Precarious legitimacy in the Global South: Filipina teachers in online English language teaching under platform language governance

Unequal English(es) highlights how structural hierarchies construct a certain type of English as less authentic and its speakers as less legitimate. When Filipina/o teachers enter the online ELT industry, these hierarchies are reconfigured through platform-based language governance, where students’ evaluations and market logics shape how legitimacy is recognized. Drawing on Butler’s notion of precarity, this paper introduces a concept of precarious legitimacy – a condition of vulnerability with recognition continuously at risk. This study analyzes narratives of three experienced Filipina online ELT teachers working with South Korean adult English students. The findings show that teachers’ legitimacy is continually undermined by accent- and nationality-based discrimination and racialized expectations within platform governance. Facing these precarious conditions, teachers actively negotiate legitimacy by reframing marginalized positions into affordability, strategically adhering to platform guidelines, or pursuing alternative citizenship. However, these strategies reveal a paradox of negotiation, as teachers’ efforts to secure legitimacy are circumscribed by the very structures that produce its instability. This study urges a critical rethinking of platform governance in online ELT that produces legitimacy as structurally precarious.