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Junior professorship intercultural practice with a focus on digital cultures
Junior Professorship Intercultural Practice with a Focus on Digital Cultures
Junior professorship intercultural practice with a focus on digital cultures 

Welcome to the Junior Professorship Intercultural Practice with a Focus on Digital Cultures

Main areas of research and teaching

The research and teaching topics of the junior professorship address the reconfiguration of everyday life in a postdigital field of action, especially on the topic of migration. The postdigital field of action is understood as the continuity of everyday life in "offline" and "online" fields of action, which are not to be understood dichotomously.

The junior professorship is structured in three thematic areas:

  • Postdigital (inter)culturality and social E-maginaries
  • Postdigital intercultural practices in the context of migration and internet-mediated interactions.
  • E-maginaries of coloniality in social networks

Within the Research Lab on Postdigital (Inter)Culturality, data for the study of (inter)cultural practices, postdigital cultures, digital migration studies and coloniality in social media are observed, collected, analysed and archived, while qualitative methods for the study of the postdigital context are further developed.

The junior professorship coordinates internationalisation and Erasmus+ affairs.

News

The latest updates and daily information about the work of the junior professorship can be found on our Instagram channel @intercultural_praxis! and the bluesky channel Intercultural Practice with a focus on Digital Cultures @TUC @digitalculture-tuc.bsky.social There you will find information about new scientific publications, special teaching experiences and other activities of the junior professor.

New publications:

  • López García, Y. (2025). Exploring Whitexicans' narratives of Europeaness in the postdigital field of action. In F. Lenehan & R. Lietz (Eds.), Reimagining Digital Cosmopolitanism: Perspectives from a Postmigrant and Postdigital World (pp.303-335). Bielefeld: transcript Verlag. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783839475324

Upcoming Events:

  • As part of the lecture “Critical Digital Interculturality (Intercultural Competence and Digital Cultures),” which is part of the BA program “Intercultural Communication,” the Junior Professorship cordially invites you to the guest lecture “Digital Interculturality: Rethinking the Intercultural for the Postdigital Age.” The event will take place on June 4th, from 11:30 AM to 1:00 PM in Room C10.006. The speaker is Apl. Prof. Dr. Fergal Lenehan from ReDICo (Researching Digital Interculturality Cooperatively), FSU Jena.

                                  

 

 

Open Calls:

Download Call here.

Convocatoria de Artículos

Chamada de Artigos

REMHU - Revista Interdisciplinar da Mobilidade Humana - vol. 33, dossier 3, 2025

(English)

Dossier 3 (2025): “Migration Research: Logics, Practices, and Methodologies between Tradition and Transformation” (Maria Catarina Chitolina Zanini, Yolanda López García, Asmara González Rojas, guest editors).

Deadline for submission of articles: 01.12.2024 - 31.07.2025

Description: This proposal aims to reflect on migration studies' contemporary dynamics and histories in their academic and activist practices in knowledge production in these universes. It seeks to aggregate studies that contribute to our thinking on issues relevant to research practices, their modalities, publication, feedback, collaborative processes, and activism.

One of the issues that prompted us to organize this dossier, since migration studies are interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary, was the relevance of discussing the limits and openings of our methodological, theoretical, and feedback choices in knowledge production, both for interlocutors and for society as a whole. After all, to what extent can we or cannot, in a dialogue between different areas of knowledge, propose broad criteria of scientific objectivity or questions about scientificity or activism? Or even question the various forms of writing and formatting of studies. The aim is also to include studies that reflect on the ethical issues involved in producing knowledge about migrations and that present proposals for “ethical care” that encompass the different Human Sciences. Another important perspective of this dossier is to disseminate research that works with the collaborative proposal and presents negotiated forms of feedback to the groups studied and studies produced and published collectively.

Submission topics:
- Collaborative, participative research and activism in migration
- Ethics in research on migration
- Methodologies of research on migrations (qualitative and quantitative studies)
- Agencies in the production of knowledge about migrations
- Meta-analytical perspective on migration research.

Reception of articles in languages: English, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese

Please consult the information for article submission on the Remhu journal website: https://remhu.csem.org.br/index.php/remhu/about/submissions

 

 

(Español)

Dossier 3 (2025): “Investigación sobre Migraciones: Lógicas, Prácticas y Metodologías entre Tradición y Transformación” (Editoras invitadas: Maria Catarina Chitolina Zanini, Yolanda López García, Asmara González Rojas).

Plazo de presentación de artículos: 01.12.2024 - 31.07.2025.

Descripción: Esta propuesta pretende reflexionar sobre las dinámicas e historias contemporáneas de los estudios sobre migraciones en sus prácticas académicas y activistas en el proceso de producción de conocimiento en estos universos. El objetivo es reunir estudios que contribuyan a pensar sobre temas relevantes para las prácticas de investigación, sus modalidades, publicación, retroalimentación, procesos colaborativos y activismo.

Una de las preguntas que nos impulsó a organizar este dossier, dado que los estudios sobre migraciones son interdisciplinarios y multidisciplinarios, fue la relevancia de discutir los límites y aperturas de nuestras opciones metodológicas, teóricas y el retorno de la producción de conocimiento, tanto para los interlocutores, como para la sociedad en general. Después de todo, ¿hasta qué punto podemos o no, en un diálogo entre diferentes áreas del conocimiento, proponer criterios amplios de objetividad científica o preguntas sobre cientificidad o activismo? O incluso cuestionar las diferentes formas de redactar y formatear los estudios.

También se pretende sumar estudios que reflexionen sobre las cuestiones éticas involucradas en el proceso de producción de conocimiento sobre las migraciones y que presenten propuestas de “cuidado ético” que tengan en cuenta las diferentes Ciencias Humanas. Otra perspectiva importante de este dossier es difundir investigaciones que trabajen con la propuesta colaborativa y que además presenten formas negociadas de retroalimentación a los grupos estudiados y estudios producidos y publicados colectivamente.

Temas de presentación:

  • Investigación colaborativa, participativa y activista sobre migración
  • Ética en la investigación sobre migraciones
  • Metodologías de investigación sobre migraciones (estudios cualitativos y cuantitativos)
  • Agencias en la producción de conocimiento sobre migración
  • Perspectiva meta-analítica sobre la investigación en el campo de las migraciones

Recepción de artículos en los idiomas: inglés, español, italiano, portugués.

Por favor, consulte la información para la presentación de artículos en el sitio web de la revista Remhu: https://remhu.csem.org.br/index.php/remhu/about/submissions

 

 

(Português)

Dossiê 3 (2025): “Pesquisa sobre migração: lógicas, práticas e metodologias entre tradição e transformação” (Maria Catarina Chitolina Zanini, Yolanda López García, Asmara González Rojas, editoras convidadas).
Prazo para submissão de artigos: 01.12.2024 - 31.07.2025.

Descrição: Esta proposta tem como objetivo refletir sobre as dinâmicas e histórias contemporâneas dos estudos migratórios em suas práticas acadêmicas e ativistas na produção de conhecimento nesses universos. Busca agregar estudos que contribuam para nosso conhecimento e reflexão sobre questões relevantes para as práticas de pesquisa, suas modalidades, publicação, retroalimentação, processos colaborativos e ativismo.

Uma das questões que nos levaram a organizar este dossiê, uma vez que os estudos migratórios são interdisciplinares e multidisciplinares, foi a relevância de discutir os limites e aberturas de nossas escolhas metodológicas, teóricas e de devolutivas na produção de conhecimento, tanto para os interlocutores, quanto para a sociedade como um todo. Afinal, até que ponto podemos ou não, num diálogo entre diferentes áreas do conhecimento, propor critérios amplos de objetividade científica ou questionamentos sobre cientificidade ou ativismo? Ou ainda questionar as diversas formas de escrita e formatação dos estudos. Busca-se também incluir estudos que reflitam sobre as questões éticas envolvidas na produção de conhecimento sobre migrações e que apresentem propostas de “cuidado ético” que abranjam as diferentes Ciências Humanas. Outra perspectiva importante deste dossiê é divulgar pesquisas que trabalhem com a proposta colaborativa e apresentem formas negociadas de devolutivas aos grupos estudados e estudos produzidos e publicados coletivamente.

Tópicos de submissão:
- Pesquisa colaborativa, participativa e ativismo em migrações
- Ética em pesquisa sobre migrações
- Metodologias de pesquisa sobre migrações (estudos qualitativos e quantitativos)
- Agências na produção de conhecimento sobre migrações
- Perspectiva meta-analítica em pesquisa sobre migrações.

 

Recepção de artigos nos idiomas: inglês, espanhol, italiano, português.
Por favor, consulte as informações para a submissão de artigos no site da revista Remhu:
https://remhu.csem.org.br/index.php/remhu/about/submissions

 

Call for Papers para la Sección 7 Perspectivas decoloniales en la enseñanza de dinámicas culturales hispanoamericanas: cruzando umbrales hacia la pluralidad y la post-digitalidad. La sección es organizada conjuntamente por la Dr. Ana Troncoso y la Jun.-Prof. Dr. Yolanda López García, y forma parte de las Jornadas Hispánicas „Umbrales. Polifonías, pluricentrismo y post-digitalidad“ de la Deutschen Spanischlehrkräfteverbands (DSV).

El evento se celebrará del 26 al 28 de febrero de 2026 en Friburgo, Alemania y es organizado por la Universidad de Freiburg im Breisgau en colaboración con diversas instituciones universitarias como la Pädagogische Hochschule y el Freiburger Advanced Center of Education

Puede consultar la convocatoria completa y todos los detalles de las Jornadas en el siguiente enlace: https://www.face-freiburg.de/jornadas2026/seccion-7-perspectivas-decoloniales/

Download Call here.

 

Call for Chapter Contributions

Publisher: Springer

Volume Editors:

Benachour Saidi, Mohamed First University, Morocco

Yolanda López García, Chemnitz University of Technology, Germany

Abdellah El Boubekri, Mohamed First University, Morocco

 

Decentering Racism in Intercultural Communication and Pedagogy: Perspectives from the Periphery  

 

Book Overview

There is a growing body of critical scholarship that interrogates racial dynamics and logics perpetuating raciolinguitics, institutional racism, epistemological racism, epistemic injustice, coloniality, social/racial hierarchies, monoculturalism, monolingualism, othering/otherness, White supremacy and native speakerism in the discipline of intercultural communication research and teaching (e.g., Motha, 2014; Moon & Holling, 2015; Rosa & Flores, 2017; Kubota, 2020; Rawls & Duck, 2020; Martin & Nakayama, 2021; Nakayama & Halualani, 2023). In this regard, many scholars argue that intercultural scholarship has historically been complicit in reproducing racial hierarchies, colonial histories, Eurocentric narratives, essentialized representations and power structures, often rendered in privileging Whiteness, Anglo-centric cultural norms and monolingual ideologies while marginalizing the linguistic, cultural, and epistemological archaeologies of post-colonial contexts (e.g., Aman, 2017; Meighan, 2022 ; Mignolo, 2011 ; Santos, 2018;  Walsh, 2018).

Issues of race, racism and racialization have been critically unpacked in relation to the social, intellectual, political and institutional practices that often sustain systemic injustices and biases within intercultural communication studies. For example, Nakayama and Martin (2007) contend that much of what is understood as ‘intercultural knowledge’ is shaped by White racial ideology, in which Western perspectives and experiences remain dominant. Moon and Collins (2015) illustrate further how the race(ing) of intercultural scholarship is often reinforced through structural and discursive practices that position Whiteness as the invisible norm against which all other cultures are measured and Othered. Kubota (2004), similarly, elaborates that the perpetuation of racial workings is often maintained through epistemological racism that establishes hierarchies in knowledge production and consumption as well as the liberal/Western approaches to multiculturalism, which often promote color-blind or difference-blind ideologies, exoticize and essentialize non-Western cultures, and obscure underlying power dynamics and privilege. These discourses emphasize the dominance of Anglo-Saxon normativity and Eurocentric ideologies and colonial hierarchies (Kumaravadivelu, 2016), resulting in colonial legacies and imperial mindsets (Meighan, 2022).

In the context of intercultural language teaching and learning, research suggests that racial dynamics and biases are evident in language textbook discourses, curricula and practices. For instance, English language teaching/learning textbooks often present material that favors the representation of Whites over other races (Bowen & Hopper, 2023), portray racial and cultural groups in essentialized ways (Apple, 2004), and contribute to the reproduction of racial inequities in language classrooms by racializing and marginalizing local cultures and identities of the minority group (R’boul & Saidi, 2024; Saidi, 2024). Intercultural racial inequality is further sustained through the adoption of monocultural and monolingual perspectives that are grounded in White-centered epistemology. This practice often positions the non-dominant races and cultures as inferior (Lee, 2015). To this end, this edited volume is a call for critical and nuanced engagement with all forms of racism in intercultural communication and pedagogy that moves beyond the facades of the language of diversity and inclusion, which often celebrate difference in a depoliticized and reductive way, thus overlooking structures of power, privilege and inequality in language classrooms.

In this edited volume, we argue that despite efforts to disrupt all forms of racism within intercultural communication and interculturality through various critical and antiracist interventions (e.g., Kubota & Motha, 2024), systemic structures of intercultural hierarchies and racialization may remain unproblematized. This is because, for too long, educational policies and practices have favored dominant languages and cultures, overlooking the invaluable contributions of those from marginalized communities. The prevailing systems often legitimize racialized identities and perpetuate a hierarchy of knowledge that dismisses non-Western epistemologies and pedagogies. This book is firmly anchored in scholarship that advances antiracism, decolonization, anti-oppression, and equity, diversion, and inclusion that are formulated from the epistemes of minoritized or oppressed populations themselves irrespective of their geocultural location.

Nonetheless, rebutting racism in intercultural scholarship will remain incomplete if no reference is made to the ubiquitous impact of digital media and Artificial Intelligence (AI) on every aspect of contemporary human life. Therefore, the volume encourages nuanced research inquiries into social E-maginaries (López García, 2024), racial narratives and colonial patterns within digital interculturality (Lenehan, 2024), showcasing how digital spaces and algorithmic dynamics are reproducing, challenging and reconfiguring hegemonic discourses and power asymmetries. The volume interrogates further the dialectical tensions within digital interculturality, inviting critical perspectives that expose both the complicity and subversive potential of social network sites and digital platformization in shaping racial (un)equalities through intercultural discourses.

Contributors are invited to consider any of the following themes in their chapter proposals, including but not limited to:

  1. Epistemological Racism and the Race(ing) of Intercultural Scholarship
  2. Coloniality in Intercultural Pedagogy and Intercultural Communication
  3. Racial Hierarchies in Language Education
  4. Race and Racialization in Institutional Practices
  5. Digital Interculturality and Algorithmic Racism: Reproducing or Resisting Hegemonic Discourses
  6. Whiteness, White Supremacy and the (Un)Making of Interculturality
  7. Decolonial Approaches to Intercultural Pedagogy and Intercultural Communication
  8. Anti-Racist Pedagogies and Intercultural Transformative Pedagogies
  9. The role of Digital Activism in promoting anti-racism culture and intercultural dialogue.
  10.  The impact of the representation of racialized groups on intercultural communication in global media
  11. Transnational Solidarity of marginalized communities across borders
  12. Globalization and perpetuation of racial inequalities in intercultural communication
  13. E-maginaries of coloniality in social network sites shaping Digital Interculturality

Submission Deadlines:

Abstract (250-300 words max)

April 25, 2025

Decision (accept/reject)

May 30, 2025

Submission of full chapters

September 30, 2025

Review and Report to be sent to authors

November 30, 2025

Final drafts of each chapter to be submitted

January 15, 2026

Submission of the book to the publisher

March 30, 2026

Publisher

Springer

 

Contributors send their abstracts 250-300 words including 5 keywords alongside their biodata to the editors by April 25, 2025 at springerproposals@gmail.com  

References:

Apple, M., & Apple, M.W. (2004). Ideology and curriculum. Routledge.

Bowen, NEJA, & Hopper, D. (2023). The representation of race in English language learning textbooks: Inclusivity and equality in images. Tesol Quarterly , 57 (4), 1013-1040.

Kubota, R. (2004). Critical multiculturalism and second language education. Critical pedagogies and language learning30, 52.

Kubota, R. (2020). Confronting epistemological racism, decolonizing scholarly knowledge: Race and gender in applied linguistics. Applied Linguistics, 41(5), 712–732.

Kubota, R., & Lin, A. (2009). Race, culture, and identities in second language education. Race, culture and identities in second language education: Exploring critically engaged practice, 1-23.

Kubota, R., & Motha, S. (Eds.). (2024). Race, Racism, and Antiracism in Language Education. Routledge.

Kumaravadivelu, B. (2016). The decolonial option in English teaching: Can the subaltern act?. TESOL quarterly50(1), 66-85.

Lee, E. (2015). Doing culture, doing race: Everyday discourses of ‘culture’ and ‘cultural difference’ in the English as a second language classroom. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 36(1), 80–93.

Lenehan, F. (2024). Examining realised and unrealised contacts: theoretical thoughts on digital interculturality. Language and Intercultural Communication, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/14708477.2024.2419666

López García, Y. (2024). Exploring the Interplay of Lifewide Learning, Migration, and Social Network Sites in the Postdigital Field of Action. In Conti, L. & Lenehan, F. (Eds.), Lifewide Learning in Postdigital Societies: Shedding Light on Emerging Culturalities. Bielefeld: transcript, 105–129.

Meighan, P. J. (2022). Colonialingualism: colonial legacies, imperial mindsets, and inequitable practices in English language education. Diaspora, Indigenous, and Minority Education17(2), 146–155. https://doi.org/10.1080/15595692.2022.2082406

Mignolo, W. (2011). The darker side of western modernity: Global futures, decolonial options. Duke University Press.

Moon, D. G., & Holling, M. A. (2015). A politic of disruption: Race(ing) intercultural communication. Journal of International and Intercultural Communication, 8(1), 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404517000562  

Motha, S. (2014). Race, empire, and English language teaching: Creating responsible and ethical anti-racist practice. Teachers College Press.

Motha, S. (2020). Is an antiracist and decolonizing applied linguistics possible? Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 40, 128–133. doi: 10.1017/S0267190520000100

Nakayama, T. K., & Martin, J. N. (2007). The white problem in intercultural communication research and pedagogy. In L. M. Cooks, & J. Simpson (Eds.), Whiteness, pedagogy, performance: Dis/placing race (pp. 111–137). Lexington. Books.

Rawls, A. W., & Duck, W. (2020). Tacit racism. University of Chicago Press.

R'boul, H., & Saidi, B. (2024). Critical Race Theory, Interculturality and Power Imbalances: Intersectionality in English Language Education. In L. Padilla & R. Vana (Eds.), Representation, Inclusion and Social Justice in World Language Teaching (pp. 13–31). Routledge.

Rosa, J., & Flores, N. (2017). Unsettling race and language: Toward a raciolinguistic perspective. Language in Society, 46(5), 621–647.

Rosa, J., & Flores, N. (2021). Decolonization, language, and race in applied linguistics and social justice. Applied Linguistics, 42(6), 1162–1167. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amab062  

Saidi, B. (2024). Intercultural education in the Global South: decolonizing canonical intercultural models in Moroccan University MA program courses. Language and Intercultural Communication , 1-15.

Santos, B. D. S. (2011). Épistémologies du sud. Études rurales, (187), 21-50.

Walsh, C. (2018). Interculturality and Decoloniality. In Mignolo, W., & C. Walsh (Eds.), On decoloniality: Concepts, analytics, praxis (pp. 57–80). Duke University Press.