“I No Longer Know Who Wrote This”: Reclaiming Student Writer Identities and Agency Against Generative AI Hegemony in Ecuador

Abstract

The rise of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) has become integral to writing in learning environments. While research has examined the implications of GenAI-mediated writing, little attention has been given to the impact of GenAI on how student writers reclaim their identities to resist standardisation of GenAI-mediated writing, especially among those from underrepresented linguistic and cultural backgrounds. Additionally, the concept of agency for student writers remains underexplored in the development of GenAI, with insufficient focus on embedding learners’ values and addressing linguistic and cultural stereotypes in AI outputs. The study aims to examine and reclaim students’ writer identities and expressions, challenging the standardisation of GenAI-mediated writing, and explore their critical agency through this process. This study used a qualitative multiple case study design with seven students. It employed multimodal visual methods to collect data, including journey plots, writing practices and artwork collections, and multimodal interviews that elicited both visual and narrative data, exploring learners’ dynamic writing trajectories over time. Data were analysed using narrative and social semiotic multimodal approaches. Three interrelated writer identities emerged, characterised by the blurring of voice through homogenisation, emotional erosion, and the erosion of critical thinking. In response, participants developed multidimensional forms of writer agency, including agency for linguistic and cultural diversity, agency for epistemological change, and critical and relational agency for transformation. Together, these findings contribute a contextualised model of writer identity and agency in GenAI-mediated writing, foregrounding identity negotiation and agency enactment as dynamic, socially embedded processes.