Van Lier Lecture Series: Johanna Ennser-Kananen

Title: Can we cross? - Epistemic and linguistic lines in a school for adult learners

Abstract: In this talk, I share reflections on epistemic injustice, the unequal position of different knowledges and ways of knowing, particularly in schools and other educational contexts. I draw on data from my 5-year critical ethnographic study “Who knows?” (Academy of Finland, 2020-2025) that examines the validation of knowledges, or epistemic legitimacy, that is constantly constructed and negotiated in educational contexts. My study asks “How do certain knowledges (including languages) and knowers become legitimate, while others don’t?” I look for answers to this question by analyzing data from a community college that offers adult basic education in small-town Finland. Specifically, I work with 10 teachers (4 focal teachers), most of whom were born and educated in Finland, and about 60 students (5 focal students), most of whom came to Finland as refugees from African and West Asian countries and have experienced war, violence, and interruptions in their schooling trajectories. I conducted participant observations, un- and semistructured interviews with students and staff, and audio recordings of lessons and other school-related activities. Out of the large data set that is still being analyzed, I share two ways in which epistemic lines, which separate legitimate knowledge from “knowledglessness”, were constructed and negotiated at the school: (1) “Dark knowledges” (about pain, violence, loss, racism, etc.) surfaced in many expected and unexpected places, rarely disrupted the instructional plan, and sometimes positively contributed to the knowledge construction process. In some cases, they were imposed on students and delegitimized their positive experiences, potentially with the intention to prepare them for life in Finland. (2) “Knowing “Finnish/ness” was marked by epistemic-linguistic lines of (perceived) comprehensibility. In other words, teachers worried about students’ Finnish not being understood outside the school, or about their ways of doing math not being recognized in their further education. As these epistemic lines were constructed, they were also negotiated, resisted, and sometimes crossed. I offer comments on how the dominant discourse of “knowing Finnish/ness” relates to larger colonial mechanisms that keep the migrant “Other” in check. I further complicate the role of teachers, who are caught between a variety of social and institutional ideologies and expectations, and end with implications for teacher educators.

Biography: Johanna Ennser-Kananen is an Associate Professor of English and Academy Research Fellow at the University of Jyväskylä’s Department of Language and Communication Studies. Her work focuses on linguistically and culturally sustaining language and teacher education, particularly on epistemic and linguistic justice in educational contexts. This entails the deconstructing of white, Eurocentric, and anthropocentric norms and the search for more sustainable and community-guided ways of being an academic. 

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