Métissage and Memory
The Politics of Literacy Education in Canadian Curriculum and Classrooms
In: The Politics of English as a World LanguageSearch for other papers by Erika Hasebe-Ludt in
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Abstract
In this essay I discuss my current research by braiding a métissage of mother tongue and other tongues that are part of students’ realities in public school and university classrooms where English has been and remains the main language of instruction. This research focuses on writing as a way to investigate the researchers’ and their students’ situatedness in between languages and literatures and the linguistic and cultural ‘mixed blood’ that is part of their identities. As part of a teacher education program at a western-Canadian university and against the background of Canadian and international cultural, sociopolitical, and linguistic differences, this writing to transgress borders becomes a métissage of local and global languages, identities, and geographies. Situating ourselves “in the middle of language” (Cixous & Calle–Gruber 1997), we (re-)create the memories and stories of our ‘lived curriculum’ in between the mixed strands of others’ stories from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds with the hope of finding new possibilities for classroom praxis and inter/trans/cross-cultural understanding and interstanding.