Decolonizing Communication Ethics: A Framework for Communicating Otherwise

Abstract

Communication ethics are always already historically, materially, politically, socially situated and yet the universalizing framework through which they are often constructed is still overwhelmingly Western (Rao & Wasserman, 2007). This largely Western framework is, in some ways, a legacy of communication theory itself which is ‘limited by Eurocentric cultural assumptions’ (Craig, 2007, p. 256). Our aim in this chapter is to decolonize communication ethics by arguing that Western Enlightenment notions of rationality, justice, and humanity are not necessarily transferable to other contexts and times in their totality without an engagement with issues of social injustice that arise from the ideological, intellectual, and imperial domination of Western thought and theory. Drawing insight from scholars from Asian (e.g. Miike, 2007) and American Indian (Covarrubias, 2007) backgrounds who have sought to ‘provincialize communication theory as a Eurocentric fi eld’ (Miike, 2007, p. 277), we argue that communication ethics too is largely guided by Western contexts.