UNIVERSALIST CLAIMS VS. LOCAL PERSPECTIVES: DECOLONISING “ACADEMIC WRITING IN ENGLISH”

Abstract

Many scholars and university students whose first language is not English need to write in English to publish in international journals and to attend international conferences. Gatekeepers — editors and conference organizers — screen submissions for linguistic competence but also for adherence to certain internationally accepted norms, such as writing that is argument-driven rather than descriptive or data-driven. Courses and training sessions I have taught under the general rubric “Academic Writing in English” (AWE) sought to improve students’ chances with international publications and conferences by encouraging them to strengthen their central arguments. While confident of the benefits of AWE instruction, I had an uneasy conscience about its not so hidden universalist claim that forms of AngloAmerican academic inquiry are superior to others. Such claims, coupled with the presumption of their universal applicability, are today being challenged by decolonising critiques. Bluntly put, is Academic Writing in English guilty of neo-colonialism because it recommends hewing to norms developed in the global (north)west? There is more to academic writing in English, of course, than attention to an argument-driven structure. However, it is the promotion of such standards that makes AWE instruction vulnerable to the decolonising critique. To apply the critique to AWE pedagogy, this article reviews the impact of the decoloniality literature on education and research in Belarus and Ukraine, and highlights resistance in those countries against Russian cultural hegemony. After framing the topic and reviewing the cultural struggle in Belarus and Ukraine, I argue that for Academic Writing in English to be truly beneficial, instruction must be self-critical, allowing and encouraging participants to engage in collective self-reflection to enable informed decisions regarding cultural norms. The focus on Academic Writing in English as taught in Eastern Europe suggests broader comparisons regarding the clash between universalist claims and local perspectives in other regions of the world.