(Re)imagining (an)other wor(l)d(s) through un disciplinary research. Reflections on epistemic, existential, sustainable, and solidarity-based (E2-S2) work

Abstract

This essay centers on issues regarding epistemic labor. Drawing on recent thinking that pushes for decolonizing y/our minds , it invites consideration of what happens to y/our imaginaries when you/we allow y/ourselves the freedom to (re)imagine (an)other wor(l)d(s). Through reflections on the nature of human communication and terms related to diversity, empowerment, inclusion/integration, justice… within and outside academic labor, I push for a stance that centers the entangled primacy of epistemic, existential (E2) work in tandem with sustainable, solidarity -based (S2) work, i.e., an E2-S2 stance. Drawing on southern waves and ways of being within academia, this essay calls for transcending the implicit/explicit binary of the naturalized (mono/mainstream-)disciplinary versus prefixed (cross/inter/multi/trans-)disciplinary labels to embrace un disciplinary thinking for engaging with E2-S2 -based work. One of many iterations of southern thinking, a Second Wave of Southern Perspectives ( SWaSP ) framework is explicated to enable (re)imagining issues in the educational and language sciences through E2-S2-based work. Here, a mobile gaze across scholarly domains and planetary spaces reinforces previous calls for sidestepping binaries, boundaries, and epistemic slippages, enabling alignments with analytical vocabularies that contribute to non-dichotomized Third Positions . It centers new ways to think about language and the human condition through a revitalized metalanguage that has relevance for equity.