Introduction to the Special Issue: Pluriversalizing the Teaching and Learning of Spanish

Abstract

<p>We choose to begin this Editorial piece by acknowledging and paying our respect to the traditional custodians of the lands from which this work originates: Turrbal and Jagera Country, in Meanjin, otherwise known as Brisbane, as well as the Anaiwan people on the Ancestral Land of the Ngawanya, otherwise referred to as Armidale. We recognize First Nations peoples' enduring connection to these lands, waters, and the fact that their sovereignty has never been ceded. It is with gratitude that we reflect upon the history and significance of these lands and acknowledge the contribution and resilience of the Indigenous peoples who have cared for them through generations, despite ongoing acts of violence and dispossession perpetrated against them. This acknowledgement is a deliberate effort aimed at reminding ourselves that "our most pressing human struggles over indigeneity, race, migration and diasporas, gender and sexuality, disability, and the very survival of the Earth—can be traced back to the harmful history of European colonization and its persistent aftermaths" (De Fina et al., 2023, p. 819). The present reality of coloniality, the material and symbolic extension of the enduring modern/colonial project (Quijano, 2000), is also evident in language, a key vehicle for cultural hegemony and ideological transmission. The very act of writing this paper in English, to examine the nuances of Spanish, two languages deeply intertwined with colonial expansion, is inherently reflective of the hierarchical complexities that undergird our everyday practices.</p>