Centralizing Marginality, Marginalizing the Center in the WSCA 2018 Presidential Address

Abstract

This essay is the presidential address delivered at the 89th annual Western States Communication conference. Guided by the 2017 WSCA conference theme of “Centralizing Marginality, Marginalizing the Center,” and sociopolitical imperatives confronting the nation and the Association, I argue for (continued) institutional transformation. Pursued are the gains following from centralizing marginality and marginalizing the center that solicits adoption of centralizing marginality and marginalizing the center as a way of seeing—a way of approaching—what we do and how we do it.

Keywords:

• Center
• Diversity
• Institutional Transformation
• Marginality

Notes

^1. Rhetorical contextualization, Wander (2013) writes, is

innocent sounding … [yet is] a process of questioning [that] politicizes. Ask about what is and is not being said, or who is and who is not involved in the saying-listening, and you begin talking about people with names and histories, issues of personal import, and the processes of selection and discrimination. (p. 330)