[Edit 9 December 2015] The SLA Committee for Language and Social Justice has now established its core committee. Individuals who are interested in participating in LSJ initiatives and campaigns may contact Netta Avineri navineri@gmail.com or Robin Conley conleyr@marshall.edu to be added to the google group list.
The SLA Nominations Committee is currently seeking volunteers to serve as a core committee member on the SLA Committee for Language and Social Justice (LSJ). The LSJ committee was created in 2009 out of the Task Group on Language and Social Justice and is a standing committee within SLA. There are currently four core committee members, two of whom will be leaving the committee at the end of the year.
The LSJ committee works to increase awareness, both within the AAA and among the general public, of the ways in which language is implicated in social discrimination; and, where appropriate, to respond to specific instances of language-related discrimination and injustice. To these ends, the committee seeks to collect and disseminate knowledge concerning language and social justice; to identify problems and issues in which linguistic anthropologists can and should intervene, and to which linguistic anthropological knowledge can and should be applied; to organize, lead, and facilitate such interventions and applications; and to advise the AAA Committee on Human Rights, the AAA Executive Board, and other AAA bodies on how the AAA as a whole should respond to issues concerning language and social justice.
If you are interested in serving as a LSJ core committee member, or participating on the committee in any way, please contact Becky Schulthies becky.schulthies@rutgers.edu or Janet McIntosh janetmc@brandeis.edu by November 25, 2015. The SLA Executive Board appoints core members of the LSJ committee after the SLA nominations committee has forwarded the names of those interested. We hope you will share this announcement, urge colleagues and consider participating yourself on this important committee.
We also want to thank Daniel Suslak & Patricia Baquedano-Lopez for their service on the LSJ committee. They have helped make the work we do more visible and relevant to current debates and issues of social discrimination.
We look forward to hearing from you,
SLA Nominations Committee
Becky Schulthies
Janet McIntosh