Thinking through “in-betweenness”: a conversation with Suresh Canagarajah on decolonizing language education and research in South Asia

Abstract This article is based on a scholarly interview with Suresh Canagarajah about decolonizing language education and research in South Asia. The interview is focused on several themes, such as Canagarajah’s personal life trajectory as a decolonial scholar, colonial knowledge structures, English fever, and ethnolinguistic response to the hegemony of English, translingual university and transepistemic education in South Asia, decolonization through English, decolonizing research practices and negotiating norms in academic writing, and the responsibilities of applied linguists in South Asia. The article concludes by suggesting transepistemic language education, countering Eurocentric ontoepistemology (e.g., logocentrism, cognitivism and humanism), globalectics and decoloniality as alternatives to rethink ELT, applied linguistics and research in colonized contexts, such as South Asia.