From Research to Transformative Action: Interpreting Research Critically From Raced, Decolonial, and Womanist Perspectives

Session Submission Type: Symposium

Abstract

The presenters in this symposium address the problematic sociopolitical construction of knowledge in the research process from critical, decolonial and womanist frameworks. Ideological issues which arise at each turn of the research project are presented: from critically constructing a literature review, gaining access to research sites, building relationships with participants, and constructing knowledge with and about multilingual communities. Through reflection on their own theoretical positions and lived experiences, each researcher makes transparent significant epistemological and ethical challenges involving privilege and marginality in knowledge production for responsive curricular transformation. Aligned with Latour’s (2005) notion of “issues matter,” we share how the processes of researching multilingual communities emerges from competing ideologies to negotiate power and imagine more equitable futures.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Critical Examination of Race, Ethnicity, Class and Gender in Education

Chair

• Rachel A. Grant, George Mason University

Papers

• Decolonizing the Spread of Research Epistemologies in a Second Language - Theresa Y. Austin, University of Massachusetts - Amherst; Yuri Kumagai, Smith College

• Negotiating the Sociopolitical in Critical Multiliteracies: Research to Walk With and Alongside Urban Indigenous Communities - Fatima Pirbhai-Illich, University of Regina

• Uncovering Orientalisms in Occupied Palestine: Transforming English Language Teacher Education. - Shelley Wong, George Mason University; Ilham Nasser, George Mason University

Discussant

• Gertrude M. Tinker Sachs, Georgia State University