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.