Translanguaging through the body: centering geographies of selves in Latinx pre-service teacher education

Abstract

Traversing metaphorical, literal, and epistemological borders everyday creates and produces new ways of being and knowing. These migrations have afforded many with ways to live in the in-betweenness of multiple languages, identities, and knowledges. In this conceptual essay, we focus on Gloria Anzaldúa’s concept of geographies of selves to support ideas of translanguaging as a theory and pedagogy of linguistic embodiment. The body moves through space and time gathering information, knowledge, and wisdom to produce hybrid languages and culture and ultimately new knowledges. We specifically look towards the borderlands embodied experiences as central to new ways of understanding how bodies/identities express different realities and knowledges through language. We offer implications for Latinx pre-service education.

Keywords:

• Borderlands experiences
• embodiment
• geographies of selves
• Gloria Anzaldúa
• translanguaging

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.