Research Statement

Lami Fofana
In my research, I interrogate Western epistemologies to make space for
marginalized and minority visibility. This interrogation enables all marginalized
groups to engage and participate with hegemonic ways of thinking and doing. In
such, my research interests respond to and align with Gayatri Spivaks classic
article and question, Can the Subaltern Speak? Aligning with Spivak, my
research projects, such as my dissertation work with Non-Native English
Speaker Instructor (NESI), exemplify ways subalterns engage with dominant
meaning making processes and practices to recover and reclaim alternative
ways of thinking, doing and being.
For example, in the humanities, the focus of language diversity often
centers on students experiences. Thus, my research trajectory for the next five
years and beyond will attempt to counter this approach by bringing in and
integrating NESI experiences. I envision this inclusion as both an extension and
a reflection on language diversity discourses that would conjure disciplines in
the humanities to listen to, speak with, learn and borrow from
shadowed/silenced minority groups. I plan to publish chapters of my
dissertation in journals such as, Karios, Journal of Literacy, and encultration.
While working on publishing my dissertation chapters, I plan to work on a book
length project on global decolonial pedagogy for teaching and researching
writing, specifically non-Western literacies and practices. I envision this project
as timely and important because it will allow us to design writing programs that
enable all students and instructors to successfully navigate those spaces.
With this research trajectory in mind, my research projects and activities
will continue to examine minority visibility in ways that leads to and extends
writing theories, pedagogies and methodologies. In my first year as an assistant
professor, I plan to develop a NESI related training and/or mentoring program
to build and encourage conversations on and around language diversity
discourses. These conversations will enable, empower and equip both faculty
and students (undergraduate and graduate) to interact and engage with foreign
accent stigmas and assumptions. In my second year, I plan to teach a seminar
on foreign accents as epistemic sites for rhetorics of resistance and epistemic
transgression. Following the seminar, I plan to develop and organize a collegewide symposium for graduate NESI TAs. In my fourth and fifth years, my goal is
to collaborate with minority visibility scholars to publish edited collection on
NESI research, teaching and experience.
Overall, this research trajectory is important to me because it allows me
to work with colleagues and graduate students in effort to build relations and
alliances that would allow me/us to carefully interrogate Western assumptions
in ways that leads to a design and development of more inclusive and multicultural writing programs.