Decolonizing Technologies through Emergent Translanguaging Literature from the Margin: An English as a Foreign Language Writing Teacher’s Poetic Autoethnography

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper is well written, thoughtfully crafted, and well-aware of related literatures, both theoretically and methodologically. The research does well to take "a Zhongyong path or treading a middle-road between ... extremes systematically". I would only recommend light revisions.

The introduction section needs to do more than provide context. A synopsis of the argument, evidence, and findings are needed, along with a summary overview of the paper structure to better orient readers to the paper itself.

Since a substantial portion of the paper discusses experience gained in China as well, this should also be mentioned overtly in the abstract (in addition to  Thailand).

In terms of both ethical practice and credibility, the discussion of poetic autoethnography should also provide some discussion of the potential weaknesses and pitfalls of such an approach, along with the specific ways in which the author worked to avoid such pitfalls in their own work. This is hinted at in some places (e.g., the Hanaurer quote "When done diligently, honestly, and professionally"), but it needs to be foregrounded with more clarity. The author presents plenty of valid reasons for adopting (and championing) the approach, but without clearly acknowledging the ways that the methodology can easily be abused (or used to harmful ends), the ethics of of the approach, and the author's credibility in applying it, are undermined unnecessarily. Similarly, it would be best to note the approval of the research approach by a human ethics review board if possible. In lieu of this, and in addition to the very basic statements of informed consent, the author should discussion measures taken to ensure (public) anonymity of research participants (e.g., pseudonyms, participant input on draft prior to submission, other adjustments and modifications).

I appreciate the decolonial approach and the poetic autoethnographic exploration. The authors may wish in light of these pursuits to reconsider the use of the term "data", which is often used to disengage with the personhood and agency of research participants (thereby reinforcing colonial mindsets).

After undertaking these revisions, I expect that the paper will make a helpful contribution to the literature.

Author Response

The paper is well written, thoughtfully crafted, and well-aware of related literatures, both theoretically and methodologically. The research does well to take "a Zhongyong path or treading a middle-road between ... extremes systematically". I would only recommend light revisions.

*Thank you for your encouraging comments.

The introduction section needs to do more than provide context. A synopsis of the argument, evidence, and findings are needed, along with a summary overview of the paper structure to better orient readers to the paper itself.

*Thank you for your suggestion. I have revised the introduction section thoroughly to add the suggested information.

Since a substantial portion of the paper discusses experience gained in China as well, this should also be mentioned overtly in the abstract (in addition to  Thailand).

*Thank you for your insight. You are right. I have now added China in the abstract.

In terms of both ethical practice and credibility, the discussion of poetic autoethnography should also provide some discussion of the potential weaknesses and pitfalls of such an approach, along with the specific ways in which the author worked to avoid such pitfalls in their own work. This is hinted at in some places (e.g., the Hanaurer quote "When done diligently, honestly, and professionally"), but it needs to be foregrounded with more clarity. The author presents plenty of valid reasons for adopting (and championing) the approach, but without clearly acknowledging the ways that the methodology can easily be abused (or used to harmful ends), the ethics of the approach, and the author's credibility in applying it, are undermined unnecessarily. Similarly, it would be best to note the approval of the research approach by a human ethics review board if possible. In lieu of this, and in addition to the very basic statements of informed consent, the author should discussion measures taken to ensure (public) anonymity of research participants (e.g., pseudonyms, participant input on draft prior to submission, other adjustments and modifications).

*Thank you for your suggestions. The following details are added:

On page 4: This poetic autoethnography is part of a larger study approved of by the human ethics committee of my university.

Pseudonyms were used to refer to my students throughout the study.

Poetic autoethnographies have their own pitfalls though. First, the quality of poetry can be a problem. As Faulkner [35] pointed out, poetry in Poetic Inquiry needs to be aesthetically appealing and demonstrate critical engagement with knowledge-making. Second, autoethnography can also be misused. According to Chang (2008), these include too narrow a focus on the self, a lack of critical analysis and cultural rendering, an overreliance on personal memory, unethical research practices, and unfit use of the term autoethnography. 

To avoid these pitfalls, I composed my poetic autoethnography by following a similar process of moving from personal to social to reflective levels, which I adapted from Hanauer’s [14] study. More specifically, the process includes the following phases…[Lines 202-211].

I also revised the phases to make the research process more transparent.

I appreciate the decolonial approach and the poetic autoethnographic exploration. The authors may wish in light of these pursuits to reconsider the use of the term "data", which is often used to disengage with the personhood and agency of research participants (thereby reinforcing colonial mindsets).

*Thank you for your encouraging comments and helpful suggestion. I have removed all mentions of “data” except one, which is a critique of treating the marginalized only as data providers.

“A more modern version is to position marginalized individuals and groups only as data providers and consumers of knowledge produced by the professionals and just from someone else’s perspective.” [Lines 681-682]

In other places where I used the term “data,” following Chang’s (2008) usage in Autoethnography as method, I changed to “artifacts” instead.

After undertaking these revisions, I expect that the paper will make a helpful contribution to the literature.

Open Review

( ) I would not like to sign my review report
(x) I would like to sign my review report

Quality of English Language

( ) I am not qualified to assess the quality of English in this paper
( ) English very difficult to understand/incomprehensible
( ) Extensive editing of English language required
( ) Moderate editing of English language required
(x) Minor editing of English language required
( ) English language fine. No issues detected

Reviewer 2 Report

I was keen to read this article with its potentially fascinating focus on poetic autoethnography and translanguaging. However, I think the overall structure of the article needs improving and the cohesiveness of the argument. The author claims that their research is decolonising technologies through emergent translanguaging literature from the margins. It is not entirely clear what the main research question is for this study and what the researcher is aiming is exploring through their poetic autoethnography. The research findings need to be more clearly presented and how both the teacher researcher and students become co-creators of new knowledge. What are the main findings from the research?

I would suggest that the author needs to make some of the following change and improvements to strengthen the article:

- Strengthen the introduction by setting out the main aims of the research and the research question.

- Improve and develop the theoretical underpinning of the article by having a more in-depth discussion and engagement with the literature on autoethnography and digital technology. How is their approach to autoethnography decolonising the use of technology? The author also needs to engage in more depth with poetic enquiry and the literature on using creative writing and, in this case poetry, for research. In my opinion, the stance towards using a translanguaging approach needs to be strengthened and integrated more closely into the discussion of poetic autoethnography.  The author needs to be much clearer about the purpose of publishing emergent translanguaging literature (p. 3 line 103) and how this decolonises technologies. I am not convinced that the next part about taking the middle-road adds to the overall argument here.

- The section on materials and methods should include an overall discussion and argument about why a poetic autoethnographic approach has been selected to conduct this research and include more details on how the students' voices and poetic writing were incorporated into the research. 

- The author needs to include more on the overall research design and the research participants (students) alongside their own positionality as an auto-ethnographer. 

- The emergent translanguaging literature is fascinating but the analysis needs to be set out more clearly at the start of this section and the different sites of learning that are covered. The author jumps across different periods of their life and experiences and the main findings need to be drawn out and linked to the main research focus on decolonising digital technologies. 

- The conclusion needs strengthening and the main research findings positioned clearly within existing literature to show how this research adds new knowledge to the field. 

The article is fluently written with only a few minor errors. For example, the author uses 'oppressors' in line 85 when I assume they mean 'the oppressed'. It should be 'goes' and not 'go' ( line 95). There are also a few turns of phrase that should be avoided in an article such as 'Of course, I am nobody' (line 122) and 'a mission impossible' (line 128).

Author Response

Dear Reviewer, 

Thank you for your evaluation. I have updated references by replacing the less relevant ones with more relevant ones. I have also linked my study more closely to existing literature. Please find my response indicated with *.

I was keen to read this article with its potentially fascinating focus on poetic autoethnography and translanguaging. However, I think the overall structure of the article needs improving and the cohesiveness of the argument. The author claims that their research is decolonising technologies through emergent translanguaging literature from the margins. It is not entirely clear what the main research question is for this study and what the researcher is aiming is exploring through their poetic autoethnography. The research findings need to be more clearly presented and how both the teacher researcher and students become co-creators of new knowledge. What are the main findings from the research?

*Thank you for your interest in reading my article and kindness in providing your review. I have made the following changes to address the existing issues:

1. Providing a road map in the introduction to help the readers follow my thinking. [See lines 24-29]
2. Reorganizing the structure to present a clearer claim-and-evidence relationship.
3. Foregrounding two major findings through translanguaging poems.
4. Adding an explanation about students as co-creators of new knowledge.

I would suggest that the author needs to make some of the following change and improvements to strengthen the article:

- Strengthen the introduction by setting out the main aims of the research and the research question.

*Thank you for your suggestions. I have revised the introduction accordingly by adding these sentences in bold:

My goal is to contextualize the decolonization of educational technology from a Global South perspective. I also want to explore ways in which technology-sustained colonization can be disrupted by frontline EFL writing teachers. My central question is: How can technologies be decolonized in an EFL writing classroom? [See Lines 21-24]

- Improve and develop the theoretical underpinning of the article by having a more in-depth discussion and engagement with the literature on autoethnography and digital technology. How is their approach to autoethnography decolonising the use of technology? The author also needs to engage in more depth with poetic enquiry and the literature on using creative writing and, in this case poetry, for research. In my opinion, the stance towards using a translanguaging approach needs to be strengthened and integrated more closely into the discussion of poetic autoethnography.  The author needs to be much clearer about the purpose of publishing emergent translanguaging literature (p. 3 line 103) and how this decolonises technologies. I am not convinced that the next part about taking the middle-road adds to the overall argument here.

*Thank you for your insightful comments. They challenged me to read more literature and, in some cases, re-read the literature I already cited. I have then made necessary changes in the text concerning poetic inquiry and autoethnography. As for the use of creative writing in academic writing, I realized that it can be viewed as part of the poetic inquiry. Therefore, I have removed it. Instead, I added more information about poetic autoethnography. See page 2.

Concerning the suggestion that “the stance towards using a translanguaging approach needs to be strengthened and integrated more closely into the discussion of poetic autoethnography,” I have linked with more literature to explain how both translanguaging and poetic autoethnography can contribute to the process of decolonization. See Lines 68–113.  

Changes are made in response to the suggestion that “the author needs to be much clearer about the purpose of publishing emergent translanguaging literature (p. 3 line 103) and how this decolonises technologies.” See, for example, Lines 689–719.

However, I have kept the middle-road approach because it captures my pragmatic ways of engaging with the decolonization of technologies. I hope that with the structure and content more streamlined in my revision, the relevance of this approach also becomes more apparent.

Another suggestion that did not translate into substantial revision is “digital technology.” To delve into more literature will result in a much longer paper. Besides, it seems not so urgent in this poetic autoethnography, which does not seek to critique any digital technology in particular but to invite productive and decolonizing ways of using technology.

- The section on materials and methods should include an overall discussion and argument about why a poetic autoethnographic approach has been selected to conduct this research and include more details on how the students' voices and poetic writing were incorporated into the research. 

*Thank you for your insightful comment. The materials and methods section is now improved with more details (see p. 5).

- The author needs to include more on the overall research design and the research participants (students) alongside their own positionality as an auto-ethnographer. 

*Thank you for your suggestion. Revisions are made to both explicate my research design (see p. 5) and foreground student participants as co-autoethnographic researchers and writers (see p. 4).

- The emergent translanguaging literature is fascinating but the analysis needs to be set out more clearly at the start of this section and the different sites of learning that are covered. The author jumps across different periods of their life and experiences and the main findings need to be drawn out and linked to the main research focus on decolonising digital technologies. 

*Thank you for your suggestions. To address these issues, I added transitional phrases and sentences such as the following explanation:

“Reflecting on this part of my educational experience, I felt that the decolonization of technologies must be accompanied by a process of externalization. I must face the internalized truths about cultural others, regardless of the specific technologies used to promote such truths.”

I also added phrases to signal the context I was writing about.

- The conclusion needs strengthening and the main research findings positioned clearly within existing literature to show how this research adds new knowledge to the field. 

*Thank you for your suggestion. I have revised the conclusion thoroughly to relate it to existing literature on translanguaging and decolonization.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The article is fluently written with only a few minor errors. For example, the author uses 'oppressors' in line 85 when I assume they mean 'the oppressed'. It should be 'goes' and not 'go' ( line 95). There are also a few turns of phrase that should be avoided in an article such as 'Of course, I am nobody' (line 122) and 'a mission impossible' (line 128).

*Thank you for your careful reading. I have corrected these errors and copyedited the whole article by integrating feedback from a professional editor.

However, with the oppressor in line 97 of the revised paper, Freire actually suggests that even the oppressors need to have their humanity restored. To avoid confusion, I added an explanation as follows:

More specifically, it requires formerly oppressed groups and individuals to wrestle with the historically shaped hegemonies so as to “regain their humanity” and restore humanity in their oppressors; to Freire, oppressors are deprived of their humanity as well [24, p. 44].