Post-materialism and language revitalisation: some comments based on Irish and other Celtic contexts
05 October 2023
18th October 2023 4:00pm
Medrus Conference Suite, Aberystwyth University / Online
Dr Ben Ó Ceallaigh
In an era in which the cost of living crisis is causing so much suffering for so many, and when humanity faces so many other concomitant crises, how realistic is it to expect significant numbers of people to be animated about the fate of minoritised languages?
In this talk, Ben will refer to the concept of “post-materialism” and data from Ireland and other Celtic countries to explore how the poverty and precarity that neoliberalism creates mean that people have, simply put, bigger problems to deal with than the fate of Irish, Welsh, etc. Building on this understanding, Ben will argue that a fundamental change in the nature of the economic system is therefore a necessary pre-requisite of language revitalisation in a great many contexts.