MultiTrans research project warmly invites you to attend the open lecture Challenging coloniality: The discursive construction of Kalaallit agency by professor Marie Maegaard, University of Copenhagen & University of Kalaallit Nunaat
Open lecture by professor Marie Maegaard, University of Copenhagen & University of Kalaallit Nunaat
This talk builds on ongoing work carried out together with Camilla Kleemann-Andersen and Naja Blytmann Trondhjem. Building on theories of coloniality and decolonial agency we examine how a former colonized nation is enacting agency under conditions of extreme political pressure and crisis. In the talk I will exemplify decolonial agency by presenting two cases. In both cases Kalaallit language and culture is used to discursively construct agency.
The first case involves the Kalaallit politician Aki-Matilda Høegh-Dam who is elected in Kalaallit Nunaat as one of two Kalaallit political representatives in the Danish parliament. In May 2023 Høegh-Dam chose to give a speech in Kalaallisut in the Danish parliament hall during the seasonal closing debate. Høegh-Dam was the first politician ever to speak Kalaallisut in the Danish parliament, and her language choice caused very strong affective reactions both in the immediate situation in the parliament hall, and afterwards in Kalaallit and Danish media. Her choice of language was interpreted as highly controversial, and this has to do with the colonial history of the two countries.
In the second case I focus on the ongoing geopolitical conflict involving US American ambitions to take over Kalaallit Nunaat, possibly by armed force. The frustrating experience of being unable to – or even excluded from – taking part in the political struggle for one’s own future is frequently shared both in social media and in institutional media coverage. However, at the same time other voices are formulating possibilities of empowerment and agency, drawing on traditional Kalaallit Inuit culture and experience. In the talk I will present examples of this type of discourse and discuss possible implications.
Marie Maegaard is a professor of sociolinguistics at University of Copenhagen and an affiliated professor of linguistics at University of Kalaallit Nunaat. She works within critical sociolinguistics, and at the moment her research concerns connections between language and coloniality in the Danish Realm.