Languages of Becoming: Intersectional Identities, Embodied Justice, and the Autoethnographic Gaze

Multiple Presenter Session: Panel

Abstract

This panel examines the intersections of language, identity, and institutional navigation through autoethnographic inquiry. It highlights the lived experiences of transnational, multilingual, and racialized scholars and educators who negotiate cultural, linguistic, and professional expectations within U.S. educational contexts. Drawing from borderlands theory, theory of standard language ideology, and decolonial feminist perspectives, the papers explore how individuals resist normative discourses and construct meaning through processes of negotiation, positionality, and becoming. By centering embodied experiences and narrative inquiry, our work advances autoethnography as a critical method for examining how language and identity are shaped by, and in turn resist, systems of power, belonging, and marginalization in educational contexts.

Sub Track

• AESA

Discussant

• Wenyang Sun, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Presenters

• Xiao Hu, University of Utah

• Gift Onwubuya, University of Utah