Sketches Toward a Decolonial Applied Linguistics

Abstract This special issue responds to an increasing interest in decolonial and Southern thinking in applied linguistics. In this Introduction, we first discuss some basic historical facts about colonization, and we highlight some key concepts. We then present the six contributions in the special issue. Three contributions compellingly expose the pervasiveness of coloniality and give reason to doubt that it can ever be overcome; the other three contributions open spaces for the decolonial possibilities of healing, hope, and futurity. We then discuss some key issues in decolonial and Southern scholarship, including the role of non-conventional writing in decolonial research, the differences between decolonial and social justice projects, the difficulties of decolonizing Eurocentric knowledge through Euro-Anglo-Northern tools, and deep inequities in the geopolitics of knowledge. We hope that the special issue will enable readers to re-see long-standing applied linguistics questions through decolonial and Southern lenses. We also hope to make the case why decolonial projects are worth the trouble.