Societal polarization can take a heavy toll on equitable relations of power, eroding people's capacity to see "the other" as anything but a threat, resulting in distrust, discrimination or violent social conflict. Interactional sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology have illuminated these dynamics, constructing critically-conscious theories of languaging which challenge hegemonic understandings (cf. Bagga-Gupta, 2018; Canagarajah, 2020; Heller, 2014; Swann & Deumert, 2018). Recent advances in sociolinguistics of ethical encounters (Kubanyiova & Creese, in press) have asked what it means and what it takes for people to encounter one another ethically beyond the boundaries of what is shared, in settings within as well as without particular affinity groups, where ideological systems and sociological imaginations clash. I adopt relational ethics (Levinas, 1998) that has informed this sociolinguistic line of inquiry to consider implications for ethically and politically engaged language teacher education (Crozet & Díaz, 2020; Heidt, forthcoming). The project is situated in eastern Slovakia with a strong presence of marginalised Roma communities. Data come from a Slovak language programme run by a third sector organisation, involving Slovak-majority volunteers teaching the language to Roma-minority women. Drawing on vignettes from classroom interactions, conversational interviews and individual participants' reflective diaries, I discuss examples of ethical encounters in this setting and reflect on lessons for language teacher education research and practice in an "uneven world" (Pennycook, 2022).
