“What is the Impact of This?”

Resisting the Censure of Critical Conversations, Collective Action and Transformation in Speech-Language Therapy

María Rosa Brea-Spahn, Vishnu KK Nair, and Clara Bauler

On February 1st, 2022, Warda Farah, a Black and multilingual Speech and Language Therapist was invited as a guest speaker in a virtual joint event organised by the Centre for Literacy and Multilingualism and by the University of Reading Speech and Language Therapy Student Society. In a well-attended session, she courageously expressed a stark critique of the field of Speech-Language Therapy (SLT). Warda began her presentation entitled ‘SLT Done Right is Social Justice Work’ with three poignant statements:

“Everyone’s story is important;

SLT as a profession is biopolitical, colonial, and racist;

there is hope, we can reframe how we work”

Her positionality was clearly articulated a priori of and throughout her authentic discussion of these anchor statements: She weaved her personal story and centered the stories of co-learners with whom she’s partnered in her practice. Intentional choices were made to resist the stereotypical role of a minoritized scholar in the presence of a largely white audience; that is, she resisted the expectation of charting the way forward with expansive definitions, lists of steps, or toolkits. Ripples of affirmation and criticism followed this brave exposition. In recent weeks, one rebuttal attempted to censure her voice. Specifically, a caustic review, claiming reverse racism in defense of the field, referred to her ideological frames and approaches as biased and lacking in evidence. This review also emboldened the use of practices, such as standardized tests, as systematic and fair means of obtaining accurate depictions of communicative behaviors of minoritized populations. The speaker of this opinion piece (which has since removed the post) asked the question “What is the impact of this (stance and centering of a critical view of SLT)?”

The traumatic and damaging impacts of statements such as these, rooted in misogyny, racism, and in favor of upholding white supremacy, on Warda Farah’s personal and professional spheres are not to be minimized. Importantly, however, it is worth situating the critic’s discomfort with challenges to the status quo in SLT within a more general query: When does knowledge become acceptable evidence in SLT? The explicit implication of this question, in this case, evolves from the critic’s perception that Warda’s personal call for an “alternative epistemology,” a call for reflection and change in the field of SLT, was lacking in evidence, suggestive of a negative stance (thus lacking civility), and could, in turn, be considered dangerous.

We begin asserting that we reject empty criticisms calling the practices and ideologies expressed by Warda Farah as negative and dangerous. Warda is not alone. Her claims and call for action are a part of a growing movement in language-based fields that are actively unveiling and resisting raciolinguistic and ableist ideologies that frame their very foundations, including theories of language acquisition, standardized testing, and definitions of bilingualism. Raciolinguistic and ableist ideologies detach mind, language, body and sociocultural contexts, perpetuating racial and cultural normativity by expecting minoritized students to model their linguistic practices after the white, monolingual, able-bodied speaking subject (Flores & Rosa, 2015).

Secondly, we choose to stand in support of Warda’s positionalities, her multiple intersecting identities as a Black, multilingual, SLT, woman in her story, and the importance that these positionalities play in her views of the SLT profession. According to Jacobson & Mustafa (2019), the ways in which we see, understand, and narrate the world influence how we interact with others, make decisions, and interpret others’ actions. Similarly, the ways in which we are positioned within our multiply braided identities impacts how the world perceives who we are, how our knowledges are accepted or dismissed, how our actions or behaviors are catalogued within or outside of — white perceiving — prescriptive boundaries of professionalism and intellect. As such, any personalized accusations must be situated within a matrix of social power in which stances closest to the hegemonic standard are elevated and all others are decentered and rendered irrelevant. A potential grave danger in this case would be to leave unnamed the role that white supremacy consistently plays in perceptions and judgments about minoritized individuals’ thinking and languaging.

To refuse claims that Warda’s statements were sparse or absent in evidence-base, we choose to analyze them within critical and decolonial epistemologies — traditions of knowledge production that are at direct odds with Euro-centrism. We demonstrate that statements made are not mere opinions or decontextualized claims by the speaker; in contrast, they represent a positionality that is cultivated as a result of commitment to reflexivity, criticality, and the decentering and challenging of Euro-centric epistemology.

“SLT as a profession is biopolitical, colonial, and racist”

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines epistemology as a word related to knowledge or understanding. It is well documented the speech and language therapy practices are rooted in Euro-centric epistemology that conceptualizes and idealizes Whiteness as the norm for human speech, language and communication abilities. Euro-centrism is a racist and a colonial ideology that glorifies European ideals of scientific knowledge as superior to non-European countries. These ideals were imposed on individuals and groups through colonialism and later through coloniality — a violent process of domination whereby old colonial ideologies were and continue to be metamorphized into structural racism in all spheres of life.

Speech and language therapy as a profession evolved within this colonial context right after the second world war. In addition to Euro-centrism and racism, therefore, the history of this discipline must be integrated within the contexts of ableism, and the evolution of nation-states. Interrogating the history and current practices utilizing a Foucauldian notion of biopower would reveal that the conceptual and performative end of this profession is serving neo-liberalism, the socio-economic doctrine of the modern nation-state.

First, biopower, according to Foucault, is a product of industrialized societies that seek to control bodies, in order to govern populations. The control and governance would often incorporate state sanctioned violence and the domination of bodies for economic production. Human subjectivity, or the self, is evolved within this context of state power and control.

Secondly, neoliberalism is defined as a socio-economic doctrine that controls the economy and social life through capital production. This doctrine is often devoid of any state regulation and distances itself from social, cultural, ethical, and moral responsibilities. Neoliberal policies have resulted in immense social exclusion and suffering due to their elevation of English as the language of capital production, competitiveness, and economy. Of relevance is the relationship between neoliberalism and standardized language ideology, as it is driven by commodity production and profit. Standardized language ideology racializes, dehumanizes, and pathologizes Black and Brown children whose language varieties and communication do not conform to the standards of white, middle class, subjects. Thus, standardized tests in SLT act as a biopower that a) treat Black and Brown children as raw commodities through pathologizing their languaging, b) increase feeds into a neo-liberal economy creating capital for a profession to continue existing, and c) situates minoritized bodies as tools for creating deviance and in order to “discipline tongues” — a phrase coined by St Pierre and St. Pierre in their critical interrogation of the history of SLT. These authors add that SLT has evolved in a context where disabled subjectivities were considered as lack and threat to the economic productivity of the nation-state. Comparing and normalizing disabled subjectivity to the standards of white able-bodied subjects until they are “cured” is at the core of ableism and standardization.

A deadly concoction of racism, colonialism, ableism and notions of biopower are entrenched in the very foundations of SLT as a disciplinary field. Warda Farah is challenging this ideology in her practice.

“Everyone’s story is important; there is hope, we can reframe how we work”

The above statement emphasizes the role of critical and decolonial approaches in SLT. These approaches collectively examine knowledge production, power, and domination in society and their impact on minoritized individuals. These approaches interrogate the uniformity and superiority in Euro-centric epistemology such as the role of randomization and replication — and its domination in “treating” and “fixing” language differences of minoritized subjectivities. They question the claim of ideal evidence as a Euro-centric concept, possible only through conducting randomized experiments.

This kind of “evidence fundamentalism” is so typical of Euro-centric epistemology which fails to admit that evidence can be evolved by using critical qualitative methodologies that center community knowledge and story telling. Critical and decolonial approaches use a lens of equity sustaining variability in language and communication of all marginalized communities. These frameworks reject the elevation of white monolingual standards.

By highlighting insider stories, including her own experience, Warda offers a change in thought paradigms, a forward-looking and community-oriented approach that is more just and humane. This approach is not just relevant for minoritized children, it is critical for everyone. Failure to acknowledge democratization and equity embedded in critical approaches is not only reductionist; it negates epistemological violence — the perception of the other as inferior, their exploitation as means to generating assessment and intervention data, and the subjugation of their ways of sense making.

By imagining the children/family, the communities, and themselves as integral and interdependent agents, SLTs can disrupt the power structures that position them as experts. The focus of the practice can then shift to co-building spaces of humble co-learning, redefining the role of families, and elevating them as experts not merely testimonial providers. This reframing based on reciprocal and relational knowledge is not a utopian idea. It is rooted in the abolitionist practices that are bringing transformative change in the field of education.

So, “What is the impact of this?” It is the evolving potential for transformation that moves the field beyond calls for censure and civility, that invites us to check our socialized frames, and that poses the opportunity to sit in discomfort between what is familiar and what lies unknown. A transformative path, however, requires engagement in critical reflexivity. Thus, we end with a call to deep interrogation:

• Whose knowledge/s count/s as evidence?
• What impact can and do our own unanalyzed positionalities have on the stories we tell?
• How do our current beliefs, practices, methodologies, and bodies of evidence continue to uphold Euro-centric epistemologies?
• How can we, as a field, co-conspire with, cede power to, and protect minoritized and racialized SLTs in the envisioning of linguistic liberation?
• What is the intention and the action plan of the field of SLT in order to support critical conversations, envision collective action, and transformation?

We, for once, stand with Warda Farah and her expansive and hopeful vision for transformation in SLT. We guard against abyssal thinking. We commit ourselves to creating counter narratives based on equity and justice. We believe this to be a crucial and critical path forward in re-imagining SLT beyond its current crisis of conscience.

Recommended readings for critical self-reflection:

Annamma, S. A., Connor, D., & Ferri, B. (2013). Dis/ability critical race studies (DisCrit): Theorizing at the intersections of race and dis/ability. Race Ethnicity and Education, 16(1), 1–31.

Annamma, S. A., Anyon, Y., Joseph, N. M., Farrar, J., Greer, E., Downing, B., & Simmons, J. (2019). Black girls and school discipline: The complexities of being overrepresented and understudied. Urban Education, 54(2), 211–242.

Erevelles, N., & Minear, A. (2010). Unspeakable offenses: Untangling race and disability in discourses of intersectionality. Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies, 4(2), 127–146.

Pillay, M., & Kathard, H. (2015). Decolonizing health professionals’ education: audiology & speech therapy in South Africa. African Journal of Rhetoric, 7(1), 193–227.

Pierre, J. S., & Pierre, C. S. (2018). Governing the voice: A critical history of speech-language pathology. Foucault Studies, 151–184.

Critical Perspectives on Social Justice in Speech-Language Pathology https://www.igi-global.com/book/critical-perspectives-social-justice-speech/260328

Reimagining Social Justice in Speech and Language Therapy https://research.reading.ac.uk/research-blog/reimagining-social-justice-in-speech-and-language-therapy/

Flores, N., & Rosa, J. (2015). Undoing appropriateness: Raciolinguistic ideologies and language diversity in education. Harvard Educational Review, 85(2), 149–171.

Flores, N. (2016). A tale of two visions: Hegemonic whiteness and bilingual education. Educational Policy, 30(1), 13–38.

Jacobson, D., & Mustafa, N. (2019). Social identity map: A reflexivity tool for practicing explicit positionality in critical qualitative research. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 18, 1609406919870075.

Rosa, J., & Flores, N. (2017). Unsettling race and language: Toward a raciolinguistic perspective. Language in Society, 46(5), 621–647.

Woolard, K. A. (1985). Language variation and cultural hegemony: Toward an integration of sociolinguistic and social theory. American Ethnologist, 12(4), 738–748.

Yu, B., Horton, R., Munson, B., Newkirk-Turner, B. L., Johnson, V. E., Khamis-Dakwar, R., Munoz, M., & Hyter, Y. D. (2021). Making Race Visible in the Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences: A Critical Discourse Analysis. American Journal of Speech-language Pathology, 1–23.

María Rosa Brea-Spahn: I am a Dominican, white, cisgender, heterosexual, non-disabled woman, who immigrated to the United States at the age of 17. The same thread of ideologies weaved together my journeys across geografías linguísticas: Appropriateness, assimilation, and respectability in the process of languaging were imposed expectations. In the United States, in particular, I learned to silence, to categorize as interference, and to apologize for my acento (Spanish accent) in my evolving English languaging. In the present, as a critical teacher-scholar-community co-builder and in my collaborations with minoritized families and children, I focus on researching the impact of standardized linguistic ideologies in speech-language practices, sustaining variability in languaging in the classroom, and co-envisioning a path for linguistic liberation.

Vishnu Nair: I identify as a cisgendered, non-disabled South Asian gay man. My lived experience in India, a former Portuguese, Dutch, French and British colony, two settler colonies (Australia and USA), and a former colonizer country (UK) have advanced my understanding of the intricate links between Euro-centrism, racism, capital production, and pathologization of languages. I first encountered linguistic hegemony of English in my own home country India, where my societal, schooling and university experiences were marked by the subjugation of “non-elite local” languages. My past and current experiences as a racialized subject in higher education spaces have contributed to my current commitment towards disrupting the hegemony of positivist Euro-centric epistemology. Like Warda, and jointly with fellow dreamers, my current work focuses on building counter narratives through centring critical methodologies in research and praxis.

Clara Bauler: My identities and languaging stories are shaped by an urge to resist assimilation. I grew up in a mixed-heritage family which always made me feel “not from here and not from there.” I inherited my father’s tanned, brown skin, my mother’s Judaism, and Brazilian Portuguese. I was born in the US, but grew up in Rio, Brazil. Although my mother’s family never hid our ancestry from us, it was seen as shameful, so they suppressed it, nullified their Yiddish and Jewish languaging and cultural practices. We were never baptized, so that was also a source of shame in my father’s Catholic family. Because I was born in the US, I could go and do my PhD there which is a privilege. I also grew up middle class in Brazil, which is also a privilege. I am now grappling between my privileges and minoritization status in the US as an educator with a perceived “foreign accent.” Racialization happens in relations and in contexts, so it is crucial to unveil these relations and contexts through positionalities, such as the fundamental work Warda does.