Rethinking Language Planning and Policy from the Ground Up: Refashioning Institutional Realities and Human Lives Vaidehi Ramanathan Linguistics Department, University of California, Davis, USA At a time when connections between English and globalisation seem stronger than ever, and at a time when the ‘dominant’ status of English vis-à-vis other languages is very prominent, it seems imperative for the LPP scholarship to make room for grounded explorations regarding English and its relationship to vernacular languages in non-Western educational contexts. Drawing on an eight-year ethnographic study of English-and-vernacular-medium education in Gujarat, India, this paper argues that it may be time for language planning and policy studies to adopt a situated approach that begins addressing issues around language planning- and policy-related inequities by first focusing on what is on the ground. 1 By gaining insight into how divides between English and other languages are perpetuated by the enforcement of particular policies and by understanding how institutions and humans refashion and re-plan theirs and others lives by countering language policies, such an orientation opens up a way for us to go beyond thinking of language policies as entities that ‘happen to’ humans by allowing us to view language policies as hybrid entities that draw their force and move- ment from the lives of real peoples and their motivations. Such an approach is partially intended toward countering the top-down tendency of much LPP scholarship. Keywords: vernacular education, vernacular literacy, refashioning language planning and policy, globalisation, non-western contexts . . . what is ethics, if not the practice of freedom, the considered practice of freedom . . . Freedom is the ontological condition of ethics. But ethics is the considered form that freedom takes. (Rabinow, 1984: 25) Increasing discussions around world Englishes and English as a global language force us to take stock of the dominating role of English in current globalising surges. Scholarship in this realm ranges from researchers questioning medi- ums-of-instruction policies, to ways in which English operates to create inner and outer circles in different countries (Matsuda, 2003), to how it gets positioned vis-à-vis local, vernacular languages (Alidou, 2004). Regardless of how scholars are positioned in the debate, much of the research seems to draw from and is connected to issues in implicit and explicit English language policies – state-wide, nation-wide, and institutional – and ways in which they impact a variety of teaching and learning contexts. Such views, while valuable, can be seen to run the risk of rendering language policies around English and local vernaculars as abstract entities partially formulated behind closed doors, and formalised in documents without paying much heed to local realities. However, we also know that language policies are living, dynamic forces that find their viability and articulation in the most local of spaces: in institutions, CILP076 1466-4208/05/02 0089-13 $20.00/0 ©2005 V. Ramanathan CURRENT ISSUES IN LANGUAGE PLANNING Vol. 6, No. 2, 2005 89 Rethinking Language Planning and Policy from the Ground Up CILP076 C:\edrive\cilp\2005g\cilp2005g.vp Tuesday, April 04, 2006 11:36:40 Color profile: Disabled Composite Default screen