The International Linguistic Association has held conferences in many countries around the world, including one in Latin America, where in 1972, the 18th Annual Conference took place in Arequipa, Perú. Now, after several decades have passed, the ILA will return to Latin America in 2019 for its 64th Annual Conference to be held in Buenos Aires, Argentina. In the International Year of Indigenous Languages (proclaimed by the United Nations), the central theme of this conference, language and territory, will explore the current debates around local, national and global languages and literacies; the ways in which linguistic borders have been defined, enforced, and inherited, but also challenged, through time, by means of geographical, political and social justifications; and how these practices are being re-examined today.
The relationships between languages and territories have been constructed and interrogated across social groups and communities throughout different moments in history. In the twenty-first century, equating languages with national identities and borders is being met with recurrent resistance: In a world of mobile communication, social and mass media networks, and increasing migration, transidiomatic practices demonstrate how social identities and practices clash with the language policies and language ideologies that remain tied to single nation-states.
In keeping with the ILA tradition, we also invited individual papers or posters on other areas of linguistics.
Three-hour workshops were held for teachers on topics related to the teaching of language, literacy and/or linguistics.
The conference encouraged use of these three languages and at the same time provided access to all participants for any session by requiring that presentations in one language be accompanied by slides or handouts in one of the other languages.