14

For a Critical Applied Linguistics

Articulated to the Praxiology
of Hope
Kleber Aparecido da Silva, Helenice Joviano Roque-Faria,
Rosana Helena Nunes, Lauro Sérgio Machado Pereira,
Renata Mourão Guimarães, and Dllubia Santclair

Introduction
This chapter is the result of dialogues and critical meetings for the (re) construction of know-
ledge by a group of researchers,1 in the field of Critical Applied Linguistics (CAL), which seek
to retrieve in the studies of Paulo Freire (1992/2019), hope, as a possibility to face the challenges
experienced in Brazil, especially by oppressed Black people. In this sense, the text discusses the
need to insert pedagogical practices in the context of language education, based on a CAL
articulated with the pedagogy of hope, focusing on race issues.
Since its emergence in the scientific field, CAL has offered a range of epistemological,
pedagogical and, above all, political possibilities, within the scope of language critical studies
(Pennycook 2001; Pennycook & Makoni 2020). Thus, CAL is characterized by a continuum
involving thought, desire, and action (that is, between theory and practice), by engaging in issues
of power and inequality, historical understandings of social relations, transformation of social
inequalities, reflection on its own limits and the dialogue it establishes with critical, feminist,
post-colonialist, and antiracist theories.
CAL is a problematizing area “that opens space for a more direct interaction between
languages, and social relations” and “that considers the potential of our work (in critical lan-
guage education) to promote change” (Pennycook 2001: 73). These changes are related to the
conditions of power, access and inequality, produced by coloniality and modernity, which per-
meate issues of class, race, gender, sexuality, nationality, literacy, religion, political vision, and
the like.
In Brazil, discussing and problematizing racism and its intersectionality is a necessary condi-
tion, since the Brazilian Black population (54%) is subjugated, oppressed, conditioned to social
vulnerability, and violence (Nascimento 2019). In other words, there is a silencing of Black iden-
tities and the absence of reflective educational projects, which contribute to the reproduction of
phenotypic differences and the naturalization of racism.

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Bearing in mind that racism is a powerful system embedded in social structures, it is

interesting to note that “the only way to undo racism is to identify and describe it consistently
and then take it down” (Kendi 2020: 10). In this sense, we consider racism as a social-historical-
linguistic phenomenon, which is carried out and materialized in the social practices of lan-
guage, and which therefore needs to be deconstructed through it.
CAL, based on the engaging and interventionist principles of social and language issues,
can find ways to (re)see the Other and (re)build knowledge to value the oppressed individuals.
Consequently, it can provide opportunities for unveiling and portraying the stigma arising from
racial inequalities, and problematizing racism masking and denial in Brazil.
Thus, given CAL’s commitment as a scientific field to interrogate practices as a decolonial
path that denounces the complex systems of violence, exclusion, and racial erasure produced in/
by language, a question that concerns us is: How CAL, interconnected to Freire’s thought, can help to
deal with coloniality with regard to race issues? For that reason, we propose the Praxiology of Hope
to contribute to the (re)signification of an antiracist and decolonial stance, in the context of lan-
guage education.

Continuing Challenges in Critical Applied Linguistics: Problematizing and

(Not) Ignoring the Racial Mask
As we announced, critical applied linguists are attentive to issues emerging in society, com-
pelled to reflect and (re) position themselves in the face of social events. Hence, in this section,
we reaffirm the questions related to social inequalities, especially racism, in an attempt to
understand it as a social-historical-linguistic phenomenon, carried out in language social
practices.
Pennycook (2006) describes CAL as a transgressive, and interdisciplinary field, which allows
elaborating, interrogating, analyzing, problematizing, and confronting racial inequalities and
racism denial. With that in mind, it is relevant to reflect upon alternatives for (dis)continu-
ities and subjectivities concerning that issue because as what is explained by Roque-Faria and
Silva (2019)

CAL is a multiple territory that “sees” the social world from the angle of the unpredictable,
the unstable and valuesthe moving. By encompassing knowledge from other areas, as it is
not closed to a single theoretical proposal, linguistic theories (re) elaborate concepts and
offer broad theoretical and methodological conditions that allow, through the lens of critic-
ality, to analyze social problems related to power, and language practices.
(p. 42)

Considering that CAL “encompasses knowledge from other areas,” we establish a dialogue
with the studies developed by Freire (1970/1987, 1992/2019), since the author argues in favor
of a political proposal for intervention and also the liberation of social differences.
Revisiting Freire’s legacy (1970/1987, 1992/2019) means to re-signify the practice of
freedom, that is surrounded by discriminatory movements and the non-preservation of the
identity of the Other. At the same time, it is realizing the need to interfere in the process of
the humanization of ethnicities, races, genders, among other social dehumanizing practices.
We affirm that the struggle for the rights of the oppressed individuals constitutes the Freirean
option of studies, in order to better conceive the possibility of denouncing social stigmas that
insisted, and still insists on the non-preservation of identity within an ideological perspective of
power supremacy. Thus, Freire (1970/1987) recommends that

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[t]he violence of oppressors, which also makes them dehumanized, does not establish another
vocation – that of being less. As a distortion of being more, being less leads the oppressed,
sooner or later, to fight against those who made them less. And this struggle only makes
sense when the oppressed individuals, in seeking to recover their humanity, which is a way
of creating it, do not feel idealistically oppressive, nor do they, in fact, become oppressors of
the oppressors, but restorers of humanity in both. And therein lies the great humanist and
historical task of the oppressed individuals – freeing oneself from the oppressors.These who
oppress exploit and violate, because of their power, cannot have, in this power, the liberation
force of the oppressed individuals or of themselves (...).
(p. 30)

In this excerpt, Freire (1970/1987)2 emphasizes the dehumanization practices of the Other,
seen as oppressed individuals in the face of the oppressor. The oppressor leads the oppressed
person to a certain understanding of not being the one who suffers oppression, but rather directs
him/her to accept his/her situation. Indeed, the important task of humanizing the oppressed
individuals is to free themselves from the oppressors, since this liberation will allow non-
exploitation, non-violence to themselves and to society. To continue the study on oppression,
the non-right to freedom with regard to human survival, Freire (1992/2019) privileges hope as
an ontological necessity (p. 11).
Thus, Freirean studies corroborate the reflection that emerges from racism issues in Brazil.
Although the scholar’s concern was not focused on an antiracist pedagogy, but on the pedagogy
of the oppressed individuals and the pedagogy of hope (Freire 1992/2019), we perceive that
speaking of oppression, liberation, and hope is to believe that such possibilities for discussion
reflect the modos operandi of thinking about racism originating from the colonialist legacy,which
is a result of hegemonic processes of racial exploitation and discrimination.
In this sense, we point out some important assertions for understanding CAL in dialogue
with Freire’s ideas:

1. It drives new perspectives on the world, and on human beings.

2. It denounces the oppressive and violent systems that make Black bodies invisible
and mute.
3. It takes up questions about tolerance, diversity, equity, democracy, emancipatory
protagonism, and values knowledge, languages, and other voices, assuming a problematizing
agenda.
4. It promotes an epistemological, political, and social rupture, and it evidences Black men and
women in all spaces of power and breaks with academic structures, in order to found Afro-
centered epistemologies.
5. It undertakes paths that drive the struggle for antiracist education, in the sense of human-
izing and egalitarian critical education, since it is through language that racist gestures are
taught, published, and naturalized.
6. It (Re)sees the other and (re)builds knowledge to value for plurilingual and ethical critical
education, which requires a treatment in relation to racial inequalities and the unmasking of
Brazilian racist denial.
7. It understands language in its plurilingual status from a decolonial perspective to show the
linguistic world can be surrounded by the praxiology of hope, for it deconstructs discourses
and generates practices to combat suffering and exclusion.
8. It inspires the (re)signification of individuals’ praxis and invites scientists to take on an anti-
racist and decolonial stance through the praxiology of hope.

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(Between) Ties of CAL and the Praxiology of Hope

Language is a central materiality in language education for the construction of the praxiology of
hope. For Freire (1992/2019), the language that emerges from reality and turns to it can provide
the oppressed with the possibility of designing, supposing, and anticipating a different world, free
from oppression. Thus, language as a way to build citizenship (Freire 1992/2019) points to the
right to be and act in the world.
We argue that language is also a hope praxeology instrument for the struggle of the oppressed
individual. Therefore, praxiology defended in this chapter refers to the act of analyzing social
actions and attitudes, which reflect different human behaviors (Pessoa, Silva, & Freitas 2021). In
other words, it refers to the study of human conduct, which aims at understanding the causes and
consequences of the individual’s actions, to control or induce behaviors that benefit the whole
society (Dicio 2021).
Praxiology of hope means to analyze, study, and problematize sociopolitically experiences
that may reverberate hope. For Freire, it is in the unprecedented viable that the possible dream
and the necessary hope for the struggle in favor of a critical language education are produced.
In this sense, in praxiology, it is necessary for the educator to contribute to the perception of
obstacles by students, helping them to overcome dehumanizing racist conditions.
Thus, the articulation between CAL and the pedagogy of hope enables us to talk about the
Praxiology of Hope. CAL as a science allows us to analyze, interrogate, problematize issues of
oppression in multiple contexts of language, and the Pedagogy of Hope, in the words of Freire
(1992/2019: 11):

implies a denunciation of social injustices and oppressions that have been perpetuated
throughout history. And at the same time, it announces the human capacity to defatalize
this perverse situation and build a more ethically just, politically democratic, aesthetically
radiant and spiritually humanizing future.

For that reason, when we discuss about Praxiology of Hope, we are referring to the ability to
perceive situations and relations of oppression, based on a critical analysis of reality, through lan-
guage education, and to adopt a critical stance of transforming action and overcoming these limit-
situations. From this perspective, we consider the praxiology of hope as a human, emancipatory,
and libertarian action, at the same time, an ontological need to become historical concreteness.
Thus, we argue that antiracist language education should provide space for the oppressed
individuals to assume their language, their discourse, their reality, and their reading of the world,
which are fundamental for the awakening of hope. This stance makes it possible to awaken crit-
ical awareness and encourage the desire to fight against subordinate positions.
In Brazil, discussing Black people’s subordinate position is a necessary condition. Gomes
(2020) points out that this refutation “must be accompanied by an epistemological, political
and social rupture, with the Black presence in the spaces of power and decision; in academic
structures; in culture; in the management of education, health and justice” (p. 225). The author
emphasizes that decoloniality must not be generic, but designed from a Black Brazilian perspec-
tive. In other words, recognizing black men and women as subjects and producers of knowledge,
breaking with the Eurocentric structure of knowledge and admitting that power relations are
mediated by issues of race.
According to Nascimento (2019), “there is a decolonial praxis in the very struggle of black
Brazilians, often unrecognized” (p. 90). The author cites the struggle of the quilombos and the
movements that led to the abolition of slavery.

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The Brazilian black struggle has been marked and led by intellectuals and activists, such
as Abdias do Nascimento, Carolina Maria de Jesus, Conceição Evaristo, Gabriel Nascimento,
Lélia Gonzales, Maria Firmina, Milton Santos, Nilma Gomes, Rufino dos Santos, Neusa Santos,
among others. Beyond those, that struggle also belongs to social and political movements, such
as: Unified Black Movement (UBM), Black Lives Matter, affirmative policies (Law of Racial
Quotas), mandatory teaching of Afro-Brazilian and African History and Culture (Law 10639/
04), among others.
Thus, we defend that such movements should be valued and not weakened in educational
contexts. And through the educators’ commitment to change, it is possible to support the anti-
racist struggle and strengthen the praxiology of hope.
Despite praxiology of hope being a commitment of critical language education, we observe
based on Freire (1992/2019) that, in Brazil, fatigue, discouragement, hopelessness, the historical
anesthesia, that is added to the cultural, current political and ideological climate, cause certain
immobility and apathy in antiracist struggles.
We argue that when Brazilian people recognize their historical roots, which are mostly Black,
that may emanate a less Eurocentric view, with less colonizing attitudes; as well as promote the
awareness of the emancipation, the liberation of the oppressed individuals, the Wretched of the Earth
through actions of hope.
In this way, a commitment of the educator,3 through policy analysis, serious and correct,
is unveiling the possibilities for hope and for the fight, no matter the obstacles. Freire (1992/
2019) insists on the need “for the progressive educator to become familiar with the syntax,
with the semantics of popular groups” (p. 147) to understand how they do their reading of
the world, how resistance is built and contributes to the fight against violence to which they
are subjected.
Articulating language education with Freirean conceptions and CAL makes it possible to
think about hope through problematizing, critical and decolonial education. Therefore, this exer-
cise of hope, in our locus of activity, as educators, is based on a dialogical listening of the Other
(student, professional colleague, family, community, etc.). The understanding and interpretation
of the world with its diversity can permit the reality transformation collectively and continuously.

Plurilingual Scenarios in Brazil and Critical Antiracist

Language Education
Antiracist critical language education, which is democratic and anti-discriminatory, values and
respects the knowledge of the oppressed person, “his speech, his way of counting, calculating,
his knowledge around the so-called other world, his/her religiosity, his/her knowledge around
health, body, sexuality, life, death, the strength of saints, spells” (Freire 1992/2019: 118). From this
point of view, CAL is committed to widening the paths so that the oppressed individuals feel
themselves subjects of history, putting their experiences and their voices on stage.
Believing that multiple voices must be heard, we align ourselves with the decolonial per-
spective and explore, as defying Northern epistemologies is creating spaces for radical hope and
demanding that the relationship between knowledge and reality be changed (Pennycook &
Makoni 2020). In this sense, dialogical spaces encompass tolerance, diversity, equity, democracy,
and emancipatory protagonism to minority-speaking peoples.
To position ourselves on plurilingualism, from the perspective of the Global South,
is to challenge the invented dichotomies, inherited from the structuralist view of language,
namely: monolingualism/bilingualism, native speaker/foreign speaker, native language/for-
eign language, among others. Plurilingualism, thought in a broader way, questions linguistic

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stratifications, values language, manifested in local communities, and is closely linked to issues of
social activity, interactional situation, history, and perspectives of language users (Pennycook &
Makoni 2020).
In this sense, we believe that it is more productive to combine multilingual perspectives in the
context of language education, given that

the practices of languages[are] socio-historically situated experiences of life, which reveal

our engagement – multimodalized , multisensory, embodied, spatial and ideologically
marked – in dynamic relations of production of meaning with people and the world. These
experiences take place in specific and localized contexts and spaces, based on our life tra-
jectories and our repertoires, thus indicating specific points of view and socioculturally and
historically (re) constructed values.
(Rocha, 2019, p. 21, our translation)

Thus, we consider the change of attitude on the part of different Brazilian individuals to be
essential, in order to promote resistance and confrontations, which emancipate people located
peripherally below the abyssal line (Santos 2007).
The complexity of the plurilingual scenarios, with the linguistic, cultural, socio-historical
diversity and the variety of repertoires, allows us to consider the relationship between CAL
and the pedagogy of hope in defense of the Praxiology of Hope. In this sense, it is necessary to
strengthen and make the social movements and the local and Southern voices visible by:

1. The promotion of epistemological changes – using Brazilian black epistemologies is a way

of deconstructing the Eurocentrism so latent in the spaces of scientific production. We cite,
as an example, researchers in the field of languages and the like: Aparecida Maria de Jesus,
Gabriel Nascimento, Helenice Roque-Faria, Kassandra Muniz, Kleber Silva, Lélia Gonzales,
Nilma Gomes, among others.
2. The insertion of black authors in the school curriculum – recognizing literature as a
common good of humanity through Brazilian literatures, can shed light on Brazilian iden-
tity and outline other narratives about Black people. We take as an example: Carolina Maria
de Jesus, Conceição Evaristo, Maria Firmina, Rufino dos Santos, among others.
3. The valorization of art, culture, and Black language: privileging culture, art, and languages
produced in the peripheries, is one of the ways to recognize plurilingualism in Brazil. Such
reflections deconstruct pejorative signs of a racist nature and promote conditions so that
identities are re-signified, thus breaking with victimization and the concept of humanity.We
cite, as an example, the works of Souza (2011), and of Rufino (2019).

The possibilities presented here are examples of how to promote a critical language education
that involves the Praxiology of Hope, but without the intention of minimizing the debate. We
defend that this praxiology takes place through the valorization of “other” languages and voices,
and through an antiracist education.

Final Considerations
We proposed to articulate CAL with the Pedagogy of Hope, problematizing the commitment
to racial issues, a subject of extreme relevance for the Brazilian social-historical-political context.
We discussed that, in the context of critical linguistic education, CAL proposes interactions with
other areas to provide social changes, related to inequalities, implications reflected in various

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situations, including racism in Brazil. That said, we rely on Freirean theories to find new ways
of seeing the Other, valuing Afro-centered knowledge, questioning racial inequalities and con-
temporary denial, in the context of language education, to identify egalitarian and equalizing
possibilities. We emphasize that the Praxiology of Hope goes beyond the identification and the
description, as it proposes to problematize, question, deconstruct, and denaturalize racism, aiming
at transforming action and overcoming limit-situations.

Notes
1 GECAL (Critical and Advanced Language Study Groups), coordinated by Prof Kleber Aparecido da
Silva. Available at: https://gecal-unb.com.br/
2 In Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Freire (1987) presents the way in which a pedagogy can be constructed,
that is, it comes from life stories, childhood scenarios and contextual situations of conviviality.
3 Paulo Freire refers to the teacher/professor as an “educator” to highlight that this professional has a pol-
itical role, which evokes a compromise not only to what happens in formal educational spaces, but also
to presenting a new possible world in front of the social adversities found in society.

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