Towards Cosmopolitanism in German Academia?: Shedding Light on Colonial Underpinnings of Communication Research in a Globalized World

Abstract

Coloniality is a notion that has been key in many disciplines for addressing power rela-tions and their embeddedness in continuous colonial hierarchies. This essay contributes to the re-flections on the notion of cosmopolitanism in German academia, focusing on Communication Stud-ies as a starting point. The possibility to develop research at a university in the Global North is usually presented by the hosting countries as a door to productive exchanges among colleagues from differ-ent backgrounds. Nevertheless, many hierarchies and pre-established concepts on knowledge pro-duction produce forms of epistemic silencing and other forms of violence and limits in these ex-changes. The present essay proposes a process of dialogue with decolonial theories to trace roots on the meaning of cosmopolitanism, its borders and possibilities.