Writing a ‘Manifesto for Good Living/ Buen Vivir’ Boaventura de Sousa Santos writes from the perspective of the ragged and loosely affiliated people engaged in social movements worldwide, not least through gatherings like the World Social Forum. In imagining a generalized subject position for this work, he states:

A few of us speak colonial languages; the large majority of us speak other languages. Since only a small number of us have voice, we resort to ventriloquists, whom we call rearguard intellectuals, because they go on doing what they have always done well: looking back. (Santos, 2014)

The rural dimension of language I explore here, is practice-led and land-connected. It has a particular genealogy when I look back, It was practice-led and intensely rural. It was theatre proclaimed into auditoria of up to 2,000 people at a time, in proud dialectal form, with no lapel amplification, week in week out throughout each summer, from the high sunshine of the afternoons into the darkness of the night performances under the moon, and the stars.

In this paper I will provide a genealogical view of the urban and rural political economy which shaped my own language learning, encouraging listeners to consider their own, and in this light. I will invite artists to join me in the reflections on speech and its urban, educational, and rural, educational inflections and consider ways in which our identities are shaped in by land, languages, arts and translations.