Changing orientations to language, informed by poststructuralism and postcolonialism, challenge modernist representations of languages as bounded entities, tied to particular territories and identities (Canagarajah, 2019; Makoni and Pennycook, 2007). Viewing language as a hybrid and fluid practice, these developments question the theoretical foundations of research and pedagogies that separate languages. Most empirical studies supporting this turn center on immigrant populations in diverse urban environments. Less attention is paid to Indigenous groups in their traditional homelands, who might see the discourses about hybridity as threatening to their distinctiveness and sovereignty (Lyons, 2009).To address this problem, my study examines language ideologies and language maintenance efforts of the Circassians, an Indigenous people of the North-West Caucasus. Through a 10-month ethnographic study in Adygea, one of the republics of Russia where the Circassians reside, I explore how the Circassian community conceptualizes the notion of language and how their understandings shape family language policies and teaching approaches in urban and rural areas. Employing a Comparative Case Study approach, I situate my ethnographic study within a wide historical-political context. The collected data encompasses interviews, focus groups, questionnaires, classroom observations, curricular documents, photographs of classroom decor, language policies, and archival documents pertaining to the problem of Circassian language development. The participants of the study were Circassian parents, teachers, schoolchildren, school principals, local government representatives, and local scholars. I illustrate that the modern Russian state accepts indigenous language maintenance initiatives only if they are depoliticized and revolve around the discussions of heritage and tradition while acknowledging the key role of Russian in the country's present and future. Politicized indigenous activism is persecuted, being perceived as a threat to the state's territorial and political integrity. In this context, the Circassians treat their ancestral language as an emblem of their ethnic group and a prerequisite for its continuation, avoiding a critical examination of the historical-political factors that made them a minority and motivated language shift to Russian. Through educational, media, and local government discourses, Circassian language maintenance is portrayed as the responsibility of the community itself, although, as my data analysis illustrates, the conditions for supporting its use in families and schools are far from favorable. Simultaneously, the state is promoting the use of Russian through educational policies, seeking to weaken the link between ethnicity and local indigenous languages and impose on its population a common civic identity, inseparable from the Russian language, culture, and history. My findings show that the Circassian community, in particular schools, covertly resists the deconstruction of the language-ethnicity nexus, prioritizing local language ideologies over state-imposed policies. Through this case, I demonstrate that the deconstruction of the language-ethnicity-territory link can further marginalize Indigenous groups in repressive contexts like modern Russia. While the rhetoric and policies introduced by the Russian state do not directly draw on poststructuralist linguistics, there are concerning overlaps between them, which suggests that anti-essentialist discourse can be manipulated by states to oppress minoritized groups. The dissertation argues for the need to include into postmodern orientations to language a more nuanced discussion of indigenous language maintenance issues in lesser-known contexts. At the same time, it considers how indigenous education can benefit from translingual approaches that build on learners' entire linguistic repertoires and normalize dialectal diversity while being sensitive to local language ideologies and historical-political context. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]