This session is intended to lay the foundation for the symposium titled "Innovations in Language Teacher Education in Times of Decolonization and Antiracism." The presenter will discuss why this decolonization work constitutes an imperative for the field of applied linguistics and the language teaching profession in general. It will offer participants the opportunity to build background knowledge on key topics/terms necessary to participate in this important project and, ideally, help advance this ongoing professional discussion. Therefore, the discussion of the following key terms will be at the center of this presentation: positionality, decolonization, decoloniality, hegemonic epistemologies (i.e., epistemologies from the North), epistemologies from the South, etc. The presenter will also address the following questions: Why does it matter that we work on decolonizing our field? How does this work support antiracist initiatives in applied linguistics? What role do we, applied linguistics professionals, play in this process? What can we do to legitimize other ways of knowing? How do we go about decolonizing our own research, educational, and leadership praxis? How does this work contribute to the preparation of antiracist language educators? How does this work impact our society at a time we face so many global challenges, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, water and food shortages, energy crisis, and so forth)?
Bibliography
Bhattacharya, U., Jiang, L., & Canagarajah, S. (2020). Race, representation, and diversity in the American Association for Applied Linguistics. Applied Linguistics, 41(6), 999-1004.
Diniz De Figueiredo, E.H.D., & Martinez, J. (2019). The locus of enunciation as a way to confront epistemological racism and decolonize scholarly knowledge. Applied Linguistics, 1-6. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amz061
Flores, N., & Rosa, J. (2019). Bridging race into second language acquisition. The Modern Language Journal, 103 (Supplement 2019), 145-151.
Hoppers, C. O. (February 9, 2021). Connecting decolonial and sustainable futures in education. UNESCO Chair series: Decolonising education for sustainable futures.
Kendi, A. (2019). How to be an antiracist. One World.
Kubota, R. (2016). The multi/plural turn, postcolonial theory, and neoliberal multiculturalism: Complicities and implications for applied linguistics. Applied Linguistics, 37(4), 474-494. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amu045
Kubota, R. (2019). Confronting epistemological racism, decolonizing scholarly knowledge: Race and gender in applied linguistics. Applied Linguistics, 41(5), 712-732. Applied Linguistics, 41(5), October 2020, pp. 712–732, https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amz033
Lopez, A.E. (2020). Decolonizing educational leadership. Palgrave/MacMillan.
Macedo, D. (2019). Decolonizing foreign language instruction. Routledge.
Mignolo, W., & Walsh, C.E. (2018). On decoloniality. Concepts, analytics, and praxis. Duke.
Motha, S. (2020). Is an antiracist and decolonizing applied linguistics possible? Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 40, 128-133. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0267190520000100
Patel, L. (2016). Decolonizing educational research. Routledge.
Pennycook, A., & Makoni, S. (2020). Innovations and challenges in applied linguistics from the Global South. Routledge.
Santos, B. de S. (2014). Epistemologies of the South: Justice against epistemicide. Routledge.
