Thinking through “in-betweenness”: a conversation with Suresh Canagarajah on decolonizing language education and research in South Asia

Waqar Ali Shah

doi:10.1515/applirev-2024-0195

Article

Thinking through “in-betweenness”: a conversation with Suresh Canagarajah on decolonizing language education and research in South Asia

Waqar Ali Shah
Waqar Ali Shah is a doctoral researcher at the Center for Applied language Studies (CALS), University of Jyväskylä, Finland. His research interests include Applied Linguistics, critical discourse studies, and decolonial and southern scholarship. He works as a lecturer at the Center of English language and Linguistics, Mehran University of Engineering and Technology, Pakistan. He has published his work in several top-tier journals including TESOL Quarterly, Critical Discourse Studies, Journal of Multicultural Discourses and others. As a part of international research mobility, Mr. Shah has been a visiting research fellow at Georg Eckert Institute (GEI) for international textbook research, Germany, University of Valencia, Spain, Center of Discourse Studies, Spain and Penn State University, USA and worked under the supervision of Suresh Canagarajah and Teun A. van Dijk.

Published/Copyright: January 28, 2025

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From the journal Applied Linguistics Review Volume 16 Issue 5

Abstract

This article is based on a scholarly interview with Suresh Canagarajah about decolonizing language education and research in South Asia. The interview is focused on several themes, such as Canagarajah’s personal life trajectory as a decolonial scholar, colonial knowledge structures, English fever, and ethnolinguistic response to the hegemony of English, translingual university and transepistemic education in South Asia, decolonization through English, decolonizing research practices and negotiating norms in academic writing, and the responsibilities of applied linguists in South Asia. The article concludes by suggesting transepistemic language education, countering Eurocentric ontoepistemology (e.g., logocentrism, cognitivism and humanism), globalectics and decoloniality as alternatives to rethink ELT, applied linguistics and research in colonized contexts, such as South Asia.

Keywords: decolonization; language education; ELT; research; South Asia

Corresponding author: Waqar Ali Shah, Center for Applied Language Studies, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland; and Center of English Language and Linguistics, Mehran University of Engineering and Technology, Jamshoro, Pakistan, E-mail: waqar.shah@faculty.muet.edu.pk

About the author

Waqar Ali Shah

Waqar Ali Shah is a doctoral researcher at the Center for Applied language Studies (CALS), University of Jyväskylä, Finland. His research interests include Applied Linguistics, critical discourse studies, and decolonial and southern scholarship. He works as a lecturer at the Center of English language and Linguistics, Mehran University of Engineering and Technology, Pakistan. He has published his work in several top-tier journals including TESOL Quarterly, Critical Discourse Studies, Journal of Multicultural Discourses and others. As a part of international research mobility, Mr. Shah has been a visiting research fellow at Georg Eckert Institute (GEI) for international textbook research, Germany, University of Valencia, Spain, Center of Discourse Studies, Spain and Penn State University, USA and worked under the supervision of Suresh Canagarajah and Teun A. van Dijk.

Acknowledgement

I thank Centre for Applied Language Studies (CALS), University of Jyväskylä, Finland for sponsoring my visiting fellowship at the Penn State University to work under the supervision of Suresh Canagarajah. I am particularly grateful to my PhD supervisors Tarja Nikula-Jäntti and Sari Pöyhönen and the department head Ari Huhta for their kindness and support.

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Received: 2024-06-11

Accepted: 2024-12-18

Published Online: 2025-01-28

Published in Print: 2025-09-25

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Articles in the same Issue

https://doi.org/10.1515/applirev-2024-0195

Keywords for this article

decolonization; language education; ELT; research; South Asia