ABSTRACT
This chapter will explore the contested terrain of global citizenship and its education (GC/E) through (and between) ecopedagogical (critical environmental pedagogies reinvented through the work of Paulo Freire), feminist, and linguistic lenses. Coinciding with the problematic histories of citizen versus non-citizen, globalizations (from above and from below), and coloniality, GC/E can be empowering or oppressive, inclusionary or exclusionary, and planetarily sustainable or unsustainable.
We explore what GC/E in “hard spaces” looks like at one intersection at which we work: that of environmental injustice (G. W. Misiaszek, 2018; Syed & Misiaszek, 2019), deplanetarizing epistemologies of the North (G. W. Misiaszek, 2020), patriarchy, and heteronormativity. Hard spaces are “contexts that have been defined by multiple outside international actors and perhaps internally as well, as facing unique challenges to conducting GCE work”; as well as geographic, they may also be thematic (L. I. Misiaszek, 2020a; 2020b, p. 2). We then examine the role of language within these interdisciplinary social justice projects, particularly considering the nexus of the humanities and the social sciences (L. I. Misiaszek, 2015, 2019).
After this deconstructing analysis we will discuss possibilities, needs, and challenges to contextually “soften” such spaces for critical GC/E and education overall, ultimately considering our work’s roots in and implications for foreign language education.
