Chamada de trabalhos: Número temático "Linguística (Aplicada) do Sul: Avanços e desafios" - v. 26, n. 1, 2025

Special Issue

Southernizing (Applied) Linguistics: Affordances, Advances and Challenges

Rationale for the Special Issue

Although the terms ‘decolonization’ and Southern epistemologies overlap and have, at times, been used interchangeably, in this special issue, we prefer ‘Southern epistemologies’ or ‘Theories of the South(s)’ because the term decolonization, with its multiple meanings, revolves around the concept of coloniality, whereas Southern epistemologies or Theories of the South(s) focus on colonization, patriarchy, racism, White supremacism, and other forms of oppression. According to Makoni, Kaiper-Marquez, and Mokwena (2022), there are, however, subtle differences in Southern Theories even though in all cases experiences of people from the South are the terra firma on which Southern Theories are built. For Comaroff and Comaroff (2011) the main emphasis is on the practical theory of the disenfranchised, while for Santos and Meneses (2020) it is the subjugated experiences of the disenfranchised born in struggle which is significant.
In this special issue, we explore Southernizing (Applied) Linguistics, which is a product of Southern epistemologies and a type of resistance or subversive scholarship grounded in activism. In Southernizing Applied Linguistics, the quests for cognitive and for social justice are inseparable. Cognitive and social approaches are thus not treated as dichotomous but, rather, as different sides of the same coin. Notably, resistance Southernizing Applied Linguistics (Silva and Cobucci, 2024; Antia and Makoni, 2022; Pennycook and Makoni, 2019) is subversive and is grounded in two approaches to the politics of metalanguage.
On the one hand, in Southernizing Applied Linguistics, the metalanguage that we use is construed as inadequate to capture our life experiences. Southernizing Applied Linguistics, through processes of appropriation, elevation, animation, and population creates new affordances (Nair and de Souza, 2020), accomplished by drawing on metalanguage grounded in the plurilinguistic landscape of local environments. Drawing on metalanguage enhances the legitimacy and accessibility of applied linguistics scholarship. On the other hand, legitimacy may lead to a breakdown of mutual comprehensibility of metalanguage across applied linguistics. Southern Epistemologies foregrounds the tension which is at the center of language scholarship which on the one hand seeks to be socially relevant while at the same time part of the western academy (Hutton, 2022).
Southernizing applied linguistics requires a shift in the ‘geography of reason’ (Gordon, 2020) because it is incompatible with the notions of a field or discipline. It utilizes open, unconfigured spaces of learning as opposed to disciplines; thus, when we talk about the affordances of Southernizing and applied linguistics, there is tension. Disciplines carry with them the burden of being closed off, discrete. Notably, Southernizing scholarship is not antagonistic but is uncomfortable with the idea of a discipline that has undemocratic and hierarchical features. The consequences of the terminological shift (metalanguage) and the shift of the geography of where ‘reason’ is produced, allow for changes in who the knowledge producers are and what kinds of knowledges are viewed as legitimate. The main difference between the orientation to Southern Epistemologies adopted in this special issue with that reflected in the work of Heugh et al. (2021) is that it is undergirded by a strong pan-Africanist orientation animated by the work of Molefi Asante’s robust notion of Afrocentrism and draws on a broader range of decolonial scholarship, some of which has its roots in Islamic scholarship which is frequently excluded in mainstream Southern Epistemologies and Decolonial Scholarship (Iris, 2018).

In this special issue, focusing on research developed through the lens of Southern epistemologies (Molefi Asante, 2007; Boaventura de Sousa Santos and Meneses, 2020, Jean Comaroff and Jane Gordon, 2022; Pennycook; Makoni, 2019) , researchers of the Brazil and the Global South(s) will engage with the following content:

i) The politics of the constitution of language, and its metalanguage, in the Global South(s);
ii) Who gets published in (Applied) Linguistics?
iii) Language in the Global South(s) and the social inscription of difference;
iv) Learning and the quotidian experience of language and critical language education in the Global South(s).

Schedule/Deadlines:

- Submission of the abstract of the article proposal for this special issue and evaluation by the Editors of this special issue: From November 22, 2024 to January 22, 2025: kleberunicamp@yahoo.com.br; leketi.makalela@wits.ac.za Author guidelines: https://periodicos.unb.br/index.php/les/about/submissions.

- Dissemination of the abstracts of approved proposals via email: From February 16, to February 28, 2025.
- Submission of approved proposal for this special issue and evaluation by the Journal Editorial Committee: March 1, 2024 to March, 30, 2025: Author guidelines: https://periodicos.unb.br/index.php/les/about/submissions

- Evaluation of submitted articles by the Journal Editorial Committee: April 1 to May 30, 2025.
- Publication of special issue: 1st semester 2025.

References
Antia, B., & Makoni, S. (Eds.). (2022). Southernizing sociolinguistics. Routledge
Asante, M. K. (2007). The Afrocentric manifesto: Toward an African renaissance. Ungai Books
Comaroff, J., & Comaroff, J. (2015). Theory from the South: Or, How Euro-America is evolving toward Africa. Routledge.
Comaroff, J., & Gordon, J. (2022). Interlude. In S. Makoni, A. Kaiper-Marquez, & L. Mokwena (Eds.), Language in the Global South/s. Routledge.
Connell, R. (2007). Southern theory: Social science and the global dynamics of knowledge. Polity.
Deumert, A., & Makoni, S. (Eds). (Under review). From southern theory to decolonising sociolinguistics.
Gordon, L. (2020). Freedom, justice, and decolonization. Routledge.
Heugh, K., Stroud, C., Taylor-Leech, K., & De Costa, P. I. (Eds.). (2021). A sociolinguistics of the South. Routledge.
Hutton, C. (Forthcoming). Can there be a politics of language? Reflections on language and metalanguage. In B. Antia & S. Makoni (Eds.). Southernizing sociolinguistics. Routledge.
Iris, M. (2018). War for peace: Genealogies of a violent ideal in western Islamic thought. Oxford University Press.
Riemer, N. (2020). African Studies Global Virtual Forum.
Makoni, S., Kaiper-Marquez, A., & Mokwena, L. (Eds.). (2022). Language in the Global South/s. Routledge.
Nair, R. B., & de Souza, P. R. (Eds.). (2020). Keywords for India: A conceptual lexicon for the 21st century. Bloomsbury.
Pennycook, A., & Makoni, S. (2019). Innovations and challenges to applied linguistics from the Global South. Routledge Press.
Santos, B. de S., & Meneses, M. P. (Eds.) (2020). Knowledges Born in the struggle: Constructing the epistemologies of the Global South. Routledge.
Silva, K. A.; Cobucci, P. (Orgs). Perspectivas decoloniais nos estudos da linguagem. Campinas, SP: Mercado de Letras, 2024.
Smith, L. T. (1999). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and Indigenous peoples. Zed Books.