Positionality Statements

I am a first-generation teacher-scholar from a middle-class family in Japan who uses English as an additional language. I currently live and study in Vancouver as an uninvited guest, working on participatory action research with teachers in English language education. My research centers on the exploration and enactment of critical language awareness, critical pedagogy/literacy, and world Englishes, which, in turn, offer insights that inform this project’s homepage design, organization, and editorial work.

I am a first-generation settler Canadian of European ancestry and was raised in a small resource community located on the traditional territories of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish Nation) with close ties to the shíshálh Nation. My background and lived experiences, including as a queer cis-gender woman and someone with an acquired disability, has profoundly shaped my work as an educational leader, including my commitment to fostering inclusive writing instruction across the university. I hope that the collaborative processes engaged in developing the Inclusive Teaching of Writing project and website as well as the teaching and learning experiences, practices and resources it contains, will help undo the historically colonialist function of university writing instruction and contribute to increased access and inclusion for every student. 

I am a first-generation immigrant from Tehran, Iran who grew up on the traditional and unceded territories of the (Tsleil-Waututh), kʷikʷəƛ̓əm (Kwikwetlem), and Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) Peoples. Growing up in the Iranian diaspora as a 2SLGBTQIA+ and neurodivergent student, I became attentive to how access to voice and knowledge is shaped by structures that privilege normative identities. My identity and experiences inform my academic interests, which center on how discourse produces “common sense” and constructs power by legitimizing some ways of knowing over others. I am drawn to this project because I see writing pedagogy as a site of change and resistance not just by enhancing communication, but by creating space for reclaiming voice and reimagining what counts as knowledge. 

My identity as a mixed-race US citizen has always situated me in a place of in-betweenness and ambiguity which is often not considered or acknowledged in policy, institution, or common discourse. This space of liminality has inspired me to pay closer attention to the stories that are often made invisible by neocolonial institutions and governance. I bring this identity, as well as my knowledge as an anthropology scholar and aspiring journalist, to the ITOW project to create space and open discussions for individuals and communities who fall between the cracks of traditional institutional pedagogy. I hope that this project is one of many that will counter our Western historical ways of knowing to reframe education in a way that highlights strengths in diversity rather than focusing on the perspectives that academia has historically privileged. 

I am a second-generation immigrant of Korean heritage, and my diasporic identity has always left me moving between cultural categories—never fully fitting the inherited markers of what is considered “Canadian,” yet not entirely aligned with what is understood as “Korean.” My lived experiences of cultural liminality, alongside intellectual interest in political theory and human plurality, have shaped a broader commitment to understanding how language and communication constructs authority. They have also made me attentive to how assumptions of credible knowledge can marginalize those who navigate multiple cultural or linguistic worlds. I have joined this project with the hope that its focus on accessibility and critique of respectability politics will offer a framework for rethinking how people come to see themselves as legitimate participants in both academic and public life. 

Jasmine Manango is a current graduate student at UBC’s Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice. She is a 1.5 generation Filipino immigrant with mixed Tagalog, Ilocano and Kapampangan cultural heritage who has lived in the Metro Vancouver area for most of her life. Her research interests lie primarily in Critical Disability Studies, Filipinx-Canadian studies, Filipino migration/diaspora studies, Indigenized Filipino Methodology Studies and the study of Philippine ethnolinguistic cultures, with a particular focus on the politics of diagnosis, AuDHD, biopolitics, political economy and governmentality. She was drawn to the inclusive teaching of writing project due to her general interest in equity-based and decolonial epistemologies and knowledge-production, lifelong love for writing and strong concerns about the emerging literacy crisis among the next generation of students.

As an international student of colour studying psychology, journalism and social change, I draw from my lived experiences navigating cross-cultural writing and learning environments. I am passionate about creating accessible and inclusive academic spaces grounded in compassion, belonging, and diverse ways of knowing. In this project, I bring a student-focused lens that centers voice, confidence, and the relational dimensions of scholarly writing. For me, centering voice means ensuring students feel empowered to express their ideas authentically; confidence means helping students trust their abilities as thinkers and writers; and relationality recognizes that writing is shaped by our identities, communities, and the support we receive. These values matter to me because I have experienced both the challenges and possibilities of writing across cultures, and they are what drew me to a project committed to compassion, inclusivity, and meaningful student experience.

I am a white cis-het woman whose ancestors from the British Isles and France have been in Canada for multiple generations (and typically went to university).  I work in my dominant language, and am typically given the benefit of the doubt regarding my language use due to the significant privilege I inhabit.  My goal is to leverage that privilege for good.  One way I try to do this is by sharing access, letting students in on the implicit expectations of rarefied spaces such as the academy by not only making them explicit, but by also exploring ‘work arounds’.  I also endeavour to make change by capitalizing on my welcome to many privileged communities and spaces and pushing back against normative and restrictive expectations and practices.  Living with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome has fostered a critical take on the unrealistic expectations of ableism.