(Self)critical reflexivity, decolonial Southern social/cognitive justice and affection in languages

ABSTRACT This article purports to outline critical educational perspectives, implicated in discursive and ideological life, as important foundations to expand decolonial Southern social/cognitive justice and affection. It also presents and discusses some findings of an ongoing research project with a similar theme in always already dilemmatic times. The research methodology prioritizes the qualitative and interpretive processes of meaning making grounded on each participant’s social place and on my own1 (as a coordinator of this project), based on the theories I have selected. Two Freirean notions are entrenched: (self)critical reflexivity as a constant process of resignifications and the ecology of knowledges. Both of them constitute contemporary ethical paradigms for research on language teacher education towards social/cognitive justice and affection. The partial results show evidence that language is used as a political and affective resource in the participants’ critical engagement in meaning making, while trying to problematize some of the issues under debate.