Although one in five state-educated children in England speaks a language other than English at home, there is little space in the National Curriculum for the expression of this linguistic heritage. In this article we make the case for facilitating multilingualism in the primary classroom through translingual creative writing, which involves mixing two or more languages. We draw on empirical research with a class of lower Key Stage 2 children of diverse linguistic backgrounds and abilities at a school in south London. The pupils were set the task of writing a poem that combined English with other languages so that we could observe how they engaged with the process of translanguaging. We suggest that translingual writing exercises in the classroom provide a range of benefits, including the creation of a space for the valorisation of children's cultural capital; the facilitation of valuable peer-teaching and collaboration; freedom to explore playfulness with language; and a chance to experiment with and reflect on creative writing processes.
This article contrasts strategies of resistance to gender-based violence in two examples of audio-visual media which draw on or subvert the burgeoning genre of Galician noir; Season 1 of the TVG-Netflix hit O sabor das margaridas () directed by Miguel Conde and the women-centred grassroots feminist web series Monstras () directed by Eire García Cid. These divergent case studies muddy the binary of female victimhood and male aggression whilst drawing attention to the hegemonic sexual politics and socio-economic systems which facilitate and endorse violence against women and girls. Yet while Monstras stands as a paradigmatic example of a socially conscious, ideologically driven artistic response to patriarchal violence, the feminist attributes of O sabor das margaridas are largely trumped by commercial concerns, shown for example through the eroticization of violence. Though Galician noir has made a breakthrough on international streaming media by foregrounding women’s resistance to gender-based violence, this tends to be manipulated by the bid for viewer ratings. Fundamentally, it continues to be in alternative media where some of the most revolutionary conversations about women’s rights are taking place in the Galician cultural sphere.
Dynamic, multifaceted and multimodal feminist and woman-led artistic production has made its mark in the Galician cultural sphere in recent years. Non-canonical artistic formulations located on the fringes of, and often serving as a challenge to, mainstream Galician culture reveal new ways of thinking about gender from peripheral, non-hegemonic and decolonial positions. Galician women are engaging in creative and experimental forms of self-expression, self-production and consumption of culture by reconfiguring and ‘refashioning’ Galician feminisms and femininities within a global framework. Particularly timely in the wake of the #MeToo movement, 8M women’s strikes and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on gender equality, and with social media playing an ever more prominent role in the diffusion of grassroots feminist activism, contemporary Galician creative practice by, for and about women has much to teach us in how it challenges heteropatriarchal binaries and stereotypes.
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