Allow me to introduce myself: my name is Robert Aman and I am the new secretary of ESREA. I have recently re-joined Linköping University after a couple of years as lecturer at the School of Education, University of Glasgow. As you can tell, I excel at avoiding the sunshine…

My research has predominately focused on intercultural education and interculturality. This summer I published a book called Decolonising Intercultural Education (https://www.routledge.com/Decolonising-Intercultural-Education-Colonial-differences-the-geopolitics/Aman/p/book/9781138671898) that makes the argument that many recent efforts to theorise interculturality restrict themselves to Western frameworks of knowledge that do not account fully for the diversity of the world. Western domination has marginalised wisdom in existence elsewhere, and this is reflected in how intercultural education is conceived and taught. Inequalities between groups are rooted and perpetuated in these conceptualisations and teaching practices. The book suggests an alternative definition of interculturality, which is not framed in terms of cultural differences but in terms of colonial difference. This argument is based on an analysis of the Latin American concept of interculturalidad, a term which originates in the struggles for public and political recognition among indigenous social movements in the Andes. Decolonising Intercultural Education argues that emancipation from colonial legacies requires that we start seeing interculturality as inter-epistemic (between ways of knowing) rather than simply inter-cultural (between cultures).

Presently, I am involved in two projects: one focusing on in what ways, and with what success, different initial language learning practices serves as tools for migrants’ social inclusion. The other examines New Left ideology in comics from the 1970s.

That was a few words about me and what I do besides being the secretary of ESREA. If you have any questions regarding ESREA, your membership, information that you’d like to include in a forthcoming newsletter etc., or any other question, don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Best wishes,

Robert Aman

Academia.edu: https://glasgow.academia.edu/RobertAman