Mobina: Thank you so much again for joining me today for the Leveraging Languages for Learning interview series. In your research, you argue that current discussions of multilingualism and translanguaging are often framed through Western academic theories. What first led you to think about language and knowledge beyond these traditions? And what might we learn by placing these ideas in conversation with other intellectual traditions, such as from the Global South?

In classrooms around the world, including in Australia, linguistic diversity is increasingly common. Many children arrive at school with rich repertoires of languages, dialects, stories, and cultural knowledge. At the same time, the books we offer them can sometimes tell a more limited story about language, learning, and belonging.

In applied linguistics, multilingualism has become an established—and largely uncontested—ideal. Concepts such as translanguaging, linguistic repertoires, and challenges to monolingual norms are now widely discussed in scholarship and policy.