The role of Black languaging histories in conjuring countertextual knowledges

In this era of unprecedented globalization and technological advances, we have become increasingly aware of educational inequities around the globe. We regularly learn of violations, setbacks and rapid changes that harm racially minoritized and otherwise oppressed groups both in and outside of formal learning spaces. Understanding how these groups navigate, overcome and thrive in spite of these violences requires engagement with how those who face these realities language them as unencumbered by the colonial gaze. Through fugitive languaging, naming the harms and recognising communities as texts, this brief exploration of Black languaging histories offers a means of conjuring these knowledges as countertextual– demonstrating their steadfast existence across space and time. This commentary further thematically highlights historical and contemporary Black languaging and cultural practices that are echoed within the special issue to awaken and stimulate longstanding pathways towards dismantling dominating discourses of white western hegemony in education.