Toward a decolonial American rhetoric: Embracing an Anglo-Latin American dialogue

ABSTRACT

This essay compares scholarly practices across Anglo and Latin America, showing not only a lack of a real dialogue between scholars from the North and the South but also the scarce dialogue among Latin American scholars themselves. In addition, the significant influence of Eurocentrism in Latin American rhetorical studies explains the strong relationship between discourse studies and rhetoric and the shadow of European standpoints in Latin American studies on rhetoric. Adopting a decolonial attitude, we encourage our colleagues in both Anglo America and Latin American to read across traditions, to exchange theories, and to write about and for each other.

KEYWORDS:

• Rhetorical studies
• Anglo America
• Latin America
• decoloniality
• academic scholarship

Acknowledgments

We want to thank Stacey K. Sowards for reading previous drafts of this manuscript as well as the Editor and the anonymous reviewers for their feedback.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Although it is questionable to talk about single or monolithic academic traditions comprising wide regions, we still consider valid Galtung’s (1981) taxonomy of academic cultures as a toolkit to observe conventions and patterns regarding the research styles, publication standards or mentorship relations beyond national borders. This has been retaken by an emerging scholarly tradition from the call of Curran and Park (2000) to de-westernize media and communication studies.

2 We have chosen not to rehearse the details of the controversy connected to one of the field’s prominent journals and the National Communication Association that unfolded in the summer of 2019. Those details can be found in the Quarterly Journal of Speech forum edited by Wanzer-Serrano (2019) and the introductory essay to the “rebooted” Rhetoric & Public Affairs (Corrigan & Stuckey, 2021).