Charting a path: race, research, and practice in communication studies

ABSTRACT

As anti-Critical Race Theory (CRT) movements descend on educational spaces, it is necessary to self-reflect on investments in whiteness within our discipline. In this piece, I comment on Communication Studies’ epistemological investments in the property of whiteness, particularly through discursive strategies. Next, I outline a path forward in race and communication research coined Critical Communication and Race Theory of Research and Practice (CCRT). Finally, I suggest how CCRT may engender opportunities for liberatory race research, and disciplinary practices, in the areas of Critical Rhetorical Studies and Interpersonal Communication Studies. It is my hope that this piece supports conversation about unifying race scholars in the Communication Studies Discipline under the goal of disrupting racial logics, rather than working toward academic proliferation.

KEYWORDS:

• Critical race theory
• interpersonal communication studies
• critical rhetorical studies
• race and communication

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1 It is important to note that these are only but a sampling of questions to reflect on across many domains of action; scholarly, teaching, service, and institutional. While it is beyond the scope of this paper to include all of the questions that Critical Race Theory enables us to ask about our disciplinary practices, this list is to act as a starting point.