In this paper we discuss the academic researcher's role in producing and maintaining social inequalities and power relations when doing research, and how these obstacles can be overcome with applying a participatory approach in the linguistic ethnography of a community formed around a language revitalisation movement. Although social inequalities and power relations have always been there on the horizon of the study of language in society, the dilemma that the researcher is part of these relations has rarely been posed. Yet linguists derive their expertise precisely from the fact that they have a different kind of knowledge about language than those who have no linguistic training. In our presentation, we outline the relationship between the participatory approach and linguistic ethnography as one in which the language expertise of linguists and non-linguists can be transformed into shared knowledge, not through the persuasion of non-linguists, but through practices of collective action. The paper is based on ethnographic research on a community directly or indirectly participating in a programme aimed to revitalise the Hungarian language in North-East Romanian Moldavia. We argue that while language expertise belongs to all, linguists and non-linguists alike, a kind of knowledge that reflects the social inequalities associated with differences in language expertise can only be achieved by shaping it into the co-creation of knowledge through collective action. The participatory approach is seen as a form of such action.
