Special Issue
Language, race and the Global South(s): Shifting lenses for equality and social justice in a contemporary multi-polar world
Kleber Aparecido da Silva
Universidade de Brasília (UnB), Brasília, DF / Brasil
CNPq | kleberunicamp@yahoo.com.br| https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7815-7767
Leketi Makalela
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, Gauteng / South Africa leketi.makalela@wits.ac.za | https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6375-5839
Proposal
Language and race - what they involve, who they construct, where they derive from, and how they are (re)formed - have long been questions in the fields of Socio- and Applied Linguistics (Antia; Makoni, 2023; Makoni, Kaiper-Marquez and Mokwena, 2022). And yet, research in these fields has historically been situated in the northern contexts of Europe and North America and, consequently, has drawn from Western and/or Northern theoretical and epistemological frameworks. This, we argue, is immensely problematic as what becomes absent from this Western/ Northern focus are the linguistic practices and language-centered frameworks of knowledges that have existed and continue to emerge outside Euro-America, namely, in what is termed the Global South(s).
The term “Global South(s)” has multiplex geographical and geopolitical connotations. In this special issue “Global South(s)” broadly refers to people, places and idea that have been left out of the grand narrative of modernity. It may at times be used to refer literally to the South, to regions of South America and much of Africa, for example, that have not been part of the upward march of economic, social and political “progress” in wealthier nations. But more importantly, it refers to broader histories of exclusion and disenfranchisement globally. Consequently, when referring to the Global South(s), we focus on those parts of the world that have been the object of European colonialism since the 15th century, and that constitute the so-called “majority world” (which is home to about 80% of the world’s population). However, the South(s) is more than a geographical region. The Global South(s) is also a political-economic term synonymous with “third”, “developing”, or “marginalized” areas around the world. Notions of the Global South(s) can refer to the urban poor in the Northern hemisphere and rural poor in the Southern hemisphere; those struggling against racial, homophobic and sexist forms of prejudice; those in precarious employment in different parts of the globe; and those unable to meet high tuition costs in universities in either the Global North or the Global South (Pennycook and Makoni, 2019).
In other hands, “the Global South(s)” is diverse and these diversities impact knowledge production and circulation. It arise from an a-theoretical impulse in the “interests of some Project, dream, desire, hope, question or pathological condition” (Bade, 2021, 21). For example, in an African context, scholarship is strongly skewed toward South Africa rather than other African contexts, even though in terms of material resources, South Africa is the most unequal country in the world. Unless research into the Global South is carried out carefully, it may further entrench the inequality of spaces such as South Africa. In other words, the term Global South is an idea not without its own challenges and contradictions, and often results in a “hierarchized space” (Makoni, 2019, p. 149) that exists in both Northern and Southern locations. Consequently, with the focus on an expansion of these geographical and political-economic spaces derives a necessary shift from Northern perspectives used to understand Southern spaces to epistemologies and theories created in and derived from Southern frameworks. Further, by acknowledging that Southern knowledges are born in struggle, we expand this proposition to include those epistemologies born during struggle and of which are a product of struggle.
Taking these espistemological issues into consideration e and concurring with other voices from the Global South (Rajagopalan, forthcoming; Ndlovu; Leketi, 2020; Cusicanqui, 2019, 2010; Keating, 2019; Palomino, 2019) much of what is happening in (Critical) Applied Linguistics and Sociolinguistics globally is based on orthodox notions of “good practice” with very little attention to the ideological and epistemological underpinnings that, in the first place, gave rise to these social practices. Consequently, situated knowledge borne out of the Platonic philosophies and the oneness ideologies of the European Enlightenment period, has, invariably, obliterated indigenous orientations towards language, the place of indigeneity and affirmation of cultural identities of the global South communities in the contemporary world. When framed in this light, there is a need, therefore, to re-centre our sociology of knowledge not only to challenge the Western/colonial paradigms of one-ness (as seen in language, race, gender, literacy discourses) but also to offer panoramic and transformed practices within the aegis of fluidity, flexibility and complexity, which define key tenets of the Southern theories and epistemologies and the people these represent. In de-universalising Western concepts such as globalization and mother tongue, for example, there is an offer for paradigm complexity on language, race and society, which extends beyond ways of knowing, being and acting previously conceived from Western hegemonies. This special issue invites papers that aim at distilling this knowledge gap by challenging Euro-American versions of reality under the umbrella term, Global South(s). In this special issue, focusing on research developed through the lens of Southern epistemologies, we invite critical scholars in Applied Linguistics and Sociolinguistics to engage with the following topics: i) equity/inequality; ii) social justice; iii) race; iv) intersectionality(s); v) language politics; vi) racial literacy; vii) globalization and; viii) its effects on contemporary society, as well as diversity, social practices, and the assertion of rights in a contemporary multipolar world.
Deadlines
Deadline for abstract submission (up to 250 words): February, 28, 2024 for kleberunicamp@yahoo.com.br and leketi.makalela@wits.ac.za
Abstract acceptance submission: March, 15, 2024
Deadline for full papers submission: until May, 31, 2024
Articles acceptance submission: June, 30, 2024
Publication: 2º Semester of 2024.
Guidelines for authors:
https://periodicos.sbu.unicamp.br/ojs/index.php/tla/about/submissions
References
Antia, B. E; Makoni, S. (2023). Southernizing Sociolinguistics: Colonialism, Racism, and Patriarchy in Language in the Global South. London, UK: Routledge.
Bade, D. (2021). Edward said, Roy asked, and the peasant responded: Reflections on peasants, popular culture and intellectuals. In: Makoni, A.; Kaiper-Marquez, A.; Verity, D. (Eds). Integrationism and Southern Theory. Rouledge Press.
Cusicanqui, S. R. Ch’ixinakax utxiwa : una reflexión sobre prácticas y discursos descolonizadores - 1a ed. - Buenos Aires : Tinta Limón, 2010.
Cusicanqui, S. R. (2019). Ch’ixinakax utxiwa A reflection on the practices and discourses of decolonization. Language, Culture and Society 1:1 (2019), pp. 106–119. https://doi.org/10.1075/lcs.00006.riv.
Keating, C. (2019) Coloniality of knowledge, Ch’ixinakax utxiwa, and intercultural translation: The (im)pertinence of language and discourse studies. Language, Culture and Society 1:1 (2019), pp. 141–146. https://doi.org/10.1075/lcs.00010.kea
Makoni, S.; Kaiper-Marquez, A.; Mokwena, L. (2022). The Routledge Handbook of Language and the Global South/s. London, UK: Routledge.
Makoni, S. (2019). Conflicting reactions to chi‟ixnakax utxiwa. Language, Culture and Society, 1(1), 147-151.
Ndlovu; F.; Leketi, L. (2020). Decolonising Multilingualism in Africa: Recentering Silenced Voices from the Global South. London, UK: Routledge.