Southernizing frameworks of knowledge in the Ecuadorian Global Souths
Open Access
- Author:
- Madany-Saa, Magdalena
- Graduate Program:
- Curriculum and Instruction
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- May 30, 2023
- Committee Members:
- Suresh Canagarajah, Outside Field Member
Mari Haneda, Chair & Dissertation Advisor
Sinfree Makoni, Outside Field Member
Allison Henward, Major Field Member
Rebecca Tarlau, Outside Unit Member
Carla Zembal-Saul, Program Head/Chair - Keywords:
- sumak kawsay
Global South
ELT
English language policy
locus of enunciation
ecology of knowledges
decolonial cracks
epistemic agency - Abstract:
- This 3-article dissertation seeks theoretical and pedagogical alternatives for English Language Teaching (ELT) within a linguistic ecology of knowledges in plurinational Ecuador. The main concern is how teacher educators of the hegemonic English language define knowledge in constructing a knowledge-based society and what initiatives are undertaken in English language teacher preparation programs to implement the constitutional mandate of sumak kawsay, Kichwa concept of good living. The study explores the implementation of sumak kawsay in an English teacher preparation program and the epistemic role of educational actors in English and Kichwa teacher preparation programs in an Ecuadorian teachers’ college established in 2016 as a response to the constitutional mandate to prepare future educators accordingly with the indigenous principle of sumak kawsay. Southern concepts of ecology of knowledges (Santos, 2015) and decolonial cracks (Mignolo and Walsh, 2018) were employed to analyze western and indigenous knowledges as part of the same ecology and to challenge the rhetoric of modernity that maintains the logic of coloniality in education. Between 2018 and 2022, interviews, focus groups, and document analysis were conducted with 23 participants using the methodology of Institutional Ethnography (Campbell, 1998; Smith, 2005). Indexing, mapping, and account memo-ing were used to establish the problematics of the research and analyze the data. Article 1 identifies five strands in the decolonial scholarship in applied linguistics and language education accordingly with the decolonial purposes scholarship serves and emphasizing the importance of scholars’ loci of enunciation in decolonial research. Article 2 examines the potential of contesting the western standard-based curricula in ELT. It demonstrates how curricular decisions as well as place-based pedagogy can decolonize ELT. Article 3 compares the language beliefs and practices in English and Kichwa language teacher preparation programs and argues that English language advocates (Spolsky, 2019) generate powerful discourses legitimizing and empowering western knowledge and Global English while essentializing views of Indigenous knowledge and languages. In sum, this 3-article dissertation highlights the decolonial options in language education in Latin American countries and elsewhere by employing concepts of ecology of knowledges and delinking from the structures of coloniality/modernity still present in ELT and in English language policies. The author recognizes her locus of enunciation as a member of the ELT community which defines the purpose of her decolonial scholarship. This study encourages English language educators in Ecuador and elsewhere who struggle for social and cognitive justice to establish a dialogue among different ways of knowing (western and indigenous) and engage in connecting decolonial cracks in the Global South.