Amplifying English Language Teachers’ in-betweenness of their experiences in peace construction

Resumen

Peace studies and Applied Linguistics (AL) to English language teaching complement each other. In the second field, domains such as peace linguistics appear. This manuscript contributes to this de-instrumentalized field and its domain. This inquiry approached English language teachers’ experiences in peace construction from diverse Colombian territories where dehumanizing practices perpetuate. Some formal proposals towards peace constrain English language teachers’ agencies and bodies. However, their alternative positions, and doings in peace construction otherwise, transcend instrumental goals of the liberal peace. This study amplified English language teachers’ voices to access their experiences from decolonial postures critically nuanced. Theoretical foundations conceptually discuss peace construction, experiences, and voices. This qualitative inquiry problematized narrative design and decolonial doing to create a methodological option called Otherwise Intuitive Undoings (OIUs). Its constitutive decisions were multimodal encountering, and comaking resenses to react to traditional data analysis. This intersected narrative analysis and crystallization to challenge rational treatments of what mainstream researchers demand as data analysis. Findings amplify spiritual sensing-thinking from English language teachers’ experiences in-between, which characterize for their dynamics and discontinuities. Third spaces herein constitute places where pluridimensional experiences occur, and bodies-selves transform through an acquired elasticity. Disruptive knowings, becomings, and doings in peace construction reflected the creative power of English language teachers’ bodies-selves. Note that the methodological option represents a contribution herein, crafted throughout the path. OIUs became an option in a line of flight that resisted some de-humanizing research principles, while resulting from English language teachers’ engagement with methodological decisions. Conclusions and implications synthesize systemic relationships among peace studies and AL to ELT for inspiring researchers. Third spaces from English language teachers’ amplified experiences deserve re-existence. Precisely, hearing our already existing voices, –as claimed in this study from the beginning–, rather than voicing the marginalized or the inexistent, opens a neglected debate about ethics in decolonial and critical postures.