As a part of the Peter Lang book series Environmental Humanities and Indigeneity, contributions are invited for an edited volume that will critically engage with the intersections of indigeneity, environmental humanities, and endangered languages from the Global South perspectives, with a particular emphasis on decolonial approaches.

Concept note:
Colonial histories did not merely redraw political borders; they redefined ecological landscapes and cultural worlds, often dispossessing indigenous peoples of their lands and marginalizing their languages. Colonial and postcolonial constructions of “environment” have tended to prioritize extractive, profit-driven models, eroding both biodiversity and linguistic diversity. Endangered indigenous languages often contain nuanced ecological knowledge - sustainable practices, environmental ethics, and place-based vocabularies - that are increasingly sidelined by dominant linguistic regimes tied to consumerist, globalized economies.

In India, the Gond language - spoken by one of the largest Adivasi communities - encodes rich forest-related vocabulary and oral traditions tied to sustainable harvesting, seasonal cycles, and wildlife conservation. Yet decades of displacement due to mining, large dam projects, and state-driven development have disrupted these linguistic ecologies. The replacement of Gond with regional dominant languages in education and administration has further eroded this knowledge system, illustrating how environmental exploitation and linguistic marginalization are deeply intertwined. In the Amazon basin, the Kichwa a.k.a. Quechua language in Ecuador preserves an intricate lexicon for rainforest biodiversity, including medicinal plants, water sources, and animal behaviors. However, oil drilling and deforestation in indigenous territories have degraded these environments, prompting language shift toward Spanish and weakening intergenerational transmission of ecological knowledge. Similarly, in Papua New Guinea, home to over 800 languages, the Mekeo language contains detailed terminologies for traditional irrigation systems and seasonal crop cycles. The promotion of cash-crop monocultures under postcolonial development agendas has displaced indigenous agricultural systems and the linguistic contexts that sustain them.

These cases underscore a shared reality across the Global South: the futures of Indigenous languages and environments are deeply intertwined, and meaningful engagement with one necessitates addressing the other through a decolonial perspective. Crucially, any discussion of indigeneity must interrogate how it is constructed as a category within the environmental contexts of the Global South - contexts still marked by colonial legacies, entrenched structural inequalities, and enduring epistemic hierarchies that continue to shape the political, economic, and cultural landscapes of countries historically subjected to colonial domination.

The contributions are being looked for on the themes which may include, but are not limited to:
Colonial and postcolonial constructions of the environment and their effects on indigenous linguistic ecologies.
The effect of language loss in the erosion of indigenous environmental knowledge.
Oral traditions, ecological ethics, and indigenous environmental resilience.
Case studies of language revitalization interconnected with ecological activism.
Decolonial methodologies in environmental humanities and linguistics in the Global South.

Submission Guidelines:
Extended abstract: 1000-1500 words, including title, author(s), affiliation(s), and 5 keywords.
Bio-note: 100–150 words per author.

Deadlines:
Abstract submission: 30/11/2025
Notification of acceptance: 31/01/2026
Full paper (5,000–5,500 words): 25/05/2026
Email submissions and queries to: [email protected]

Interdisciplinary contributions are welcomed from linguistics, anthropology, environmental studies, history, indigenous studies, and related fields.
For more details, please visit https://jadavpuruniversity.in/ongoing-projects/indigeneity-environmental-humanities-and-endangered-languages-perspectives-from-the-global-south/

Linguistic Field(s): Anthropological Linguistics
General Linguistics
Language Documentation
Linguistic Theories
Sociolinguistics