Decolonizing and pluralizing language and words for the strengthening of plural and inclusive public policies: Childhoods and the historical-dialectical method

Abstract

This paper provocatively challenges the superficial view that referring to "childhoods" in the plural contradicts the historical-dialectical method — especially in academic fields with limited engagement in language studies. I begin with two central questions: (I) What are the impacts of a fixed, restrictive, and singular understanding of words on public policies and social life? (II) What are the consequences of a limited conception of childhood, rooted in the idea of a universal subject, for protecting children and adolescents with racialized bodies and subaltern territories? Revisiting theorists of discourse analysis inspired by Marxian thought, I also draw on Marxist intellectuals of the African diaspora to conceive language as political, ideological, and racialized matter. To name and make plurality visible is not merely to acknowledge diversity — it is to resist colonial violence and affirm lives that do not fit within hegemonic, universal, and singular words.