Santiago de Compostela, España
Madrid, España
Barcelona, España
This paper explores how researchers and co-participants in a joint Participatory Action Research (PAR) project in Galicia and Madrid discursively negotiate the conditions of possibility to co-construct spaces in which to talk about forms of sociolinguistic injustice. The aim of our multisite project is to create spaces for sociolinguistic research and intervention in which to identify the “sociodiscursive” elements used to manage the conditions of possibility that make it possible to address linguistic injustice. In our project we work with two related but not identical theoretical frameworks, Critical Language Awareness (CLA) and Freire’s pedagogical model of conscientization (or sensitization through discussion, reflection and action). Our findings reveal the presence of two types of conditions of possibility: “epistemic conditions of possibility”, derived from the participatory methodological framework itself, and “dialogic conditions of possibility”, that emerge in the participation framework of situated communicative activities. The data show how, in empathetic situations in which affect is verbalized, co-participants can reach what we call “eureka moments” when the naturalization of inequality is problematized. The newly-gained awareness of participants who reach these moments of revelation is evidenced in explicit manifestations in which people verbalize how they suddenly understand the why of past situations or realize that something may be beginning to change. In this paper we present the activities used in controlled environments to promote this shift, since awareness raising is something that cannot be carried out by the speakers themselves, at least not alone, and we discuss their effectiveness.