Case Study in Language and Social Justice: Amplifying Discursive Resistance in Higher Education

I’m pleased to announce that a case study I wrote has just been published in Language and Social Justice. An Introduction to Linguistic Activism by Sauntson, Cunningham, Ennser-Kananen & O’Brien (Routledge). The invitation from Prof. Helen Sauntson was an honour, and I see it as a recognition of the work I have been pursuing in critical linguistics and critical pedagogies.

The textbook is singular in its ambition. It offers readers the intellectual tools — theories, methods, case studies, activism prompts — to analyse how language sustains inequalities and how it might be intervened upon. It deliberately positions the reader not only as scholar but also as activist applied linguist.

My contribution ties directly to an article I published earlier, Discursive Struggles Over LGBT+ Rights at Polish Universities (Pakuła and Chojnicka, 2020).  In that article, we examine how LGBT+ student groups at several Polish universities attempt to carve out space for recognition and rights, and how those attempts are contested, resisted, or neutralised by institutional discourse, norms, and counter-narratives. The focus is on how language — naming, silence, framing, institutional policy texts — becomes a battleground for inclusion and exclusion.

In the case study in the volume, I build on that foundation to show how discursive activism can be enacted in the classroom, institutional policy critique, and curriculum design, especially in relation to sexuality, identity, and higher education settings.

It seems to me especially timely, in a world that is growing ever more volatile, polarised, and unpredictable, that we cultivate critical skills if we are to respond meaningfully to injustice. Two such skills stand out:

1. Adaptability — the ability to see shifting power dynamics, to adjust one’s analytic lens, and to reframe one’s strategies of intervention. In discourse work, that means being alert to emerging discursive formations and counter-moves.

2. Resilience — the capacity to sustain critical inquiry and praxis under resistance, backlash, or seemingly overwhelming inertia. In institutional contexts, resistance is often silent or slow-moving. Resilience is what helps keep the critical edge alive over time.

By teaching, writing, and intervening through critical linguistic practice, I hope not only to understand how social inequalities are reproduced but also to help strengthen the capacities of students, scholars, and institutions to resist them.