Crossing the Split in Nepantla: (Un)successful Attempts to Dismantle a TESOL Teacher Candidate in After-Queer Research

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper neither plans to use the restorative agenda nor provides a sample of representation or voices of a teacher candidate or researcher who identifies themselves as queer. Instead, this paper looks into the researcher’s desires and imagining in analyzing a split self to think about how to problematize their thinking and actions, which should go beyond the limits of gender and sexuality or a coded term “L-G-B-T-Q,” to disrupt the existing binary of doing queer research. First, the author reviews what queer and after-queer mean in educational research and how the researchers have queered their work in the education field. Then, the author describes the nepantla concept as a theoretical lens. The autohistoria-teoria, or a personal essay that theorizes, is used as a form of self-critique in this piece. The author concludes by reexamining this paper’s central question, How did a Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) teacher candidate queer their teaching in a high school in the United States? and shares critical thoughts of what could be next in after-queer research.