Narratives and Negotiations of Identity in Japan and Criticality in (English) Language Education: (Dis)Connections and Implications

Inspired by the call to question (critical) assumptions underpinning frameworks for "seeing" (Lather, 1993) and ground criticality in alternative forms of knowing (Pennycook, 2018), this paper examines critical frameworks for approaching identity, experience, and (in)equity in "English" language teaching (ELT), with a focus on critical attention to Japan. Transdisciplinary scholarship, social movements, and other voices have detailed how the narrative of "homogeneous Japan" has given shape to notions of Selfhood-Otherness, resulting in the erasing of Japan's history as a site of movement, change, diversity and hybridity, and marginalization of many therein. The author notes that the scope of dominant, critical approaches to identity, experience, and (in)equity in Japan and globalized ELT -problematizing essentialized and idealized "nativeness" in English-does not afford conceptual space for attention to how the negotiation of being, belonging and becoming in ELT is situated in broader negotiations of identity and community membership. The author contends that this issue is linked to tensions within criticality pertaining to the imposition of essentializing frameworks for seeing upon individuals and communities around the globe. The author then discusses potential broader implications for theorization, inquiry, and practice in ELT in and beyond Japan.