Teacher Researchers Exploring Urban Semiotic Landscape as a Decolonizing Space

• In Event: Building Otherwise Multilingual Educational Research: Examples From the Field

Abstract

This decolonial inquiry revolves around a collaborative ethnography of place with 45 teacher-researchers exploring urban landscapes in the historic center of Bogotá, Colombia. This study includes the perspectives of language teacher researchers as ethnographers exploring urban semiotic landscapes in the historic district of Bogotá, Colombia. We posed the question: What can teacher-researchers learn from studying the urban semiotic landscape of the historic district from a decolonial lens? As teacher-researchers and ethnographers, we explored the urban semiotic landscapes in the historic district of Bogotá, the capital city of Colombia. As part of the study, we searched for local studies that include the social, cultural, and historical reality of learners and teachers, their problems, motivations, aspirations and needs to change the instrumental, apolitical vision of language teaching in teacher education programs (Quintero & Clavijo, 2023). We analyzed how teacher researchers engage with wall art and linguistic landscapes to inform instructional practices. We constructed our data from (1) ethnographic walks to map the historic district's places and text plurality; (2) we collected a photographic corpus of 387 pictures that were analyzed using a format designed collaboratively, and with the research assistants, and (3) we interviewed graffiti artists Ultra LXP, Polígrafo Ecléctico, Ospen, Cigarra en tinta, and Chico Rager.

By walking, photographing murals, interviewing urban artists, and working with schools in the sector, the research team, conformed of teacher-researchers, noticed how the urban semiotic landscape portrayed decolonial discourses. The teacher-researchers in urban communities noticed that recognizing racial and linguistic diversity offered by places makes local sources and ways of being visible in a decolonizing education. After teachers took up the streets and photographed urban art pieces (mainly graffiti and murals), we noticed the prevalence of decolonial messages embedded in them. In a context where mestizo-white and male representations dominate the school curriculum, official historical accounts, and media, street murals, on the contrary, highlight women, indigeneity, Black identities, and environmentalism. When teachers and students read semiotic landscapes in larger historical and sociological contexts, they can decolonize multilingual educational practices beyond the school context.
Our analysis suggests that the teachers-researchers in our study learned about decolonizing space by (1) headlining Indigenous presence in the urban setting, (2) centering Black womanhood, Caribbean, and migrant identities, (3) promoting subaltern literacies, 4) supporting communities through activist art, and (5) advocating for nature.

Decolonizing educational research might be one step in decolonizing resources and territories in Latin American societies (Mignolo & Escobar, 2012). Our decolonial inquiry pushed us to negotiate multiple interpretations historically and move beyond traditionally logo-centric research as we collaborated to interpret signs that used visual resources rather than words. We call for a shift in teacher education programs to decolonial pedagogies that aim to integrate locally situated social and cultural resources for teaching, learning, and researching. An emphasis on broader, more diverse perspectives on language and literacies is required to counteract mainstream narratives.

Authors

• Rosa Medina Riveros, University of Massachusetts - Amherst

• Amparo Clavijo Olarte, Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas

• Daniel Calderon