ABSTRACT

This chapter focuses on an emerging southern challenge to the academy, a revisiting of northern-held historical narratives that have manufactured an 'abyssal line' between north and south, an uncovering of ongoing entanglements and co-dependencies that criss-cross the line, and a replacing of southern knowledges and expertise within the academy. It attempts to illustrate the changes through the lens of world views that recognize heterogeneity or diversities, particularly linguistic diversities. The chapter illustrates southern experiences of diversity and multilingualism in the light of contemporary global shifts and in relation to perceptions of epistemological supremacy that linger in the northern academy. It explores what it is that southern perspectives might contribute to global understandings of diversities, and with them, multilingualisms. The chapter draws attention to an ethics of reflexive research practice that draws on learning to slice through cacophonies of hubris to listen to and see wisdom in silences.