A Spectral Genealogy of Performance in Intercultural Communication Studies

ABSTRACT

The traces of performance studies that bolster intercultural communication elude strict disciplinary confinement. Despite many convergences between the two disciplines, they have been frequently made to occupy oppositional positions within Communication Studies. While their methods vary, I see the impetus of both areas being oriented towards moving through three major dialectics: 1. Reflection <-> Reflexivity 2. Illumination <-> Emplacement 3. Transcription <-> Translation. This essay considers how intercultural communication and performance studies enter these dialectics together to illuminate paradigms of power. I argue that the “performative turn” has underwritten negotiations of culture, identity, and power in intercultural communication scholarship.

KEYWORDS:

• Critical studies
• intercultural communication
• performance studies
• interdisciplinary studies

Acknowledgments

I extend my deep gratitude to Shinsuke Eguchi and Dawn Marie McIntosh for their generosity, intellectual camaraderie, and support during the writing of this essay.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Pavithra Prasad

Pavithra Prasad is Associate Professor of Performance Studies and Intercultural Communication in the Department of Communication Studies at California State University, Northridge. She holds a Ph.D. in Performance Studies from Northwestern University, and works in Los Angeles as both an artist and scholar.