This study focuses on one Truku (Indigenous) village in eastern Taiwan and aims to understand the processes and possibilities of bottom-up language policy formation and implementation. In 2012, the first author assisted the villagers to start a community-driven language revitalization initiative. Drawing on scholarship guided by critical Indigenous research methodologies, and critical sociocultural approaches to language policy and planning, this paper continues the conversation about the complex and dynamic processes of collaboration and relationship building in developing bottom-up language revitalization. Affirming the role of relationship in collaboration, the study argues that it is the dialogue of individuals’ intersecting social positions that makes relationship building possible. The newly developed relationship further transforms each other’s position(s) in praxis. As the dichotomy between the researched and the researchers is blurred, the authors further argue that the relationship comes along with responsibility, challenging the silenced dialogue of “exiting” in traditional research ethics. Methodologically, this study contributes to the scholarship of language policy and planning by exploring an alternative, democratic, humanizing way of doing language policy and planning research that prioritizes local knowledge, voice, and engagement. Additionally, drawn from Indigenous epistemology, the recognition of human relationships in praxis critically features the affective dimension of LPP, offering a more holistic and developmental understanding of the process.
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