Shared on behalf of the LSJ steering committee.
The Language and Social Justice Committee (LSJ) of the Society for Linguistic Anthropology (SLA) will hold its Fall General Meeting on Friday, October 30, 2026, at 1:00 PM Eastern Time (ET) / 10:00 AM Pacific Time (PT). Meeting is online. Contact Katherine R. Morales Lugo, PhD ([email protected]) to RSVP and request a meeting link.
This meeting will focus on developing the LSJ’s 2026–2027 theme, Connecting Scholarship to Policy and Practice. We envision an open, collaborative space to consider how our scholarship can contribute to linguistic and social justice through initiatives shaped together and in dialogue with community priorities.
Meeting goals:
- Explore how research, teaching, community knowledge, and collective action can inform one another.
- Identify shared interests and develop ideas for collaborative initiatives.
- Connect with potential collaborators and consider concrete next steps for projects within and beyond academia.
Areas of special focus:
- Language Destandardization (challenging monolithic ideologies of language in education and other social spaces)
- Language Rights Task Force (particularly work around the English-only Executive Order and subsequent challenges in language education)
- Language and Gender / LGBTQ+
- Accessibility (including linguistic, disability, economic, epistemic, and related forms of access)
- Surveillance, AI, and Freedom of Speech
- Celebration of Languages (Mother, heritage, and Indigenous languages and International Mother Language Day)
These are starting points, and we welcome additional concerns, questions, and ideas. You are welcome to bring an idea, explore possibilities for collaboration, or simply join the conversation. No prior organizing experience or prepared proposal is needed.
Our hope is to grow a network of colleagues who can develop projects around shared interests and support one another’s initiatives. Check out the LSJ committee’s past and present initiatives for examples of the kind of work we do.
Together, meeting participants will help the LSJ committee identify priorities, shape projects, support collaboration, and explore how their interests and experience might shape the future of LSJ initiatives, such as community workshops, public events, research partnerships, policy advocacy, classroom activities, documentaries, op-eds, or collectively developed educational resources.
We hope to see you there!