In this episode of the Happy Revolution, Matt and Rayne chat with Brittany Hoback as she finishes her Ph.D. in Linguistics here at Te Herenga Waka - Victoria University of Wellington. Brittany’s Ph.D. work partners with her family and community in Vanuatu to create a writing system for their oral language. Rayne, Matthew, and Brittany chat about how to write a language, culture, structural violence, faith, and the agency of the individual. Brittany’s deep insight offers hope in the face of structural oppression.

Show notes

• Banam Bay Language: Documentation and Endangered Language Maintenance (Endangered Language Archives)
• View of Tok stori as pedagogy: an approach to school leadership education in Solomon Islands (Kabini Sanga et al)
• Prejudice Across America by James Waller | Goodreads (2000)
• Sharing Aloha on the mainland: Cultural Identity and Connecting to Heritage through Commercial Luau Shows in Central Florida (Brittany’s MA thesis, 2014)
• ‘On Suffering and Structural Violence: A View from Below’, Paul Farmer, Race/Ethnicity: Multidisciplinary Global Contexts, 2009
• The Psalms, from the Hebrew Bible
• Singer Trilogy by Calvin Miller | Goodreads (1975)
• God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics by C.S. Lewis | Goodreads (1971)

Many thanks to everyone who makes this podcast possible. Music by Toby Sussex. Logo by Adam De Jong. Production, editing, and show notes by Matthew Bartlett and Rayne Aldridge. This podcast is associated with Chaplaincy VUW. Send questions / comments / feedback to Rayne: aldridrayn@myvuw.ac.nz