How can Citizenship and National Identity be Reframed Through Decolonial Language Education?

In recent decades, governments and institutions have sought to address the challenges of globalization while promoting multilingualism on both domestic and international levels. However, achieving genuine equality in the coexistence of people, languages, social components, amongst others requires an ethical perspective that encompasses society, education, internationalization, and migration. This need becomes even more pressing when considering the influence of the prevalent neoliberal paradigm, which extends beyond a mere economic framework. French philosophers Dardot and Laval argue that neoliberalism should not be seen solely as an ideology or economic system but as a rationality that profoundly shapes human subjectivities, affecting both self-governance and the governance of others in a global context. This biopolitical framework, which often presents the illusion of choice, is related to power dynamics that significantly impact human existence.

In this context, languages emerge as inherently social and political constructs that shape individual self-perception and societal status, particularly through language education. When education fosters critical intercultural understanding, it promotes a vision of identity and citizenship rooted in difference, effectively challenging the uniformity described in Benedict Anderson's concept of "imagined communities.” This is also aligned with Paulo Freire's critical pedagogy, that is, education should empower students to critically reflect on their realities and cultivate a sense of agency. Therefore, not only does decolonial language education invite students to question the power relations embedded in language but also encourages self-decolonization through performative praxis, ensuring that decoloniality resists and becomes a universalized concept while supporting a pluralistic notion of citizenship.

All this leads us to the question: What kind of citizenship are we considering here, and how does this concept relate to language education? French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy suggests conceptualizing community as a contingent "being-together," emphasizing shared experiences rather than a common possession, which would help us move away from metaphysical or totalizing concepts. Subjectivity, then, would not be isolated; rather, it would be profoundly shaped by our experiences and relationships with others. American philosopher Donna Haraway highlights the transformative power of these encounters, asserting that our lives are fundamentally interconnected.

From this perspective, a decolonial approach to language education recognizes that languages do not exist in a vacuum; since languages and epistemologies arise from the bodies that produce them, decoloniality should make these bodies visible. Consequently, a decolonial educator acts as a political agent, allowing different bodies, voices, identities, and experiences to emerge while encouraging students to acknowledge the complexities and heterogeneities of linguistic, cultural, and societal contexts.

Therefore, being a decolonial educator does not consist simple of denaturalizing the norms imposed by colonial history; it involves recognizing coloniality within oneself and creating spaces for onto-epistemic plurality. This means actively engaging in meaningful dialogues that transform relationships and challenge the structures, conditions, and power dynamics that perpetuate inequality, marginalization, racialization, and discrimination as, for instance, articulated by decolonial scholar Catherine Walsh in her theory of interculturality.

In this view, decolonial and intercultural language education is a political project yet to come. Educators must interrogate their roles as agents of linguistic and cultural reproduction, since the manner in which we teach languages significantly shapes how our students understand themselves and their place in the world. As educators, we are not neutral actors; we are political agents with the potential to reinforce or challenge the colonial logics that underpin contemporary language education. Within a decolonial framework, plurilingualism transcends mere linguistic proficiency; it embodies the pursuit of a more just and equitable world, where plurality is viewed as a constitutive aspect of languages and citizenship rather than a challenge to be addressed or an unquestioned positive feature; essentially, it becomes a matter of ethics with a view to dismantling and delinking the assumptions that support our educational practices and opening up spaces for alternative ways of knowing, thereby decolonizing curricula, language education, universities, and institutions.

For this project, I organised three sessions titled "Decolonial Reading Group," in which Brazilian students, primarily of Italian descent and learners of the Italian language, read works by Italian authors with migratory backgrounds. We explored how the concept of Italian-ness frames language, identity, and corporeality. The encounters were enriched by the presence of one author who has personally experienced the impact of these narratives on his non-white body. Notably, during this same period, Italy was debating a change to citizenship laws. It was referred to as ius scholae and it aimed to redefine Italian-ness based on knowledge, language, and culture acquired through schooling in Italy rather than on biological traits or place of birth. Despite this proposal being ultimately not implemented, the rapid success of the petition for a referendum asking for a minor change to citizenship law demonstrated how collective action and a shared understanding of community as coexistence can promote political and institutional change, fostering hope for similar outcomes if the referendum proceeds.

In conclusion, decolonial language education as a transversal subject is not merely about altering what we teach; it is about transforming how we teach, how we understand the roles of languages and cultures in society, and how we conceptualize nation, society, universities, curricula, and our collective actions toward a more just and equitable world. This transformation should challenge the capitalist logics of production, individualism, and the dominance of Colonial/Capitalistic/Western/Modern epistemologies, creating spaces for pluralistic, intercultural, and ethically grounded educational practices that embrace other ways of knowing and being.

Francesca Dell’Olio, ILCS Visiting Fellow (2023/24)