SLA alumna Michele Back’s book “Transcultural Performance: Negotiating Globalized Identities” has been published by Palgrave Macmillan.
Michele’s 2009 dissertation in SLA was “‘We Did the Wrong Dance’: Ecuadorian Musicians Negotiating Language and Identity in a Transnational Context.” She is now Assistant Professor of World Languages Education and Second Language Acquisition in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Connecticut.
From the Palgrave Macmillan website:
“Transcultural Performance draws upon a multi-sited ethnography of Ecuadorean folkloric musicians and their families to illustrate how these individuals negotiate languages, gender and ethnicity at home and abroad. Beginning with a cohesive and critical review of globalization and identity theories, the book offers an important interdisciplinary response to work on language, identity and globalization. With detailed discourse analyses of gender, ethnicity, and language, the chapters offer a valuable counterpoint to more traditional analyses of the impact of multilingualism on indigenous languages, which are frequently negative in their assessment of the future of these languages. Through an examination of beliefs and practices, this book demonstrates both the persistent role of essentialist ideologies in beliefs about language, as well as how transcultural practices can enhance the use and maintenance of minority and indigenous languages.”