The Language of Conquest

The indigenous of Latin America can be viewed through the context of conquest as suffering from historical marginalization. Yet, the very fact that many remain as intact indigenous cultures may also signal the ineffectiveness of complete suppression of the cultural artifacts that set them apart from the rest of the dominant political and economic societies that govern them. What is at work in this paradoxical dynamic? Language appears to represent a tremendous mechanism employed by all sides, either as a means of repressing challenging constructs or as a means of assuring such challenges remain. By looking first at the historic role of the language of conquest in Latin America, the workings of this dynamic that historically changed the political and cultural terrain of this region will hopefully become more readily apparent.

A discussion on the idea of language as conquest must begin with an overview of the power of language, itself. Sociolinguistics (Berger & Luckman, 1966; DiMaggio & Powell, 1983; Best & Kellner, 1991; Geertz, 1976) make the claim that all knowledge is socially constructed, and that through institutions, subjective realities become objectified as dominant discourses, or "truths." These discourses become the sedimentary layer that first dictate back to society how it should govern itself, and subsequently becomes the "artifact" society draws from, in order to belong.

In other words, human beings invent institutions to codify their subjective realities, and then become the products of that institutionalized reality, themselves. Historians and cultural anthropologists are just beginning to attune themselves to the legacy of subjective knowledge in seeking more inclusive arenas of truth building, and the presence of imagined, artificial frameworks that have dominated ideological underpinnings of polities and justice. This constitutes the central focus of Sherene Razack's exploratory essay, The Gaze from the Other Side: Storytelling for Social Change: