The Critical Performative Turn in Intercultural Communication

ABSTRACT

This essay argues that the performative turn in intercultural communication was a natural movement that follows the interpersonal, interpretative, critical, and rhetorical previous turns. The critical edge performance studies bring to intercultural communication through the re-centring of the (Othered) body and critical performative reflexivity is necessary if intercultural communication as a field is going to move beyond histories of Otherizing, exclusion, and speaking for the Other. The performative turn additionally allows us to understand identities more intersectionally, challenging dominant approaches to identity in intercultural communication.

KEYWORDS:

• Performance studies
• embodiment
• auto-methodologies
• critical rhetoric

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Bernadette Marie Calafell

Bernadette Marie Calafell (Ph.D., University of North Carolina) is Professor and Chair of Critical Race and Ethnic Studies at Gonzaga University. She thanks Drs. Dawn Marie D. McIntosh and Shinsuke Eguchi, as well as the anonymous reviewers for their guidance. This essay is dedicated to my late mentor and friend, Dr. Roy V. Wood.