IGALA 13: A winter escape to Montevideo (and a warm return to the IGALA community)

It was a trip down memory lane. Despite the IGALA family of scholars having always had a special place in my heart, the last conference in the series I attended was in Hong Kong in 2016, a full nine years ago. This year’s gathering in Montevideo was, therefore, a much-awaited event I genuinely looked forward to.

One of the many charms of IGALA conferences is that they often take you to places that may not instantly scream “tourist destination” in the conventional sense, but reward you richly if you take the time to immerse yourself in the local culture. Uruguay, with its just-over-five-million population, enviable voter turnout rates (over 90% – something Europe could certainly learn from), and more cows than people (about three to one, if you’re counting), proved to be a fascinating host. It also offered a much-needed escape from Europe’s July heatwave. Rarely do you find yourself longing for winter in the height of summer, but this year I did. And yes – I relished it.

The decision to rotate the conference across different corners of the world speaks directly to IGALA’s commitment to access and diversity, making it possible for scholars from a range of contexts to attend and network. Montevideo could not have been a better choice. The organisers also embraced linguistic inclusivity in a way that felt both genuine and forward-thinking: sessions and plenaries were delivered in English, Spanish, and Portuguese, with live automated translation when needed. This is what decolonising conference practices can look like in action, and the IGALA 13 team deserves full credit for it.

 

 

It’s also nice to be needed. Academia can be a solitary place, and whenever someone recognises that your expertise might be of use, the answer, at least for me, is always “Yes, of course.” Serving on the Academic Committee and supporting the organisers wherever I could was a reminder of the community spirit that IGALA fosters.

 

 

The intellectual content more than matched the setting. I was thrilled to see that the intersection of education, language, and sexuality/gender remains vibrant. The panel I presented in was impeccably organised and chaired by Germán Canale, the conference chair. Even better, it marked the first time I presented alongside my long-time collaborator and friend, Joanna Chojnicka (University of Groningen). We’ve known and worked with each other for over a decade, but until now it had always been either her or me presenting our joint work; never both of us together. Being there for each other on stage was an absolute treat.

 

 

 

Our session, “Teaching and Education”, moderated by Germán Canale, was one of those rare moments when the programme felt almost tailor-made. We began with Diego Santi, who offered a fascinating critical multimodal analysis of how masculinity models were constructed in Uruguay’s official English-language textbooks between 1933 and 1968. It was a rich historical perspective that set the tone for thinking about how educational materials shape gendered identities. Next, Lia Litosseliti presented a Swiss student perspective on navigating gendered and heteronormative representations in ELT materials, which was an eye-opening reminder of how students themselves engage with and challenge these depictions. Thorsten Merse then offered a meta-reflective evaluation of approaches to queering English-language education and pointed out what is still needed for the future.

 

 

 

 

Joanna Chojnicka and I then brought the panel to a close with our joint paper based on two publications we co-authored: Chojnicka and Pakuła (2021) and Pakuła and Chojnicka (2020). Our talk, “Clashing discourses of (queer) struggle in the context of Polish education”, examined how competing narratives of equality and restriction collide in the Polish higher educational context. Each talk was as if another piece of a puzzle, which came together nicely to create a comprehensive picture of this strand of research. It’s a rare sight at conferences for talks to resonate with one another to such a degree.

What was truly uplifting was the fact that many people approached me and shared that my research and publications have made a real difference in their lives. Also, there were moments when I was asked to sign my book! These are the moments when you realise that what you’re doing is worth the while, and in moments of doubt, you come back to these memories to soldier on and contribute towards a better future.

Beyond the sessions, there were the chance encounters, the long conversations over coffee, and the joy of catching up with old friends while making new ones. And there was time to explore – from the elegant streets of Montevideo to the UNESCO-listed Colonia del Sacramento, and even across the widest river in the world, Río de la Plata, to Buenos Aires.

 

References

Chojnicka, Joanna and Łukasz Pakuła. 2021. “Polish LGBT Teachers Talking Sexuality: Glocalized Discourses,” in: Łukasz Pakuła (ed.), Linguistic Perspectives on Sexuality in Education: Representations, Constructions and Negotiations. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 275–313. (https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64030-9_10).

Pakuła, Łukasz and Joanna Chojnicka. 2020. “When the obligation to be neutral becomes the right to discriminate: discursive struggles over LGBT+ rights at Polish universities,” Trabalhos em Linguística Aplicada59, 3: 1758–1783.