Visibility, Healing and Resistance: Voices from the 2005 Dena’ina Language Institute Lindsay Bell and Patrick E. Marlow This paper explores the complexities of institutional involvement in Native language programming by looking at a program in Kenai, Alaska. The work contrasts learner goals with stated grant goals in order to investigate the tensions between institutional (university, funding agency) and individual learner goals in a language revitalization effort. Analysis of 19 semi- structured in-depth interviews with adult Dena’ina learners revealed that goals of attendees clustered into four categories: fluency, literacy, cultural knowledge, and community building. These four stated goals connected to overarching themes of visibility, healing and resistance. The subsequent discussion highlights the importance of examining the challenges and compromises that come with the inclusion of institutional funding structures in Indigenous language movements. To conclude we raise questions around the larger political-economic conditions in which revitalization movements are situated and possible constraints imposed by the dominant discourses that legitimize them. Introduction T he Dena’ina Language Institute (DLI) derived from a five-year, grant funded (U.S. Department of Education #T195E010045) partnership between the Alaska Native Language Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (ANLC), the Kenaitze Indian Tribe I.R.A. (KIT), the Alaska Native Heritage Center (ANHC), and the Kenai Peninsula College (KPC). The program was intended to improve the quality of Dena’ina language programming in schools by providing targeted coursework and access to degree programs for would-be language teachers. After three years of the five year program, the funding agency determined that the published grant goals were not being met. The project was labeled a “failure” and funding was withdrawn a year later. Despite these setbacks, however, program partners and participants considered the program a success and requested that carry-over funds be made available to support the DLI through the Journal of American Indian Education - Volume 48, Issue 1, 2009 1