Epistemological plurality in intercultural communication knowledge

ABSTRACT

Intercultural communication is one of the primary fields that can deconstruct and unsettle historical and contemporary power structures. However, the demands for decolonizing the field warrant thoughtful and self-critical appraisal of how interculturality theory may fail to fulfill its inherent premises, e.g. equality, the problematization of international relations, reconciliation among cultures and ensuring the smooth functioning of intercultural communication. What is more disturbing is that intercultural communication may often focus on modest reforms calling for the inclusion of marginalized knowledges, rather than on fundamental institutional changes that can eradicate the forces that produce marginalization. To showcase the knowledge hierarchies characterizing the field, this paper examines the editorial boards and publication practices of five leading journals in intercultural communication. This paper discusses meta-intercultural ontologies and South-South inter-epistemic dialogue as nuanced decolonial counter-visions for disrupting the imbalances in global knowledge production in intercultural communication. Meta-intercultural ontologies is presented as a rhetoric of knowledging that processes various epistemological exigencies in order to support new frameworks, methodologies and decolonial knowledge production. South-South inter-epistemic dialogue is a form of collective decolonial thinking and acting whereby it is possible to transition from resistance to new insurgencies that interrupt, cultivate and exercise novel articulations and narratives.

KEYWORDS:

• Intercultural communication
• intercultural communication knowledge (ICK)
• epistemic injustice
• meta-Intercultural ontologies
• South-South interepistemic dialogue
• the Global South

Introduction

The skewed geopolitics of knowledge generation and circulation continue to subordinate the postcolonial peripheries whose epistemologies are perceived as alternative perspectives (de Sousa Santos 2021; R’boul 2022a) while northern-western epistemologies are fundamentally superior given their productions of universal knowledge (Mignolo 2021). The adamancy of this rhetoric is predicated upon the projected universality of western knowledge on account of its relevance and applicability to all contexts regardless of their particularities. For instance, the pandemic has showcased the ascendency of the Western cognitive empire; the Global South was disturbingly hopeless as they were merely waiting for the Global North to mandate preventive measures and produce medications and vaccines. While the Global North is gradually recovering from the ramifications of the pandemic, some contexts in the Global South are still struggling with the lack of vaccine supplies as they are not able to produce them and hopelessly waiting for the rich countries’ help. Such conditions are always reflective of the vast differences in means, support and knowledge production.

Intercultural communication is one of the primary fields that can deconstruct and unsettle historical and contemporary power structures. However, the theorizings of interculturality have been argued to be largely informed by the Centre-western understandings of culture, Self and the Other (Dervin and Simpson 2021; Welikala 2021). The Eurocentric and Anglo-sphere understandings of intercultural communication continue to shape the epistemic disauthorizations of ‘non-Western’ subjects (R’boul 2022b). The ongoing demands for decolonizing the field warrant thoughtful and self-critical appraisal of how interculturality theory may fail to fulfill its inherent premises, e.g. equality, problematizing international relations, reconciliation among cultures and ensuring the smooth functioning of intercultural communication. It is important to interrogate how various knowledge production and circulation processes and numerous normative concepts and logics within intercultural communication knowledge (ICK) may be running the risk of reproducing dominant power structures. What is more disturbing is that intercultural communication may often focus on modest reforms calling for the inclusion of marginalized knowledge and practices, rather than on fundamental institutional changes that can eradicate the forces that produce marginalization (Rosa and Flores 2021).

To accentuate the types of knowledge hierarchies characterizing ICK, this paper analyzes the current editorial boards and publication practices of five leading journals in intercultural communication within applied linguistics. The endeavor to examine the research outputs and editorial board of leading intercultural communication journals is an approach to understanding the rhetoric of epistemic injustice and the lack of polyvocality in ICK. Also, refereed journals have a central tool in the social construction of knowledge (Leeds-Hurwitz 2020). This paper discusses meta-intercultural ontologies and South-South inter-epistemic dialogue as nuanced decolonial counter-visions for disrupting the imbalances in global knowledge production in the field of intercultural communication. Meta-intercultural ontologies are presented as a rhetoric of knowledging that processes various epistemological exigencies in order to support new frameworks, methodologies and decolonial knowledge production. South-South inter-epistemic dialogue is a form of collective decolonial thinking and acting whereby it is possible to transition from resistance to new insurgencies that interrupt, cultivate and exercise novel articulations and narratives.

The lack of epistemic diversity in intercultural communication knowledge (ICK): major peer-reviewed journals in intercultural communication within applied linguistics

A major problem with research on interculturality resides in the omnipresence and control exercised by Western English-speaking scholars (Dervin, Yuan, and Chen 2022). The centricity of the English language in the skewed geopolitics of language reflects the implications entailed in the dominance of one linguistic pattern. English is represented as the only linguistic possibility to denote and exercise modernity; within the logics of academic practices, it is fairly safe to claim that If you do not publish in English, you do not exist. A study by Peng, Zhu, and Wu (2020) conducted a bibliometric analysis of publications on the concept of intercultural competence in English. Findings revealed that the most quoted scholars in the field are US – or UK-based, white and English speakers. R’boul (2022b) shows that the majority of editors and editorial board members of the three most important international journals of intercultural communication (Language and Intercultural Communication, Journal of International and Intercultural Communication and Journal of Intercultural Communication research) are predominately based in the US, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. For example, representation from Africa is only 0.86%, and Latin America is 2.17%. The following study seeks to further investigate these assumptions and substantiate the range of arguments that have been made so far with regard to the asymmetries in ICK. The study is meant to provide tangible understandings of the inequalities shaping knowledge production and circulation in intercultural communication.

Probing into the rhetoric of epistemic deficiency is problematic due to the intertwined nature of marginalizing categorizations such as the colonial-informed cultural, societal and epistemic constructs creating overlapping and interlaced systems of discrimination or disadvantage. Since diverse editorial boards may tend to publish more diverse research articles (Goyanes and Demeter 2020), this particular attempt to examine the research outputs and editorial boards is a useful approach to understanding the overt rhetoric of epistemic injustices and the lack of polyvocality in ICK. This particular analysis can demystify the processes framing and reinforcing colonial gatekeeping in ICK. We recognize that the peripheralisation of Southern knowledges may go unnoticed unless it is explicitly pointed up to in concrete terms. Thus, this study is meant to showcase an explicit manifestation of, what might be, a case of asymmetries in epistemic representation and the lack of, at least, the symbolic recognition of other voices and ways of knowing.

In the first stage, we examined the national diversity and affiliation of publishing authors of the 2021s volumes of the five most prominent intercultural communication journals whose major epistemological concerns and orientations are anchored in applied linguistics. These five journals include Language and Intercultural Communication, Intercultural Pragmatics, Journal of Intercultural Communication Research, Intercultural Education and Intercultural Communication Education. Major international journals in ICK such as the Journal of International and Intercultural Communication, Journal of Multicultural Discourses, Journal of Intercultural Studies and International Journal of Intercultural Relations have not been included in this study because their epistemological orientation toward intercultural communication is largely grounded in communication theory and critical/cultural studies.

The results reveal that Southern scholars in Africa (1.07%, 10 out of 325) and Latin America (5.53%, 18 out of 325) constitute an insignificant representation in intercultural communication knowledge production. In some cases, there were multiple African and/or Latin American scholars involved in one article. Therefore, surveying the number of articles authored exclusively by African or Latin American scholars would communicate aggravated results that further confirm the lack of the Global South’s participation in knowledge production about intercultural communication. Moreover, even when scholars from the Global South are involved, they are usually from a small range of Southern countries such as China in Asia, Brazil in Latin America, and South Africa in Africa. Europe (41.23%, 134) and Anglo-sphere (33.53%, 109) combined represent 74.76% of 325 articles published in 2021 in the five journals. These findings are clear documentation of the dominance of the Global North on ICK. These findings also bear relevance to the ongoing debates in knowledge production studies on the epistemic subjects who are regarded as capable of generating legitimate knowledge. Results are presented as follows in a hierarchy:

• Language and Intercultural Communication (Volume 21: 53 articles, 85 authors): Europe (41.17%, 35), Anglo-sphere including US, Australia, UK, New Zealand and Canada (28.23%, 24), Asia (15.29%, 13), Latin America (10.58%, 9) and Africa (4.7%, 4).

• Intercultural Pragmatics (Volume 18: 23 articles, 39 authors): Europe (64.1%, 25), Anglo-sphere including US, UK and Australia (17.94%, 7), Asia (15.38%, 6), Africa (2.5%, 1) and Latin America (0%, 0).

• Journal of Intercultural Communication Research (Volume 50: 31 articles, 68 authors): Anglo-sphere including US, UK, Australia and Canada (51.47%, 35), Asia (32.35%, 22), Europe (10.29%, 7), Latin America (4.41%, 3), and Africa (1.47%, 1).

• Intercultural Education (Volume 32: 45 articles, 105 authors): Europe (59%, 62), Anglo-sphere including UK, US, Canada and Australia (26.6%, 28), Asia (6.6%, 7), Africa (3.8%, 4) and Latin America (3.8%, 4).

• Intercultural Communication Education (Volume 4: 15 articles, 28 authors): Anglo-sphere including US, UK and Australia (53.57%, 15), Asia (21.42%, 6), Europe (17.85%, 5), Latin America (7.14%, 2) and Africa (0%, 0).

• Total (167 articles, 325 authors): Europe (41.23%, 134), Anglo-sphere including US, UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand (33.53%, 109), Asia (16.61%, 54), Latin America (5.53%, 18) and Africa (3.07%, 10).

In the second stage, we looked at the national diversity and affiliation of current editorial boards from five major journals in intercultural communication studies within applied linguistics. The results show that the majority of managing editors, editorial boards and international advisory boards are mostly based in the Anglo-sphere (61.86%, 159 out of 257 members), then Europe (23.73%, 61), and Asia (10.11%, 26). Overall, Africa has a representation of 0.77% (2 out of 257 members) and Latin America has 3.5% (9 out of 257 members) on the editorial board of the five journals. A particular finding that denotes the sheer lack of Global South’s involvement in knowledge production is that Africa has a representation of 0% in the editorial board of three journals. The editors of all the five journals are from the Global North, specifically the US, UK and Europe (Netherlands). Results are presented as follows in a hierarchy:

• Language and Intercultural Communication (44 members): Anglo-sphere including UK, US, Australia, Ireland and New Zealand (56.81%, 25), Europe (22.72%, 10), Asia (13.63%, 6), Latin America (4.54%, 2) and Africa (2.27%, 1).

• Intercultural Pragmatics (35 members): Anglo-sphere including US, UK and Australia (48.57%, 17), Europe (45.71%, 16), Asia (5.71%, 2), Latin America (0%, 0) and Africa (0%, 0).

• Journal of Intercultural Communication Research (96 members; all editors and associate editors are in the US): Anglo-sphere including US, UK, New Zealand and Australia (84.37%, 81), Asia (10.41%, 10), Europe (4.16%, 4), Latin America (1.04%, 1) and Africa (0%, 0). Importantly, the US alone has a significant representation of 79.16% (76 out of 96 members).

• Intercultural Education (58 members): Anglo-sphere including US, UK and Canada (48.27%, 28), Europe (43.1%, 25), Latin America (6.89%, 4), Asia (1.72%, 1) and Africa (0%, 0).

• Intercultural Communication Education (24 members): Anglo-sphere including US, UK and Australia (33.33%, 8), Asia (29.16%, 7), Europe (25%, 6), Latin America (8.33%, 2) and Africa (4.16%, 1).

• Total (257 members): Anglo-sphere including US, UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Ireland (61.86%, 159), Europe (23.73%, 61), Asia (10.11%, 26), Latin America (3.5%, 9) and Africa (0.77%, 2).

These results show that (a) most leading journals in intercultural communication publish articles almost exclusively from the Global North, and (b) the composition of journal editorial boards is predominately western with an increasing representation of Asia and insignificant standing of Africa and Latin America. These findings reflect the knowledge production asymmetries in ICK as they exemplify the silences and hierarchies produced in modern science that privilege Northern-Western perspectives. Intercultural communication within applied linguistics is still dominated by Western articles in Western journals edited by Western editorial board members. This is not only an act of bordering and symbolically maintaining knowledge hierarchies intact but also a finding that repudiates claims of how Southern subjects’ epistemic capacity is acknowledged and actively included. These results are quite problematic since they illustrate the challenges imposed on Southern scholars with the increased pressures to publish in top-tiered scholarly indexed English journals (Sugiharto 2021).

Membership of the editorial boards, research output and citation can illustrate the distribution of power in international journals (de Albuquerque et al. 2020); these parameters carry important ramifications for how knowledges are interculturally communicated, understood and valued. Editorial board diversity correlates with the home country of the authors; in other words, journals with mostly US/Western scholars on the editorial boards tend to publish few articles by authors from less popular contexts which gainsays the expressed commitments to actualize epistemic diversity (Demeter 2020). A more globally representative board is certainly an acknowledgement of the epistemic capability of all spaces. However, the ultimate objective is not simply to increase international representation on major journal editorial boards and authors publishing in these journals because these are the symptoms, not the cause, of parochialism (Leeds-Hurwitz 2020). Also, calling for geographical diversity may denote visibility of Southern perspectives but it does not establish lacerations in the continuity of knowledge hierarchies or decentering of western theory.

What is more problematic is having a text authored by a Southern scholar reviewed exclusively by Northern scholars who may not have a sufficient understanding of the context under investigation, the knowledges employed or, in some cases, sympathy for the struggles of Southern spaces. The compatibility of perspectives between the author, the context, and reviewers may lend itself to a possibility of failing in delivering and communicating certain ideas and sentiments that need a situated understanding of the phenomenon under investigation. For instance, pertinent questions can be asked concerning having a study conducted in Kenya by a Kenyan scholar reviewed by two white expert scholars residing in New York and London. This is not a call for having southern researchers’ works reviewed exclusively by Southern scholars; it is rather an encouragement to (a) have diverse gate-keepers who have a deeper comprehension of the complexities entailed in the contexts of the studies and (b) to establish an inter-epistemic dialogue where researcher’s subjectivity is understood and taken into account while evaluating research. The specificities and the nuance of Southern ontologies, contexts and epistemologies need to be meaningfully visibilized throughout the spectrum of knowledge production, specifically in instances where their essence and ecologies are misunderstood and/or do not resonate with others.

The dominant, under the demands of more epistemic justice, are always keen on promoting scholarly openness and academic free speech while disregarding non-westerns’ claims for more powerful positions where they can actually ensure more diversity and inclusion. Also, the dominant may pay no attention to the fact that their power to override the perspectives that are not inherently submerged in western narratives and logics poses tremendous pressure on non-western scholars that they end up censoring themselves for fear of denying access to international publishing outlets, prestigious jobs and reputable academic recognition (fellowships, awards, etc …). While some may go ahead to assume that the act of censorship is a defense mechanism or a strategy for avoiding reprisal, what remains essential is the notion that Southern scholars should be given the chance to speak and theorize without the fear of being denied, rejected and sidelined later if their ideas do not match and/or do not endorse the dominant discourses and narratives.

Meta-intercultural ontologies in intercultural communication: multilateral knowledges and epistemic possibilities

Meta-intercultural ontologies (R’boul 2022b) embraces the principles of intercultural philosophy that emphasize epistemological polylogue, a dialogue of many (Wimmer 2007) and it foregrounds the various forms of epistemic injustice including ‘Testimonial injustice’, ‘Hermeneutical injustice’ and ‘epistemological diversity’ (Fricker 2007). The imagination of Meta-intercultural ontologies is to realize a complete multilateral influence supporting epistemological polylogues (A ⇒⇐ B and A ⇒⇐ C and A ⇒⇐ D and B ⇒⇐ C and B ⇒⇐ D and C ⇒⇐ D) with cross-influences from all sides to all sides with equal intensity (Wimmer 2007). The main premise is that Southern knowledges should not be included as ornaments to assign credibility to the statements about diversity in interculturality research. This is meant to undermine the tokenistic inclusion of alternative perspectives as they add epistemologies onto the same epistemic governance system that understands various ways of knowing to be unequal. This addition can actually cover the sustained displacement, invisibility and dispossession of Southern voices.

Epistemological polylogue is an acknowledgement on the Western cognitive empire’s part that they shun epistemological arrogance assuming that one’s way of knowing is inherently superior and more valid. It is also a willingness/indicator to undermine testimonial injustice whereby one’s epistemic capacity is doubted and biased against on the grounds of their race, location, gender which results in assigning a low level of credibility to some people’s opinions and knowledges due to their affiliation with a particular group. Learning and making use of other people’s knowledges does not negate knowing one’s own knowledge (de Sousa Santos 2007); it is a possibility of exercising transknowledging by transcending the cognitive borders whose legitimacy is largely grounded on the amplification of differences, hierarchies and the difficulty of drawing shared epistemological points of departures. For instance, we can engage in similar attempts to identify layers and regions of meanings for various foundational terms in intercultural communication, e.g. ‘multiculturalism, ‘interculturality’ and the ‘transcultural’ as developed in perspectives of different north–south conceptual frameworks (Guilherme and Dietz 2015; Baker 2021). Applying these understandings to ICK would necessarily entail unlearning in order to learn. We would need to unlearn our taken-for-granted assumptions about the epistemologies of the South so as to learn about them on their own terms seeking instances of innovative and original knowledge.

As cognitive democracy entails replacing ‘knowing about’ with ‘knowing with’ in academic practice (de Sousa Santos 2018), meta-intercultural ontologies involve replacing ‘knowing with’ with ‘knowing with … about … by … for … ’; positionality by which knowledge is produced and shared is certainly meaningful is understanding polyvocality through a nuanced perception of reality, intersectionality and positioning with regards to research and academic practices. The meta-intercultural ontologies disrupt the perspectives that are blind to their own value-laden worldview. The point here is that all knowledges are legitimate, biased, but most importantly interdependent which may gainsay the assumption that Western and non-western knowledges are neatly two cosmological frames where cross-pollination and intersection are neither possible nor expected. Meta-intercultural ontologies is about conscious polyvocality that is not blind to power relations and does not assume by simply encouraging epistemic diversity and drawing on less popular knowledges we can disrupt the enduring colonial structures in knowledge production and circulation. Meta-intercultural ontologies supports doing research in a politically-conscious intercultural way informed by a deep understanding of power asymmetries and micro-aggressions.

As much as differences are characteristic of the ‘Other’ and the ‘Othering’ which are embedded in essentialist grand narratives, it is not a rationale for legitimizing bordering the perspectives and knowledges whose existential horizon is fundamentally dissimilar from dominant Western ontologies. Differences should be understood as a productive force of becoming within a posthumanist framework in order to challenge the binary self/other which is the production of a specific tradition of Western metaphysical thinking; the importance of reimagining our understanding of self, other, and difference in this paper is that these concepts are predicated on hierarchies and oppositions that mask the interdependence among people including their ontologies, axiologies and knowledges (MacDonald and O’Regan 2013; Ferri 2020). Meta-intercultural ontologies is essentially a politics of differences anchored in a true belief in the possibility of recognizing that there are differences but they are not necessarily meant to strike inequalities and hierarchies.

While most of the critique has been projected against the dominant ‘Western’ episteme, meta-intercultural ontologies reflects nuanced decolonization of knowledges that pays attention to the often-ignored complexities, heterogeneities and multiple ontologies within the Global South. In particular, meta-intercultural ontologies, as a lens of imagining epistemic justice in practice, can help demystify and undermine the comforting, yet self-marginalizing attitude we find in the rhetoric of ‘this (Western) person/scholar tells us’. The other side of the problem coming from decolonial Southern thinkers and scholars is chanting Northern-Western hymns. Dervin and Simpson (2021) explain that sometimes, a name from outside the ‘West’ appears in interculturality research, but these names are not taken seriously as they may be used as tokens to show ‘(false) generosity’ and perform interculturality within interculturality. Also, many of these voices tend to speak with and for the powerful voices without a serious attempt to try to add to or question them. Many of these voices are trained in the ‘West’ and might be tempted to imitate Western understandings about interculturality to get published in top Western journals. Again, Southern scholars are pressured, either consciously or not, to mask themselves to look and sound Western. Although Southern people are underrepresented in the most prestigious academic positions, editorial boards, and leading journals, they can still get positions as far as they look central (Demeter 2020). The dangerous and subtle aspect of coloniality of knowledge is not the marginalization of Southern epistemologies, but it is the urge in Southern scholars’ psyches and minds to mimic Western narratives. Therefore, the first step is to unearth how hegemonic understandings are inculcated in the minds and psyches of Southern people.

Despite the Western narrative’s underlying rationale/critique that points out the epistemic unconventionality and/or unoriginality of some (in)-scientific knowledges (e.g. religion, mythology, folklore …), unpopular perspectives can still be of theoretical ingenuity, methodological creativity, and cognitive energy that should be foregrounded and valued. Southern knowledges that can enrich ICK include Islamic philosophy, ‘buen vivir’ (Sumak kawsay in Quechua or good living in English), Asante’s (2014), Afrocentricity, Miike’s (2019) Asiacentricity, Chinese Minzu (Dervin and Yuan 2021), Buddhist perspectives in interculturality-theorizing (Huang 2020) and ‘de-westernized consciousness’ and ‘pluri-perspectivality’ in intercultural communication knowledge (R’boul 2021). A specific problematic that hinders Southern knowledges’ cognitive credibility is ‘the abyssal line’ which separates ‘knowledge’ from ‘myths’ and ‘beliefs’. Based on a purportedly neutral (researcher’s) position, it assumes that a researcher, who is supposedly neutral, can construct ‘objective knowledge’ about the ‘Other’ (de Sousa Santos 2007). The diversity of epistemological positionings underpinning intercultural research would reflect the affordances of the intercultural scholar and being. Yet, diversity should not be understood to necessarily imply inclusion or the genuine consideration of alternative perspectives in theorizing interculturality. As much as diversity is a buzzword, it can be misleading suggesting that various knowledges are equal. The objective is to grant epistemological positionalities, that are truly southern and peripheral, an active role in shaping how we understand intercultural communication and interculturality.

We may find cases of innovative knowledge on intercultural communication produced by Southern scholars but it is neither visible nor recognized either due to scholars’ affiliation in the Global South, epistemological standing, lack of internationality, topics of research or the language in which their research is published. Cosmologies and ontologies of Southern people are understood and analyzed through the lens of theories and perspectives anchored in the Western cognitive structures which run the risk of producing inaccurate or value-laden judgments. Western cognitive empire has falsely defined and marginalized non-Western cultural realities which is probably the ‘penalty’ that comes with being epistemologically different (Holliday and Macdonald 2020). If ICK is dominated by the Global North, it is safe to argue that the intercultural theorizations produced would legitimize and substantiate power asymmetries. That is why it is important to establish a state of knowledge production and consumption built on reciprocity in order not to fall into the quandary of developing misknowledges (incorrect knowledges) as a result of extending and applying one’s perspective on others.

Again, Southern voices have been depleted by years of critique. Even when Southern scholars attempt to challenge and question the dominant narratives, there might be unyielding forms of dialogical inequality. The continuous struggle to prevent the intercultural from being dominated by essentialist grand narratives (Holliday 2022) is not easy. First, the epistemological construction of decolonial ontologies is problematized by the aporia of calling for more inclusion of Southern knowledges while these ways of knowing and perspectives might be anchored in Northern narratives and Western traditions of knowledge production. Second, decolonial work in diversifying ICK feels to be a burden carried only by subaltern groups who have felt and endured the colonial wounds; doing interculturality research in a truly intercultural way would create a pluriverse of ontologies, cosmologies, epistemologies, methods and narratives whereby the burden of decolonizing is carried by both Southern and Northern groups.

Intercultural communication, as a field that would be expectedly theorized from a number of ontological and epistemological positions, is required to recognize the power relations that are embedded in knowledge and aim to articulate the ways in which they are reproduced (Ferri 2018). The critical and decolonial quest for intercultural epistemologies and discourses (Guilherme 2019) requires interrogating and resisting knowledges from specific communities and ecologies need to be conducted without a value-laden presumptive assumption about the universality of western knowledge. By weaving various theoretical traditions together, researchers can make use of competing narratives in making sense of the intercultural including those unrecognized cultural realities. Imagining ICK that goes beyond hemispheric partitions and that is anchored in the cartographies of the Global South (Asia, Africa, South America, and the Caribbean …) is a response to decolonial struggles worldwide and a postmodern representation of alterity in the Western rhetorical tradition. We need to perceive the South and act upon this perception, as an epistemic space rather than a geographical region in order to restructure the Global epistemic imagination by learning with and from the South. It is an opportunity to construct complex meaning productions within various socio-political and ontological systems.

For more action-oriented endeavors to promote the visibility of Southern knowledges and epistemologies, intercultural communication journals can make a deliberate effort to encourage and include at least a non-western article in any of their issues (if available) or at least in two issues; this practice, despite its potentially inconsiderable impact, can prove genuine in actively propelling and visibilizing the works of non-western interculturalists. Also, journals are encouraged to recognize that scholars based in the Anglo-sphere or contexts characterized by high English fluency may have an advantage over Southern scholars; journals could consider the possibility of assisting Southern scholars in refining their papers and ameliorating their academic argumentation and rhetoric, but not in a way that seeks to reflect and reproduce native-speakerism which would help to sustain epistemic hierarchies. However, as much as these attempts may prove useful, it is essential to establish a conviction that decolonization is never a finished business. The process of restructuring our research practices and how knowledge representation is framed by our own implicit beliefs about others is complex and it necessitates a more profound engagement with our own loci of enunciation as shaped by our positionality and intersectionality either as a privileged or subaltern epistemic subject.

As a final note within this section, it is important to affirm a vehement understanding that we need to visualize decoloniality as an ontological and epistemic struggle for everyone to delink themselves from the Northern Anglo semblance that we have been tempted to simulate. Southern people are subjected to various forms of oppression e.g. capitalism, racism and heterosexuality and their narratives, conditions, and trajectories are different due to the sociohistorical and current sociopolitical positioning in every-changing world. As much as our subjugations are different, we can transcend our postcolonial differences to gather around our shared struggles and decolonial impulses. The following section builds on this narrative and discusses ‘South-South Interepistemic Dialogue’ and how (a) it speaks to emergent intercultural and epistemic possibilities supporting plural yet collectively meaningful alternatives and (b) despite their contested modernities, Southern spaces can collectively engage in theorizing and practising decolonial visions.

South-South interepistemic dialogue: shared struggles and decolonial impulses

Although the ‘critical’ turn in the intercultural communication field is well-recognized, it does not seem to thwart the dominant scholarship which relies on White/Western frameworks, perpetuating the dismissal of marginalized knowledge and identities. Problematizing notions of interculturality emanating from the center (the global North) should be necessarily coupled with more locally constructed theories, pedagogies, and materials (Holmes and MacDonald 2020). What impedes these hopes is the colonial histories of many independent Southern countries which inculcated a tendency of over-reliance and dependency on knowledges and methods exported from colonial metropoles. The dependency syndrome cripples the momentum in visibilizing Southern endogenous forms of knowledge. The dominated is fettered by the colonization ingrained in their imagination of themselves and the center. What we need is models and approaches that help the Global South to unlearn the Western theory and method. In particular, decolonial ruptures in intercultural communication studies work to construct new histories of local knowledges that are non-derivative from Western models of knowledge production. Decolonial efforts anchored in Southern subjectivities can celebrate the Epistemologies of the Global South as knowledges born in the struggle (de Sousa Santos and Meneses 2020).

Epistemological polylogue accentuates the often-ignored dynamic of ‘South-South inter-epistemic dialogue’ in disrupting skewed geopolitics of knowledge; South-south interepistemic dialogue refers to ‘the active collaboration and support among marginalized academic communities in different parts of the world including the South in the Global North’ (R’boul in press). For example, it promotes the practice of citing each other and making use of their knowledges in courses syllabus and university curriculum; It paves the way for realizing a decolonial option in knowledge consumption and circulation in research and teaching in higher education. South-South interepistemic dialogue can present a nuanced alternative to the knowledge-circulation process that is predicated upon shared struggles and collective decolonial impulses; again, it particularly attends to the dilemma of theorizing resistance through the same lenses that have reproduced epistemic injustice. It is an epistemic perspective that can produce effective workings of decolonial dynamics.

While empathy from the Global North is appreciated, the Global South has to work within its amalgamated possibilities and extend/work on its articulations to realize cognitive justice or at least increase the visibility of Southern epistemologies and establish lacerations in the concentration of knowledge in the Global North. The premise here is that ‘We’ is more effective than ‘I’ in most cases. As much as the Global North has to recognize us, we need to recognize ourselves and other southern selves. South-South interepistemic dialogue can generate alternative ways of producing and circulating knowledge including the linguistic dominance of English in research practices. This would enable southern scholars to have a louder voice and a greater influence when efforts are combined. It is primarily a knowscape that can rupture the prognosis of colonial geopolitics of knowledge; it is an alternative knowscape where Southern epistemologies are communicated, valued and made use of. It simultaneously vouches for decolonial criticalities and different kinds of rationalities. Pushing for the South-South interepistemic dialogue as decolonial praxis entails propelling the importance of situated practice and praxis. It can serve as politics for decolonial investigations since it is a form of collective decolonial learning and musing.

Western education and affiliation are essential to look central enough to be respected, valued and included by Northern systems including academic, editorial boards and citation practices; it is hard to imagine an internationally recognized scholar who has been educated in the South and working in peripheral contexts although there are few examples. Moving to the center and becoming epistemologically westernized are key elements to be admitted to the elite group. Even most renowned decolonial scholars such as Walter Mignolo, de Sousa Santos, Appadurai, Edward Said and Chakravorty Spivak and Homi K. Bhabha were educated at the elite institutions of the Global North and continue to work and shine in these spaces (Demeter 2019). This has created a problematic as Western education or/and affiliation are essential preconditions of speaking on behalf, for and on the periphery (Demeter 2020). As much as we call for disrupting Western domination on knowledge production, we also recognize the aporia of having to publish in Western journals and participate in Western conferences; otherwise, Southern scholars would not be valued even in the Southern countries they belong to. To redress these complexities, South-South interepistemic dialogue can imagine a cartography and a mapping of knowledge production and circulation situated in the Global South that are interactional with Northern systems but at the same time ensure the visibility of Southern knowledges and scholars. At least, if the Global North does not recognize us, we ensure that we encourage ourselves and each other.

A colonial mentality refers to the internalized attitude of epistemic and cultural inferiority felt by people as a result of colonization. It corresponds with the belief that the ontologies, epistemologies, and knowledges of the colonizer are inherently superior to one's own. Therefore, a major factor in the Global South’s epistemic invisibility is intramural. Self-stigmatization and self-marginalization aggravate how epistemic hierarchies are maintained by the ‘colonized minds’ (de la Garza 2018); this further entangles hermeneutical injustice as Southern people struggle to understand and interpret their own ontologies and perspectives. This dynamic of ‘esprit de corps’ can impede the internalization of colonial prejudice which may have contributed to the colonial alienation of the Southern scholar as their self-perception is mainly shaped by how the Global North sees them. It can also diminish the belief developed within the colonial psyche assuming that the endorsement by the Global North is necessarily an affirmation of one’s epistemic capacity and originality. The primary aim is to reduce this sense of academic aphasia reflected in the lack of epistemic self-esteem, self-marginalization and the internalization of the ‘colonized’ mindset.

The very attempt to make a case for this approach is due to the challenge of moving from criticizing forms to resisting forms which can only be realized by a politically-conscious and vehement willingness to make changes and not wait for them from the Global North. It is a decolonial option that is certainly result-oriented not only an investment in the theoretical development of decolonial critique. In order to realize a truly global agenda for language and intercultural communication research and practice, it is necessary to engage with scholars, artists, and activists who work in the global South (MacDonald 2020), especially that cultural identification and questions about epistemic originality are more accentuated and relevant in Southern scholars’ theorizations. Southern scholars can reaffirm their status as subjects and actors of their own realities rather than objects and spectators in the experiences and realities of others (Miike 2019). Southern scholars’ lived experiences can showcase how intercultural performative works can serve as critical decolonial scholarship to unsettle ‘colonial gatekeeping’ and (re)center marginalized identities and knowledge; they can also work for resisting the colonization of identities and works of marginalized scholars (Pindi 2020).

Although our colonization and subalternity are in differing intensities and depths, we may collectively offer an ‘alternative thinking of alternatives’ (de Sousa Santos 2018, viii) that emphasizes how decoloniality cannot be delinked from epistemic disobedience. We need to realize that one can be invested in their own oppression. An essential step here is to move beyond the provisional gestures discombobulated by the trap of critiquing Western dominance in a way that allows for being welcomed in the Global North. Southern scholars are encouraged to perform their agentive capacity from their specific geopolitical and body-political positionalities to subvert the dominance of Euro-American epistemological practices, as well as to elevate their own ecology of knowledges (Sugiharto 2022). South-South interepistemic dialogue builds on the enormous cognitive momentum generated through resistance against marginalization, exclusion, and nullification; it encourages the amalgamation of multiple modes of decolonial response. It is an articulation of how we can collectively construct counter-hegemonic dynamics of decolonial and epistemological restructuring. However, it is important to visualize South-South interepistemic dialogue through an analysis of internal relations of knowledge systems that takes into account postcolonial differences.

Conclusion

This paper underscores the frustrations, silences and setbacks in intercultural communication knowledge to reiterate that much work remains to decenter the Northern epistemes that have been perpetuated and institutionalized in the modern cognitive and epistemic narratives. Meta-intercultural ontologies is discussed as a decolonial approach anchored in postcolonial discourses to decolonize and decenter knowledge and to shape epistemic perspectives that are pluralistic in terms of the ontologies and positionalities we draw upon. It is an epistemology that embraces a multiplicity of viewpoints and subject positions. Meta-intercultural ontologies also shares the assumption that intercultural understanding is not only in terms of cultural but also epistemological awareness. Then, we referred to South-South inter-epistemic dialogue to (a) reflect a diaspora of power and coloniality and (b) define a system of rhetoric to the disruption of the epistemic failures and ascendancies that enables a shared mode of decolonial response. By working on these two approaches, the goal here is to produce a rhetoric that (a) accounts for the skewed geopolitics of knowledge and (a) supports epistemological polylogue that works not only towards decentering but also blurring the rigid boundaries depicting which types of perspectives are valuable knowledge and what not.

Holliday (2021) made an interesting account arguing that much of what ‘has been considered ‘new’ within Centre-Western institutions of research and learning has already been there outside the West but not recognised as such’ (185); within the same logic, it is also interesting to address Western educators and researchers’ positionality and their ability to write about the deCentred Self struggling against a divisive Centre Other. For instance, interculturality scholars are encouraged to expose their own loci of enunciation (as well as that of others) so as to localize knowledges that are usually assumed as global and all-encompassing (De Figueiredo and Martinez 2021). We, interculturality scholars, are required to accent our role as public transformative intellectuals by reflecting on our multi-positionality as scholars, and our activism for social action (Ladegaard and Phipps 2020). We can work towards collaboratively constructing southern epistemological positionalities that are meaningful to themselves and to the communities from which they come (Singh 2021).

Decolonial narratives should stop relying on the convoluted narratives and start naming things as they are by discussing the possibilities and complexities of practical efforts to decolonize knowledge production. We hope to challenge the field of intercultural communication to move beyond an acknowledgement of social and epistemic inequities through critique toward established deep crevices in relations within knowledge about knowledge in order to resolve past silences and collectively work towards more equitable transknowledging. For example, questioning the core concepts in intercultural communication is important to decolonizing the field (Monceri 2019). If intercultural scholars want to genuinely disrupt social inequities we must recognize that our field may have been part of the problem. The field that is supposed to counteract social, cultural and epistemic hierarchies is reflecting and grappling with the same issues it claims to address. Intercultural communication needs to reflect tangible and serious efforts to integrate those who are left behind by Western cognitive theory and who live and work outside the global centers because universalized western understandings mismatch non-western realities on the ground (Shi-xu 2016). We need to decolonize alongside to decenter in order to realize equitable spaces for knowledge production, circulation and consumption. Learning from the South through an epistemology of the South can help visibilize hidden realities.

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Hamza R’boul

Hamza R’boul is a PhD candidate in the Department of Humanities and Education Sciences at the Public University of Navarre. He is also an Affiliated Researcher with I-COMMUNITAS – Institute for Advanced Social Research at the same university. His works examine the Western hegemony on knowledge production and dissemination in different contexts, including intercultural communication and English-language teaching. His research interests include intercultural communication and education, cultural politics of language teaching, postcoloniality and geopolitics of knowledge.