Emancipatory Communication: A Critical Reflection on Communication Sciences in the Post-Pandemic Era1

Abstract

ABSTRACT In an era of uncertainty, where epistemic freedoms are challenged and where many people feel excluded, how can communication – both as a discipline and a practice – serve to combat these uncertainties and feelings of exclusion? What epistemology can guide us and orient our communication science to ensure the right of all to produce knowledge on equal terms? What communication practice ensures inclusion and participation for all? Based upon a review of recent African lines of thought and their links to Latin American scholarship, this text advances an intellectual agenda that in the post-pandemic era can inform the development of theories and practices of communication that transcend the limitations of the dominant Western episteme when facing the current challenges of planetary transformations.