Pardee’s African Studies Center Seminar Examines Language and Power in the Congo
Boston University History PhD Dr. Joshua Castillo explored the use of the Lingala language as a means of asserting and exercising power over the recent history of the Democratic Republic of the Congo in an April 22 Walter Rodney seminar at the BU Pardee School’s African Studies Center.
Drawing on his extensive field research conducted in the Lingala, Swahili, Ciluba, and Kikongo languages, Dr. Castillo mapped out how President Mobutu Sese Seko used the Lingala language to amplify and project his own power, and how Laurent-Désiré Kabila then reversed course by asserting Swahili as the “language of power” in the DRC. In a fascinating turn, Dr. Castillo explored how common people in the DRC used language as a means of shifting identities to ensure their own safety in the face of security force depredations. The highly textured presentation provoked extensive discussion about the ways in which languages and even accents influence power, politics, and social mobility in Africa and beyond. Dr. Castillo studied two of his PhD research languages at the African Studies Center.
The African Studies Center (ASC) at Boston University is one of the nation’s oldest leaders in promoting African language and area studies since its founding in 1953, with federal funding from the US Department of Education as a Title VI National Resource Center. As a center for excellence for researching, learning, and teaching about Africa, the ASC provides opportunities for students and scholars across the arts, humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences to pursue rigorous academic study and research engaging Africa, to learn African languages, and to participate in diverse programming outside of the classroom.