Glocademia in Practice - Manuela Wagner

Glocademia in Practice brings together academics who adopt critical, decolonial, intercultural and inter-epistemic approaches to research and education. The chapters present some of the outcomes of the initial work (2023-2024) of the online Glocademia Interest Group.  Glocal projects are examined through the lenses of the Glocademia matrix (Manuela Guilherme 2022). Although each contribution is grounded in a distinct national, social, and cultural context, viewed through multiple lenses, all are united by a shared conceptual framework and a commitment to innovative theory and practice.

This book explores the foundations of the Glocademia Matrix and provides practical examples in teaching, learning and researching through collaborative and mutual learning approaches, participatory actions, coproduction, reciprocity in (inter)cultural commitment and decoloniality. GM-based practice assumes particular relevance for discussing meta-research, artificial intelligence, balanced individual and planetary health, ecological and environmental boundaries, social and epistemic justice and solidarity. GM represents a “manifesto for a more inclusive, critical science deeply rooted in the realities of human and environmental communities”, actually evolving from thousands of languages spoken in the past.

(Anabela Marisa Azul, (Research leader at the CNC-UC Centre for Neuroscience and Cell Biology, University of Coimbra, Co-editor of the Encyclopaedia of the UN Sustainability Goals, Springer Nature)

Glocademia in Practice makes a much-needed and valuable contribution to language education and to broader debates on decolonial, intercultural, and inter-epistemic approaches to knowledge. The volume shows how the Glocademia Matrix can guide research, teaching, and curriculum design without reducing local and ethical complexity to a set of predetermined methods. Its strength lies in the way each chapter shows how the Matrix and its guiding questions were “put into practice” across diverse educational contexts, making visible the tensions involved in collaboration, dialogue, and the responsibilities of the different actors. In this way, the book offers an inspiring opportunity to reimagine academia as an intervention-oriented and community-building practice, grounded in attentive listening and cooperation, and committed to more just educational and social futures. 

(Jesica Franco, Universidad Veracruzana, Mexico).