Award for anthropologist Jan Blommaert: Language, Asylum and the National Order

Jan Blommaert has been awarded with the first Barbara Metzger Prize for his article Language, Asylum, and the National Order published in the journal Current Anthropology in August 2009 (vol. 50, no. 4). Jan Blommaert is professor of language, culture and globalization at Tilburg University, the Netherlands and professor in African linguistics and sociolinguistics at Ghent University in Belgium.

The prize has been established by the Wenner-Gren Foundation to be given annually to the article in Current Anthropology that:
Wenner-Gren Announces the Barbara Metzger Prize | The Wenner Gren Foundation

best represents the journal’s longstanding commitment to good writing. Sol Tax, the founding editor of the journal, emphasized that the papers published in Current Anthropology should reach and interest as wide an audience as possible within anthropology, a field with global reach that includes various sub-disciplines. To achieve this aim, Tax set high standards for prose. He sought clear and concise expression of ideas, of fact and of opinion. He welcomed the appropriate use of technical language and discouraged unnecessary jargon.

For many years, Barbara Metzger, the journal’s distinguished copy editor, worked closely with authors to promote these values. The result of her dedicated efforts has been a journal recognized around the world for the lucid and articulate presentation of a wide variety of forms of anthropological scholarship. Following her retirement, the Foundation has created the Barbara Metzger Prize to carry her work forward. It will be awarded annually to the article, report or forum that most fully embodies these standards of writing.

In his article Blommaert probes the way in which officials try to ascertain the authenticity of those seeking asylum in Western Europe:Chicago Journals – Current Anthropology

This paper discusses modernist reactions to postmodern realities. Asylum seekers in Western Europe—people typically inserted into postmodern processes of globalization—are routinely subjected to identification analyses that emphasize the national order. The paper documents the case of a Rwandan refugee in the United Kingdom whose nationality was disputed by the Home Office because of his “abnormal” linguistic repertoire. An analysis of that repertoire, however, supports the applicant’s credibility. The theoretical problematic opposes two versions of sociolinguistics: a sociolinguistics of languages, used by the Home Office, and a sociolinguistics of speech and repertoires, used in this paper. The realities of modern reactions to postmodern phenomena must be taken into account as part of the postmodern phenomenology of language in society.

Blommaert’s analysis suggests that the final decision – which may be a matter of life or death – may come down to judgments about language. His analysis is based upon the case of an asylum seeker from Rwanda, Joseph Mutingra, in the UK. Officials sometimes rely on assumptions about linguistic competence of asylum seekers that may be inaccurate when applied to citizens of often multi-lingual communities. These officials appear to rely on the assumption that the dominant language in the country of the asylum seeker is the standard by which an individual’s application to be evaluated, rendering many asylum applications futile from the start. Mutingira has a low command of Kinyarwanda (Rwanda’s dominant language) because in his childhood he spoke English at home. This is not uncommon but caused the official questioning him to identify him as a non-native speaker. The dominant language is perceived as a neutral standard but Blommaert shows it is based upon questionable assumptions. He urges instead a sociolinguistics of speech and linguistic repertoire more sensitive to the lived experience of the people who are seeking asylum and to link the language that is being used not only to a particular geographic area but also to time (and/or a personal life history) because the relationship between area of origin and use of language is far less clear than assumed – in particular in times of large migration movements and diasporas causing languages to move beyond borders and nations. Particular touching in Blommaert’s account of Mutingira’s story is how language plays an important role in people’s live and their prospects for the future. Mutingra flees after his family has been murdered and because he picks up bits and pieces of languages on the road, he is frequently seen as an enemy with terrible consequences. Mutingra does not fit into the neat categorizations of local standards of language and as a result is ‘exposed’ as suspect every time.

His article is a fine example of good anthropological research and the art of writing while being highly relevant for debates on migration, asylum and migration policies.
You can read the full article here:
Current Anthropology, vol. 50, no. 4, August 2009 – Language, Asylum, and the National Order by Jan Blommaert
Text here is based upon my impression of the article and the press release of Wenner-Gren Foundation and the Dutch press release of Tilburg University

I hereby congratulate Professor Blommaert with a wonderful and fascinating article and for winning this award.