Organizing for Languages Preservation, Community Enhancement, and Social Transformation in Kham Tibet: A Dialogical Ethnograph

UNESCO (2013) has reported that many Kham Tibetan languages are facing extinction and will disappear by the end of this century if nothing is done. Languages embody the worldviews that enable us to understand, interpret, and share realities with one another. Preserving ethnic minority languages is crucial to the sustainability of plural human social practices. This dissertation research used a dialogical perspective to examine Tibetan teachers' and community members' organizing practices for mother tongue preservation, community building, and achieving meaningful social change. Tibetan communities have been historically silent, absent, and (mis)represented by romanticized and reductionist ideological/political discourse. My dissertation recognized Tibetan teachers and community members as active social change agents, organizers, and advocates who are capable of creating partnerships across differences (e.g. class, gender, ethnicity, and educational levels, etc.) to address local issues in communication and to organize for meaningful social transformation in Kham Tibet. To achieve this project, I conducted a dialogical ethnography for the past three summers including archival and textual collection, numerous in-depth interviews, and participant observation in Kham Tibet. Four narratives emerged that exemplified the features of meta-theory of dialogue. They are 1) Boundless Bound, 2) Purposeless Purpose, 3) Embodiment, and 4) Being while Becoming. The findings of this study extend the theory of dialogue and advance knowledge in communication scholarship, as well as provide insights for educators, policymakers, governments, and international NPO/NGOs involved with indigenous/ethnic language and cultural preservation program implementation in Tibet. Finally, this study may provide transferable values to other indigenous/ethnic groups working towards similar goals.