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How do people in the global south find new methods of understanding their positions in the world and contributing to their own and their communities’ prosperity? A methodology is a theory of how to do things, how to make sense of the world and how to answer pertinent questions. In this talk, I will present one specific methodology that was developed in the global south and that is associated with hip hop culture and Rastafarianism, namely overstandin. Overstandin is a confident and reflexive methodology with which people analyse their life-worlds, come to terms with their histories of oppression and imagine their futures. To show how overstandin operates as a southernÌýmethodology inÌýdiscourse, I will present the lyrics of a canonical hip hop song in which the rapper overstands the racialised histories of plantation slavery and police brutality in the Americas. By unpacking the complexities of the lyricalÌýarguments of this song, we get to understand how people situated in the global south develop their ownÌýmethodologies.ÌýÌýÌý

The speaker
Jaspal Naveel Singh isÌýa Lecturer in Applied Linguistics and English Language at the Open University. HisÌýteaching and research interests revolve around the complex interconnections between language and culture (i.e. languaging and transculturation). HeÌýtakes epistemological and affectological inspiration from classic western and eastern philosophy, hip hop and other Black diasporic traditions, to arrive at a type of research that complexifies standard approaches in the social sciences. For example, he aimsÌýto problematise research ethics and common-sense writing strategies. Before joining the Open University, he was Assistant Professor of Sociolinguistics at the School of English, the University of Hong Kong. HeÌýcompleted hisÌýPhD at the Centre for Language and Communication Research, Cardiff University under the supervision of Dr Frances Rock. HeÌýstudied Linguistics, Philosophy and Medieval and Modern History at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany. Jaspal Naveel SinghÌýcurrently usesÌýthe pronouns he, his and him.

Part of theÌý2023 SpringÌýSeries of Soundbites and Director's Seminars - Prosperity and the PopularÌý

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