The Critical Performative Turn in Intercultural Communication

Abstract

ABSTRACT This essay argues that the performative turn in intercultural communication was a natural movement that follows the interpersonal, interpretative, critical, and rhetorical previous turns. The critical edge performance studies bring to intercultural communication through the re-centring of the (Othered) body and critical performative reflexivity is necessary if intercultural communication as a field is going to move beyond histories of Otherizing, exclusion, and speaking for the Other. The performative turn additionally allows us to understand identities more intersectionally, challenging dominant approaches to identity in intercultural communication.