KELLI PARK

Language, Identity, Culture

Most of my research in the MSEd program in TESOL at the University of Southern Maine focused on cultivating spaces of resistance to promote social justice and equity with multilingual learners to shift the paradigms of English language teaching. These strategies and approaches continue to evolve in their creative application in my research and my work with multilingual learners and teachers of multilingual learners as part-time faculty at USM.

From there, I have had the opportunity to diversify my interests in language, identity, and culture with research in the North Atlantic and the Arctic (Greenland) involving the indigenization of educational programming and sustainable tourism efforts as part of the Arctic Education Alliance. These experiences have also shaped my research in relationality, decolonization, and the co-production of knowledge with Indigenous communities in the Arctic in relation to The Blue Economy as part of the USM International Graduate Student Research Cohort 2023 (Maine North Atlantic Institute). Going forward, my goal is to more deeply explore intangible cultural heritage (UNESCO) in connection to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals with an emphasis on cultural resilience within the context of community education and sustainable tourism in coastal communities in the North Atlantic and the Arctic.