The dominance of white and male perspectives in academic spaces causes epistemological racism and erases entire histories, cultures, and methods of understanding the world – ethics of care is uniquely key to solving discursive violence and erasure

5. EPISTEMOLOGICAL RACISM Epistemological racism in academe is ingrained in our academic knowledge system. James Scheurich (1997), an American educational researcher, discusses it as part of civilizational racism in education, which privileges the modernist (or postmodernist) assumptions of white Euro-American civilization and positions them as superior to the knowledges embraced by other civilizations, cultures, or peoples. The predominance of white perspectives is circulated through discourse as Van Dijk (1993) demonstrated in his analysis of sociology textbooks in English and school textbooks used in the Netherland. This form of racism works as epistemological hegemony, compelling non-Euro-American people of color to adopt these white assumptions as legitimate knowledge. In the fields of education and language education, the dominance and normativity of white Euro-American-centered knowledge in school curricula have been challenged (e.g. Willinsky 1998; Kubota 2004; Abdi 2006; May and Sleeter 2010). Gloria Joseph, a black feminist educator, characterized the US school curriculum as ‘White studies’ and ‘male studies’, ‘focusing on achievements, cultures, experiences and perspectives of white men and omitting or distorting the histories, experiences, cultures, and perspectives of people of color, and women of all colors’ (Joseph 1988: 178). Advocates and researchers supporting students of color promote culturally relevant teaching (LadsonBillings 1994), which honors the history, culture, language, and identity of minoritized learners. The predominance of white Euro-American-centered school and academic knowledge—in music, art, history, science, research theories, and methodologies—can be observed in non-Euro-American countries as well, indicating its global hegemony (Kubota 2017). The field of teaching English as a foreign language is a case in point. Japanese curricula and instruction, for example, emphasize standardized English and overrepresent inner circle countries, especially the USA, as well as whiteness (Yamada 2015). This is reflected in Japanese students’ preference for white native English-speaking teachers over black or Asian ones (Rivers and Ross 2013). The Eurocentrism of knowledge often excludes research focused on nonEuro-American issues produced in non-Euro-American locations or utilizing alternative orientations, especially when it is produced by non-Euro-American scholars of color. As Canagarajah (2002) argued, local knowledge, which has been suppressed by the Western mainstream epistemological paradigm, offers an alternative intellectual practice of thinking in research. To illustrate some of these points, I will present three episodes—one experienced by researchers in Brazil and the other two by me. Consistent with the spirit of critical race theory, my intention here is to offer subjective accounts based on my own positionality and to contextualize my subsequent theoretical discussion, rather than providing data for empirical analysis or objective interpretations.