Decolonizing Rhetoric and Composition Studies: New Latinx Keywords for Theory and Pedagogy

• Published in: Composition Studies Vol. 45; no. 2; pp. 237 - 241
• Main Author: Padilla, J. Paul
• Format: Book Review Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Chicago Parlor Press 22-09-2017; University of Massachusetts Boston; University of Cincinnati on behalf of Composition Studies
• Subjects: Citizenship; Colonialism; Cultural Influences; Decolonization; Epistemology; Ethnic Studies; Foreign Policy; Hegemony; Ideology; Keywords; Language; Pedagogy; Race; Racism; Research Methodology; Rhetoric; Social Change; Sovereignty; Teaching; Theory; Writing; New York; United States > US
• ISSN: 1534-9322; 1542-5894; 2832-0093

In what follows, I evaluate Decolonizing Rhetoric and Composition Studies through the authors' conceptualization and application of the decolonial, description of the significance of racism to epistemic delinking and decoloniality, questions about the role of Latinx in the decolonial, and articulation of the problem the decolonial may pose to the field-a problem about which bell hooks wrote more than twenty years ago. In advocating for delinking through translingualism, Alvarez identifies the liberating potential for language-based social justice in rhetoric and composition studies because "(d)elinking entails the ability to re-read the world and the opportunity to re-write it" (27). Espinosa-Aguilar argues that the concepts "immigrant" and "citizen" reflect the problem of linguicism-language that creates, promotes, and reproduces inequalities in power structures (159), planting fear into voters, which is often "tied to the distribution of limited resources" (155), to garner support for anti-immigration legislation. Through these perspectives, Ruiz and Rios underscore a salient point about the decolonial, which, for some readers, also underlies a criticism of the collection: decolonization, decoloniality, and epistemic delinking are not exclusive to Latinx. [...]Decolonizing Rhetoric and Composition Studies focuses almost entirely on the Latinx community in the U.S., yet the term "Latinx" is not explicitly defined.