary studies approaches. These embodied and practiced knowledges allow for epistemological diversity and enact a multilayered “Weltwissen” (world knowledge) that Recalibrating Afrikanistik seeks to foreground and document. This way it can be made available for, and be put into conversation with other Language Workers and with existing academic fields and disciplines like literary studies, (socio- and applied) linguistics, media studies and education. It is exactly this transdisciplinary Language Work within and beyond academia that is the key to Recalibrating Afrikanistik.

Every session will consist of an interactive and/or creative contribution, followed by an open discussion.