Multiple Voices: A Study of Pluriliterate North Atlantic Coast Nicaraguan Youth’s Multimedia Design Practices in Classroom and Online Community Contexts
Author
Hinton, LaToya LynnIssue Date
2020Keywords
Culturally Sustaining PedagogyIndigenous and Mixed Youth
Latin America
Multimedia Design
Multimodality
Pluriliteracies
Advisor
Wyman, Leisy T.Nicholas, Sheilah E.
Metadata
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The University of Arizona.Rights
Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction, presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author.Abstract
This dissertation tracks the development of a culturally sustaining multimedia course for 54 youth ages 15 to 17 in a secondary-level Leadership School outside of Puerto Cabezas, a multilingual city on the North Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua. The study focused on creating conditions for youth to consult with Indigenous leaders of local non-profit organizations, and addressing social injustices, utilizing the ancestral languages Miskitu, Mayangna and Kriol. Drawing on Critical Indigenous Research Methodology (Wilson, 2008; McCarty & Brayboy, 2014), Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy (Paris & Alim, 2017) and auto-ethnographic insights from my own experiences as an Mixed-race Indigenous scholar, I share how I worked to create a secure engaging space for students to design a range of multimedia projects using their pluriliteracies– abilities to communicate with audiences in local, national and global multimodal discourse (Garcia, Kleifgen & Bartlett, 2007). I also describe how collaborations with school officials and local leaders gave students key access to intergenerational local and Indigenous linguistic and cultural knowledge. To forefront youth leaders’ voices and perspectives, I critically analyze the cultural and linguistic content of students’ final video projects, which addressed racial discrimination, lack of access to information about sexually transmitted disease, bullying in schools, shifts in gender roles, and domestic abuse as social injustices. Focusing on the multilingual discourse of two specific projects “La Discriminación Racial” and “Pamali Painkira,” I also highlight the pluriliteracy and raciolinguistic (Alim, Rickford & Ball, 2016) identities of five-focal youth participants, and ways that youth worked together to foster new understandings of interculturalidad- knowledge exchange and understanding between distinct cultural groups (Kohls & Knight, 1994; Barth, 2007). Overall, the study showed how Indigenous, Afro-descendant , Mestizo, and Mixed youth in complex settings in Latin America can produce independent media, representing themselves and their local communities in new, powerful ways in national and global settings. At the end of the dissertation, I discuss implications for multimedia teachers and digital activists seeking to empower diverse youth in multilingual settings, and educators who wish to develop digital culturally sustaining and revitalizing pedagogies (McCarty & Lee, 2014; San Pedro, 2015, building on Paris, 2012) that honor marginalized youth voices in Latin America, in particular.Type
textElectronic Dissertation
Degree Name
Ph.D.Degree Level
doctoralDegree Program
Graduate CollegeLanguage, Reading & Culture