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Call for Chapter Contributions

Publisher: Springer

Volume Editors:

Benachour Saidi, Mohamed First University, Morocco

Yolanda López García, Chemnitz University of Technology, Germany

Abdellah El Boubekri, Mohamed First University, Morocco

 

Decentering Racism in Intercultural Communication and Pedagogy: Perspectives from the Periphery  

 

Book Overview

There is a growing body of critical scholarship that interrogates racial dynamics and logics perpetuating raciolinguitics, institutional racism, epistemological racism, epistemic injustice, coloniality, social/racial hierarchies, monoculturalism, monolingualism, othering/otherness, White supremacy and native speakerism in the discipline of intercultural communication research and teaching (e.g., Motha, 2014; Moon & Holling, 2015; Rosa & Flores, 2017; Kubota, 2020; Rawls & Duck, 2020; Martin & Nakayama, 2021; Nakayama & Halualani, 2023). In this regard, many scholars argue that intercultural scholarship has historically been complicit in reproducing racial hierarchies, colonial histories, Eurocentric narratives, essentialized representations and power structures, often rendered in privileging Whiteness, Anglo-centric cultural norms and monolingual ideologies while marginalizing the linguistic, cultural, and epistemological archaeologies of post-colonial contexts (e.g., Aman, 2017; Meighan, 2022 ; Mignolo, 2011 ; Santos, 2018;  Walsh, 2018).

Issues of race, racism and racialization have been critically unpacked in relation to the social, intellectual, political and institutional practices that often sustain systemic injustices and biases within intercultural communication studies. For example, Nakayama and Martin (2007) contend that much of what is understood as ‘intercultural knowledge’ is shaped by White racial ideology, in which Western perspectives and experiences remain dominant. Moon and Collins (2015) illustrate further how the race(ing) of intercultural scholarship is often reinforced through structural and discursive practices that position Whiteness as the invisible norm against which all other cultures are measured and Othered. Kubota (2004), similarly, elaborates that the perpetuation of racial workings is often maintained through epistemological racism that establishes hierarchies in knowledge production and consumption as well as the liberal/Western approaches to multiculturalism, which often promote color-blind or difference-blind ideologies, exoticize and essentialize non-Western cultures, and obscure underlying power dynamics and privilege. These discourses emphasize the dominance of Anglo-Saxon normativity and Eurocentric ideologies and colonial hierarchies (Kumaravadivelu, 2016), resulting in colonial legacies and imperial mindsets (Meighan, 2022).

In the context of intercultural language teaching and learning, research suggests that racial dynamics and biases are evident in language textbook discourses, curricula and practices. For instance, English language teaching/learning textbooks often present material that favors the representation of Whites over other races (Bowen & Hopper, 2023), portray racial and cultural groups in essentialized ways (Apple, 2004), and contribute to the reproduction of racial inequities in language classrooms by racializing and marginalizing local cultures and identities of the minority group (R’boul & Saidi, 2024; Saidi, 2024). Intercultural racial inequality is further sustained through the adoption of monocultural and monolingual perspectives that are grounded in White-centered epistemology. This practice often positions the non-dominant races and cultures as inferior (Lee, 2015). To this end, this edited volume is a call for critical and nuanced engagement with all forms of racism in intercultural communication and pedagogy that moves beyond the facades of the language of diversity and inclusion, which often celebrate difference in a depoliticized and reductive way, thus overlooking structures of power, privilege and inequality in language classrooms.

In this edited volume, we argue that despite efforts to disrupt all forms of racism within intercultural communication and interculturality through various critical and antiracist interventions (e.g., Kubota & Motha, 2024), systemic structures of intercultural hierarchies and racialization may remain unproblematized. This is because, for too long, educational policies and practices have favored dominant languages and cultures, overlooking the invaluable contributions of those from marginalized communities. The prevailing systems often legitimize racialized identities and perpetuate a hierarchy of knowledge that dismisses non-Western epistemologies and pedagogies. This book is firmly anchored in scholarship that advances antiracism, decolonization, anti-oppression, and equity, diversion, and inclusion that are formulated from the epistemes of minoritized or oppressed populations themselves irrespective of their geocultural location.

Nonetheless, rebutting racism in intercultural scholarship will remain incomplete if no reference is made to the ubiquitous impact of digital media and Artificial Intelligence (AI) on every aspect of contemporary human life. Therefore, the volume encourages nuanced research inquiries into social E-maginaries (López García, 2024), racial narratives and colonial patterns within digital interculturality (Lenehan, 2024), showcasing how digital spaces and algorithmic dynamics are reproducing, challenging and reconfiguring hegemonic discourses and power asymmetries. The volume interrogates further the dialectical tensions within digital interculturality, inviting critical perspectives that expose both the complicity and subversive potential of social network sites and digital platformization in shaping racial (un)equalities through intercultural discourses.

Contributors are invited to consider any of the following themes in their chapter proposals, including but not limited to:

1. Epistemological Racism and the Race(ing) of Intercultural Scholarship
2. Coloniality in Intercultural Pedagogy and Intercultural Communication
3. Racial Hierarchies in Language Education
4. Race and Racialization in Institutional Practices
5. Digital Interculturality and Algorithmic Racism: Reproducing or Resisting Hegemonic Discourses
6. Whiteness, White Supremacy and the (Un)Making of Interculturality
7. Decolonial Approaches to Intercultural Pedagogy and Intercultural Communication
8. Anti-Racist Pedagogies and Intercultural Transformative Pedagogies
9. The role of Digital Activism in promoting anti-racism culture and intercultural dialogue.
10.  The impact of the representation of racialized groups on intercultural communication in global media
11. Transnational Solidarity of marginalized communities across borders
12. Globalization and perpetuation of racial inequalities in intercultural communication
13. E-maginaries of coloniality in social network sites shaping Digital Interculturality

Submission Deadlines:

Abstract (250-300 words max)	April 25, 2025
Decision (accept/reject)	May 30, 2025
Submission of full chapters	September 30, 2025
Review and Report to be sent to authors	November 30, 2025
Final drafts of each chapter to be submitted	January 15, 2026
Submission of the book to the publisher	March 30, 2026
Publisher	Springer

 

Contributors send their abstracts 250-300 words including 5 keywords alongside their biodata to the editors by April 25, 2025 at springerproposals@gmail.com  

References:

Apple, M., & Apple, M.W. (2004). Ideology and curriculum. Routledge.

Bowen, NEJA, & Hopper, D. (2023). The representation of race in English language learning textbooks: Inclusivity and equality in images. Tesol Quarterly , 57 (4), 1013-1040.

Kubota, R. (2004). Critical multiculturalism and second language education. Critical pedagogies and language learning, 30, 52.

Kubota, R. (2020). Confronting epistemological racism, decolonizing scholarly knowledge: Race and gender in applied linguistics. Applied Linguistics, 41(5), 712–732.

Kubota, R., & Lin, A. (2009). Race, culture, and identities in second language education. Race, culture and identities in second language education: Exploring critically engaged practice, 1-23.

Kubota, R., & Motha, S. (Eds.). (2024). Race, Racism, and Antiracism in Language Education. Routledge.

Kumaravadivelu, B. (2016). The decolonial option in English teaching: Can the subaltern act?. TESOL quarterly, 50(1), 66-85.

Lee, E. (2015). Doing culture, doing race: Everyday discourses of ‘culture’ and ‘cultural difference’ in the English as a second language classroom. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 36(1), 80–93.

Lenehan, F. (2024). Examining realised and unrealised contacts: theoretical thoughts on digital interculturality. Language and Intercultural Communication, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/14708477.2024.2419666

López García, Y. (2024). Exploring the Interplay of Lifewide Learning, Migration, and Social Network Sites in the Postdigital Field of Action. In Conti, L. & Lenehan, F. (Eds.), Lifewide Learning in Postdigital Societies: Shedding Light on Emerging Culturalities. Bielefeld: transcript, 105–129.

Meighan, P. J. (2022). Colonialingualism: colonial legacies, imperial mindsets, and inequitable practices in English language education. Diaspora, Indigenous, and Minority Education, 17(2), 146–155. https://doi.org/10.1080/15595692.2022.2082406

Mignolo, W. (2011). The darker side of western modernity: Global futures, decolonial options. Duke University Press.

Moon, D. G., & Holling, M. A. (2015). A politic of disruption: Race(ing) intercultural communication. Journal of International and Intercultural Communication, 8(1), 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404517000562  

Motha, S. (2014). Race, empire, and English language teaching: Creating responsible and ethical anti-racist practice. Teachers College Press.

Motha, S. (2020). Is an antiracist and decolonizing applied linguistics possible? Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 40, 128–133. doi: 10.1017/S0267190520000100

Nakayama, T. K., & Martin, J. N. (2007). The white problem in intercultural communication research and pedagogy. In L. M. Cooks, & J. Simpson (Eds.), Whiteness, pedagogy, performance: Dis/placing race (pp. 111–137). Lexington. Books.

Rawls, A. W., & Duck, W. (2020). Tacit racism. University of Chicago Press.

R'boul, H., & Saidi, B. (2024). Critical Race Theory, Interculturality and Power Imbalances: Intersectionality in English Language Education. In L. Padilla & R. Vana (Eds.), Representation, Inclusion and Social Justice in World Language Teaching (pp. 13–31). Routledge.

Rosa, J., & Flores, N. (2017). Unsettling race and language: Toward a raciolinguistic perspective. Language in Society, 46(5), 621–647.

Rosa, J., & Flores, N. (2021). Decolonization, language, and race in applied linguistics and social justice. Applied Linguistics, 42(6), 1162–1167. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amab062  

Saidi, B. (2024). Intercultural education in the Global South: decolonizing canonical intercultural models in Moroccan University MA program courses. Language and Intercultural Communication , 1-15.

Santos, B. D. S. (2011). Épistémologies du sud. Études rurales, (187), 21-50.

Walsh, C. (2018). Interculturality and Decoloniality. In Mignolo, W., & C. Walsh (Eds.), On decoloniality: Concepts, analytics, praxis (pp. 57–80). Duke University Press.