In this workshop we will have an open, exploratory discussion among language scholars about the conditions of scientific integrity in scholarly work committed to social justice. In applied linguistics, in particular, scholarly research and community engagement may be closely intertwined, and researchers often enter highly charged political contexts. How do we navigate tensions between social and political aims and commitments, on the one hand, and the aspiration to produce narratives and analyses with some form of context-transcending validity, on the other? Scholars engaged in language research in South Africa and other African countries, the Caribbean, the US, Croatia, and Norway will present projects and work experience that illustrate some of the challenges of socially engaged scholarship and point to some possible responses.
Participation in the workshop is by invitation only.