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The Asiacentric Turn in Asian Communication Studies

Shifting Paradigms and Changing Perspectives

Yoshitaka Miike

In this chapter, influenced and inspired by Molefi Kete Asante’s Afrocentric paradigm (Chapter 7), Yoshitaka Miike elaborates on Asiacentricity—the idea of centering, not marginalizing, Asian languages, religions/philosophies, histories, and aesthetics in theory-making and storytelling about Asian communicative life—and expounds on its intracultural and intercultural significance in theory and practice. He illustrates the Kawaida view of cultural traditions (Chapter 13), differentiates culture as theory from culture as text, elucidates the concept of center and the act of centering, and emphasizes the cross-cultural and intercultural nature of the Asiacentric project. He further clarifies the issue of cultural hybridity and advocates the role of Asiacentricity in local and global communication from the perspective of cultural ecology. He then answers the question of criticality by arguing that Asiacentric critical studies of Asian communication are possible and desirable not only to respond to critical voices within cultural Asia but also to go beyond Eurocentric criticality. He concludes that the spirit of centricity—being inwardly deep and outwardly open—holds the key to “unity in diversity” and “harmony without uniformity” in the global village.

Introduction: Afrocentricity as the Model of Asiacentricity

Molefi Kete Asante has defined and refined the metatheory of Afrocentricity as an alternative paradigm for the study of African cultures and rhetorics for the past four decades. His five tours de force, Afrocentricity: The Theory of Social Change (1988), The Afrocentric Idea (1998), Kemet, Afrocentricity and Knowledge (1990), Malcolm X as Cultural Hero and Other Afrocentric Essays (1993), and An Afrocentric Manifesto: Toward an African Renaissance (2007b), constitute the intellectual foundation of the Afrocentric project. Inspired by prominent African thinkers such as W. E. B. Du Bois, Cheikh Anta Diop, Marcus Garvey, Maulana Karenga, Kwame Nkrumah, and Malcolm X, Asante (2006, 2007a, 2010) persuasively and passionately argued for the compelling need to reposition African people and phenomena from the margins of European experiences to a centered place within their own heritage and history as they have been moved off from their cultural terms by physical enslavement and mental colonization. In Afrocentric formulations, he postulated, Africa is no longer a footnote to Europe. Africans are not objects, spectators, and pupils without agency but subjects, actors, and teachers without marginality.

For the last decade, following in the footsteps of Asante, I have propounded and adumbrated Asiacentricity as a way of shifting paradigms and changing perspectives in Asian communication studies, in particular, and intercultural communication studies, in general (see Miike, 2002, 2003a, 2003b, 2004b, 2006, 2010a, 2010b, 2011, 2012a).¹ Although my previous writings unexpectedly generated a number of commentaries and contributed to discussions and debates over de-Westernization in the communication discipline (e.g., Adhikary, 2011; Chang, 2010; Chang & Holt, 2010; Chen, 2010; Craig, 2013; Dai, 2012; Edmondson, 2009; Eguchi, 2013; Gordon, 2007; Gunaratne, 2005b; Huang, 2010; Kim, 2010; Klopf, 2009; Upadhyaya, 2006; Wang, 2011; Yin, 2009; Zakaria Khan & Sultana, 2011), they have also engendered unfounded criticisms, problematic misunderstandings, and mythical misconceptions about the Asiacentric paradigm as an overarching metatheoretical framework. As a matter of fact, in the worst and most irresponsible scholarship, Asiacentricity is equated with “Asiacentrism” and misconceived of as a doctrine of radical ethnocentrism, a cult of hegemonic fundamentalism, and an ideology of global domination.

It is the express purpose of this chapter, then, to further articulate the concept and context of Asiacentricity and discuss its intracultural and intercultural significance in communication theory and practice in the hope that Asiacentric scholarship will be properly understood and deeply appreciated. The present essay is divided into four sections. The first section problematizes the Eurocentric power of communication especially in relation to the concept of universality and the perception of similarity and contextualizes the Asiacentric imperative to redefine Asian communication realities in Asian terms. The second section explicates the idea of Asiacentricity by urging the importance of tapping into cultural traditions in theorizing human communication. The third section disentangles the issues of cultural hybridity and cultural ecology surrounding Asiacentric communication discourse. The final section addresses the question of criticality and the centrality of ethics in the Asiacentric project. My contention throughout this essay is that the Asiacentric turn in Asian communication studies will be able to change the nature and body of theoretical knowledge in intercultural communication research and open up new possibilities of mutual dialogue and understanding in the global community.

Asiacentricity and the Power of Communication

Nwankwo (1979) broadly identified critical issues in the field of intercultural communication as “problems of similarities and differences, conflict and control of communication and culture, the impact of technology, cultural stability and change, and cultural imperialism and dependence” (p. 326). Many conventional investigations in the 1980s and the 1990s (see Martin & Nakayama, 2008; Martin, Nakayama, & Carbaugh, 2012; Shuter, 2008), however, presumed that “well-meaning” dissimilar individuals meet and interact face-to-face on an equal footing and inevitably experience interpersonal/intergroup miscommunication and misunderstanding due to cultural differences. Although “[p]ower is always and in all ways inherent in culture and intercultural encounters,” Lengel and Martin (2010) noted, “analyses of power have largely been absent … prior to the critical turn” (p. 339).

With the rise of critical intercultural communication studies, the notion of power became a prime focus of theoretical development and can no longer be neglected in contemporary research on culture and communication. The enlightening and enlivening wave of critical inquiries in the 2000s (see Halualani, Mendoza, & Drzewiecka, 2009; Martin & Nakayama, 2010; Nakayama & Martin, 2007) channeled the field’s attention to the ineluctable fact that (inter)cultural communicators are, without any exception, impacted and implicated by both tangible and intangible forms of power (e.g., military, technological, linguistic, institutional, and ideological power). As Mendoza (2006) recounted, “[i]ntercultural encounters among people who have opposing histories of colonial domination (such as those from the United States and the Philippines) can never be entered into innocently, no matter the level of goodwill on the interpersonal level” (p. 244). As early as 1983, Asante (2008) made the following impassioned statement:

Martin and Nakayama (2013) defined communication as a meaning-making process whereby realities are produced, maintained, negotiated, and transformed. It is not too much to say that the most intangible yet ultimate power in our lifeworld is the power of communication, namely, the symbolic power to define a reality and make others accept it (Karenga, 2008), which is, of course, backed up by all other types of power.² According to Sardar (1999), it is in this power of communication that the location of Eurocentrism lies:

The problem is not that the West defines realities for the West. The issue here is that the West defines realities for the rest. There is no denying that this Eurocentric power of communication has played a crucial role in the history of colonialism and neocolonialism and continues to exert its definitional influence on world politics, international relations, and intercultural encounters. Eurocentrism, so conceived, “is not simply out there—in the West. It is also in here—in the non-West” (Sardar, 1999, p. 44). In a similar vein, Gunaratne (2009) avowed that “the West” connotes all those individuals including Western-trained non-Western scholars who evince allegiance to the Eurocentric worldview, whereas “the East” connotes all those individuals including Western scholars who see merit in the Asiacentric worldview.

It is no doubt that intercultural communication scholarship has entered another significant phase in its intellectual evolution. Nonetheless, future research endeavors ought to be more vigilant to the dynamics and politics of intercultural communication as “the struggle for symbols” (Asante, 2008) for regions, nations, and peoples of non-Western linguistic and cultural heritage especially in the process of theory building, notwithstanding the fact that postcolonial studies have interrogated “discursive imperialism” for the past few decades (Jandt & Tanno, 2001; Shome, 1996; Shome & Hegde, 2002).³ It should not be forgotten that Western knowledge production and dissemination about the non-Western world is the act of exercising the power of global communication (Shi-xu, 2009a). Of particular relevance to internationalists and interculturalists in relation to the aforementioned Eurocentric power of communication is what Wallerstein (2006) called “European universalism”—the idea and ideal of sameness as delimited through European languages, worldviews, and lifestyles. Ngũgĩ (1993) expressed his skepticism of “universality” as opposed to “locality”:

It is equally naive to assume that our definitions and perceptions of “similarities” and “commonalities” are free from the influence of the Eurocentric power of communication. What is different and what is similar can be a very arbitrary judgment (Chen & Starosta, 2003). In effect, as Starosta and Chen (2010) opined, their relationship is like that of yin and yang. They are astute in observing that “[t]he moment of making efforts to understand differences is also the moment to seek similarities” (p. 132) and vice versa. It is, therefore, extremely important to acknowledge similarities (Chen, 2009; Chang, 2010; Wang, 2011), but not similarities one-sidedly defined and perceived through certain privileged lenses. Perceived similarities should be explored with greatest care in order to arrive at a well-grounded and well-contextualized understanding of common humanity (Miike, 2011). Cross-culturalists and interculturalists may remind themselves once again that their pressing mission is not to create a monolingual and monocultural world wherein concrete differences are effaced, and wherein every global citizen is accepted as an abstract individual “just like us.” Intercultural communication theory and practice ought to promote a deep respect for otherness, that is, an appreciation of humanity despite differences and because of differences. Weaver (2007a) cautioned:

Asante (2008) succinctly stated that “intercultural communication as a harmonious endeavor seeks to create the sharing of power” (p. 50). We will attain penetrating understanding across cultures when we share our symbolic power to define our respective realities in our own light. Tu (1999) rightly remarked that “[t]he ability to understand others in their terms is to respect difference; moreover, it is to broaden and deepen our own humanity so that it can become creatively encompassing” (p. 63). If all concepts are in Western languages, all theories are grounded in Western intellectual traditions, and all methods are derived from Western contexts, the field is colluding with the aggrandizing Eurocentric power of communication without creating the multilingual and multicultural sharing of definitional power (Miike, 2003a).⁴ To be sure, as Mendoza (2005) pinpointed, theoretical investigations in intercultural communication research is complicated by (1) the problem of collective representations or “cultural profiling,” (2) the emergence of minority cultural politics, and (3) the challenge of deconstructive criticism. In order to make the field intercultural in the true sense of the term, nevertheless, the future task of theoretical re-articulation must define our local and global communication realities through different languages, religions/philosophies, histories, and aesthetics. It is in this discursive milieu that the Asiacentric turn in Asian communication studies is warranted. The next section will belabor the conceptual significance of Asiacentricity.

Asiacentricity and the Importance of Cultural Traditions

Asiacentricity is a metatheoretical notion that insists on centering, not marginalizing, Asian languages, religions/philosophies, histories, and aesthetics in theory-making and story-telling about Asian communicative life. Asiacentricity aims to encourage careful and critical engagements of Asian communicators with their own cultural traditions for self-understanding, self-expression, communal development, and cross-cultural dialogue. Intraculturally, it helps Asians embrace the positive elements of their cultural heritage and transform negative practices according to their ethical ideals. Interculturally, it helps Asians find “a place to stand,” so to speak, and provides the basis of equality and mutuality in the global community (Miike, 2012a). Asiacentricity also helps non-Asians reflect cross-culturally on human ways of being, knowing, and valuing through their non-ethnocentric exposure to Asian versions and visions of humanity and communication.

Cultural Tradition in Kawaida Perspective

According to Dissanayake (2005), the English-language word tradition originated from the Latin word tradere, which signifies transfer or delivery. Tradition in a conventional sense denotes passing down certain ideas, objects, and practices from generation to generation. It also connotes reception by an active public in consideration of both past and present imperatives. Furthermore, tradition is normative in that it enforces value assumptions and regulates modes of behavior. Chuan-tong in Chinese (den-to in Japanese and jeon-tong in Korean) literally means communicated continuities. Etymologically, this Chinese-language word emanates from the silk-reeling metaphor and symbolizes “the unity of those developmental threads that come down to us through the generations and provide cultural continuity” (Tu in Yu & Lu, 2000, p. 384). Language, religion, philosophy, history, art, dance, and music represent such developmental threads. Although it is always debatable how and why certain cultural continuities have been constructed and communicated, it is well worth our while to trace back to each of these threads to understand and appreciate who we are as collective, communal, and cultural beings.

Karenga (2008, 2010), who is the creator of an African-American and Pan-African holiday called Kwanzaa (i.e., first fruits of the harvest in Swahili), has developed the African communitarian philosophy of Kawaida (i.e., tradition in Swahili). The Kawaida paradigm, which emerged in the context of African American liberation struggle, is defined as “an ongoing synthesis of the best of African thought and practice in constant exchange with the world” (Karenga, 2010, p. 260). Karenga (2003) maintained that tradition is “a cultural core that forms the central locus of our self-understanding and self-assertion in the world and which is mediated by constantly changing historical circumstances and an ongoing internal dialogue of reassessment and continuous development” (p. 5). In his comprehensive view, “it is a tradition that incorporates unity and diversity, consensus and disagreement, affirmation and opposition, criticism and corrective, and a critical integration of the past with the understanding and engagement of the present and the aspirations and strivings for the future” (Karenga, 2003, p. 5).

Like Asante’s (2010) metatheory of Afrocentricity, the Asiacentric paradigm adopts this Kawaida vantage point. By tradition, therefore, Asiacentrists do not mean the cultural essence in an ancient, pure, and fixed sense, but they refer to a “living tradition” that is always invented and reinvented and proactively blending the old and the new. For Asiacentrists, cultural traditions are not static and stagnant. They are both preserved and enriched through constant intracultural and intercultural communication. Hence, Asiacentricity is not past-oriented in that it does not insist on bringing Asian cultures back to the secluded past.⁵ Rather, Asiacentricity is about drawing on the diverse and distinct traditions of Asia as open and transformative systems for theorizing Asian communication in its many and varied forms (Miike, 2012a). Postmodernists and post-colonialists appear to belittle the resilience of cultural traditions and succumb to the temptation to ignore (1) the evolving nature of tradition and (2) the agency of people who sustain and practice tradition. In their minds, people are docile victims who completely subscribe to unchanging nationalist ideologies and need to be awakened to liberate themselves from the constraints of their tradition.⁶ Conversely, Afrocentrists and Asiacentrists are in agreement with Mowlana (2001) who asseverated:

Culture as Text and Culture as Theory

Functionalist scholarship has equated culture mostly with nation-state. Culture is a matter of mental programming and collective memory. Interpretive scholarship has focused on performative and ritualistic dimensions. Practicing culture is vital to a speech community. Critical scholarship has interrogated culture as a site of contestation where different ideologies and interests clash. Culture is a matter of domination and emancipation. Despite the fact that these Eurocentric paradigms of intercultural communication scholarship or inter-paradigmatic joint ventures have yielded invigorating insights into (inter)cultural dynamics and politics (see Martin & Nakayama, 2008, 2010, 2013; Martin, Nakayama, & Carbaugh, 2012), they are prone to establish the hierarchical relationship between “Western theories” and “non-Western texts.” Non-Western cultures, more often than not, remain as peripheral targets of data analysis and rhetorical criticism and fail to become central resources of theoretical insight and humanistic inspiration (Miike, 2004a, 2006).

Given the worldwide diffusion of Eurocentric, particularly U.S. Eurocentric, theoretical perspectives and research methods in the discipline, the time is only right for intercultural communicologists to pause to rethink how we should approach our own culture in understanding our thought and behavior. In the case of Asian communication studies, we must seriously wrestle with the following questions: (1) How can we see the Asian world from the perspective of Asians? (2) How can we view Asians as subjects and agents of their own cultural realities rather than objects and spectators in the lived experiences of others? and (3) How can we have better understanding and deeper appreciation of Asian worldviews and ways of communication? The idea of Asiacentricity suggests that we revivify and revitalize Asian cultures as theoretical resources for Asian voices and visions and construct more theories out of Asian cultural specificities and particularities. Theory building in an Asiacentric sense is the active process of centering rich and varied traditions of Asia as essential intellectual resources and developing concepts, comparisons, postulates, and principles in order to capture and envision Asians as subjects and agents of their own realities (Miike, 2002, 2003a).

More specifically, for the purpose of discerning and describing the psychology of Asian communicators and the dynamics of Asian communication, Asiacentric scholarship re-valorizes (1) Asian words as key concepts, (2) Asian religious-philosophical teachings as behavioral principles and codes of ethics, (3) Asian histories as rich contextualization, and (4) Asian aesthetics as analytical frameworks for space-time arrangement, nonverbal performance, and emotional pleasure (for paradigmatic exemplars of Asiacentric theorization, see Adhikary, 2010, 2011; Babbili, 2001, 2008; Chen, 2010, 2011; Chen & Miike, 2003; Chang, 2008; Chung, 2011; Dissanayake, 2010; Gunaratne, 2005a, 2005b; Huang, 2012; Miike, 2009, 2012b; Miike & Chen, 2007, 2010; Mowlana, 1989; Shuter, 2011; Upadhyaya, 2006; Yin, 2009; Zakaria Khan & Sultana, 2011). These linguistic, religious-philosophical, historical, and aesthetic dimensions of Asian cultures as theoretical resources are the be-all and end-all of the Asiacentric paradigm. They make it possible for Asiacentrists to theorize as Asians speak in Asian languages, as Asians are influenced by Asian religious-philosophical worldviews, as Asians struggle to live in Asian historical experiences, and as Asians feel ethically good and aesthetically beautiful. This way of relating culture as theory for knowledge reconstruction, not as text for knowledge deconstruction, then allows us to rediscover and recover Asian cultural location and cultural agency and improve the self-understanding and self-assertion of Asian communicators in both local and global contexts (Miike, 2010b).

Cultural Center and Cultural Rootedness

The concept of center in Afrocentric and Asiacentric metatheories is oftentimes misconstrued as one cultural center diametrically opposed to another. Cultural centers, as defined in these centric paradigms, do not allude to mutually exclusive entities in relation to each other. A cardinal tenet of Afrocentricity and Asiacentricity is that our own culture should be allowed to become central, not marginal, in our story without completely ignoring other cultural perspectives on our culture. If we can see ourselves only through someone else’s eyes, we will not have any agency. If we always speak in the voices of others, no one will hear our voices. The metaphor of location is important in understanding the idea of center in the Afrocentric and Asiacentric paradigms (see Asante, 2006, 2007a). Two persons sitting in different locations of the same room may see the same thing, but they may also see different things. Their views are not necessarily in conflict. But, if one person always tries to see the world through the other person’s eyes, she or he loses her or his own agency.

Cultural rootedness in theory and practice then has nothing to do with going against other cultures. Europeans have never marginalized their own cultural traditions in addressing European thought and action. And yet, no one has chastised them for the act of perpetuating ethnocentrism, divisiveness, and separatism. As Asante (2010) clarified, “Afrocentricity was not the counterpoint to Eurocentricity, but a particular perspective for analysis that did not seek to occupy all space and time as Eurocentrism has often done. All human cultures must be centered, in fact, subject of their own realities” (p. 49). It is important to note here that Eurocentrism as a universalist ideology is an ethnocentric approach to non-Western worlds and people of non-Western heritage, while Eurocentricity as a particularist position is a legitimate culture-centric approach to cultural Europe and people of European decent (Miike, 2010a).

There are many ways of centering any Asian language, religion/philosophy, history, and aesthetics. Asian cultures can be centered so as to highlight similarities at one time and differences at another. It is, therefore, misleading to claim that Asiacentricity is based on the presumption of the incommensurability of Asianness and non-Asianness (Miike, 2011, 2012a). Although past descriptions, interpretations, and evaluations of Asian cultures and communication have been very much elitist, male-centered, heterosexual-oriented, urban-biased, and nationalistic, Asia-centrists are critically aware that multiple Asian voices about varied communicative experiences including those of indigenous people, ethnic minorities, women, gays and lesbians, and people in the diaspora exist within Asian societies. That is why Asiacentricity as a quality of thought, not thought itself, prescribes how we theorize rather than what we theorize. The question of Asianness is central to the Asiacentric terrain of inquiry, but what constitutes Asianness is debatable. Thus, cultural center in the Asiacentric paradigm does not designate the pure essence of culture. Cultural centering is not exactly the same as cultural essentializing (see Asante [2007b] and Karenga [2010] for this line of metatheoretical argument in the Afrocentric school of thought).

Furthermore, the act of centering is not fixed but dynamic depending on who the fellow communicator is and on what the objective and context of communication are. For instance, with a view to facilitating inter-civilizational dialogue about the dominant Enlightenment mentality of the modern West and its communicative implications for cultural Europe, I centered Asian traditions of thought and formulated five Asiacentric propositions on human communication (see Miike, 2004a, 2007, 2012b). When I am detailing cultural similarities and differences within the context of inter-Asian communication, of course, I can center Japanese culture in relation to Chinese culture and further extend my cross-cultural discussion. One of my Asiacentric propositions is that communication is a process in which we receive and return our debts to all sentient beings. This principle of reciprocity can apply in both Chinese and Japanese contexts, but it is practiced differently in interpersonal relationships. Generally speaking, Japanese people feel obligated to return their indebtedness (e.g., in gift-giving) as soon as possible. Chinese people, on the other hand, reciprocate their exchanges in a longer time span. The act of repaying the debt of gratitude quickly can be taken as a sign of the intent to end the relationship. Imbalance is the accepted nature of Chinese interpersonal relationship. Both East–West comparisons and East–East comparisons are deemed necessary and appropriate in Asiacentric scholarship (Miike, 2011).

Asiacentricity and Intercultural Learning

Afrocentrists and Asiacentrists are sometimes misunderstood as closed-minded cultural nationalists who evince their interest only in specific African and Asian cultures and distain other (non-) African and (non-)Asian cultures. The fact that their primary areas of interest are certain parts of Africa or Asia is not an indication that they are not concerned about the rest of the world (Miike, 2008). It is often said that learning about other cultures is also learning about our own culture. The reverse is equally true. To study our own culture is to study other cultures and their influences on our culture. Moreover, our own culture is a point of reference and departure for intercultural learning. While transnationalists and transculturalists are loquacious about the hybrid nature of culture these days, there is a fallacious assumption that learning about our own culture can lead only to ethnocentrism and cultural nationalism. In contrast to its conceptual myth, Asiacentricity is neither a cultural superiority complex nor a parochial ideology. For authentic intracultural learning always involves genuine intercultural learning.

For example, Ran’s (2002) chronological inquiry into the Japanese concept of enryo (literally, distant consideration) made me aware of its etymological origin and semantic transformation. The two kanji characters of enryo simply denote a long-term vision in the Chinese language. It is during the Muromachi period (1392–1603) that the meaning of the word was actually appropriated in Japan. To the Japanese, to think ahead was, and still is, to be modest and considerate in interpersonal interactions. It makes sense, then, that Koreans do not use these two characters to refer to thoughtful consideration. Its equivalent word is saryo in the Korean language. For another example, fortune cookies represent Chinese culture in North America (see Yin & Miike, 2008). But, surprisingly, they are originally from Kyoto in Japan and were introduced to China only recently (Lee, 2008b). The reason why they ended up being served in Chinese restaurants in North America was due to the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II (Lee, 2008a). Chinese Americans can learn about Japanese culture and their interethnic communication with Japanese Americans by looking into the history of “Chinese” fortune cookies.

Asiacentricity is not exclusively and strictly for Asian communicators and Asian phenomena. According to Shuter (2008), intracultural communication theory can contribute to intercultural communication research in three ways: (1) it proffers an analytical frame of reference from which to examine social interactions within a given society and region; (2) it demonstrates the inextricable nexus between behavioral patterns and sociocultural forces; and (3) it provides a conceptual basis for cross-cultural comparisons between different societies. In terms of intercultural teaching and training, it assists educators and instructors in designing advanced courses that focus on cultural dynamics and communication behaviors within a specific society and region, which is “a marked improvement over many intercultural curricula that currently consist of a single course called Intercultural Communication” (p. 40). Asiacentricity is in accord with this intracultural communication agenda. From an Australian and New Zealand viewpoint, Flew (2010) also apprehended the cross-cultural and intercultural nature of Asiacentric communication scholarship when he commented:

Tu (1991) speculated that the Western competitive mentality—“either we prevail or they prevail”—precludes alternative non-Western voices from being heard widely within the West. Such a mentality may explain some negative reactions against Afrocentric and Asiacentric projects. Many conservative intellectuals refuse to concede that Afrocentricity and Asiacentricity are dialogical complementarities to Eurocentricity rather than hegemonic replacements of Eurocentrism. Asante (2009) expounded on the significance of active centering of our own culture in advancing multiculturalism without hierarchy:

Asante (2010) further elaborated on the meaning of centricity and agency in the postcolonial era:

In summary, centricity is the beginning and basis of equality and mutuality in intercultural exchanges. It prevents our communication across cultures from becoming a mere imposition-imitation encounter. The worst form of intercultural communication is that the speaker who does not know her or his own culture is talking to the listener who does not really care. If we constantly try to be someone else and feel inferior both in scholarship and in relationship, there will be no meaningful dialogue. Centricity urges us, first and foremost, to hark back to the heart and soul of our own culture as a way of contributing to the grand flow of the entire humanity without being imitators who blindly follow others. Paradoxically, in this soul-searching process, we may discover that the development of our own culture is, in fact, indebted to other cultures, and that the human civilization is truly multicultural and synergic. In any case, imitation is not intercultural (Miike, 2012b).

Asiacentricity and the Issue of Cultural Ecology

Martin and Nakayama (2008, 2010) correctly pointed out that the field of intercultural communication has directed too much attention to cultural differences, and that this difference-oriented approach obscures the way cultures have always been in contact and have already influenced each other. They underlined the importance of recognizing both cultural similarities and differences and highlighting the hybrid and heterogeneous character of all cultures. From an Asiacentric standpoint, I would like to make two more points. First, contemporary culture and communication research should not exclusively illuminate cultural similarities and hybridities as perceived through U.S. Eurocentric lenses and prematurely discuss Western/non-Western cultural similarities and hybridities. Second, critical/cultural communication studies should not limit their discussions to the realm of popular culture and emphasize cultural similarities and hybridities only in the current era of globalization.

Cultural hybridity is not a recent phenomenon. Both Afrocentrists and Asiacentrists have acknowledged that African and Asian cultures have developed over time through intracultural and intercultural interactions within and across regions. Being fully aware of the confluence of colonialism and neocolonialism, they have never submitted that there was no change, no influence, and no impact on their respective cultures from outside. They are not in an anti-hybridity position. Karenga (2010) made explicit that “African humanity is enriched and expanded by mutually beneficial exchanges with others” (p. 43). Miike (2003b) also made clear that throughout their long histories, Asians have had intercultural contacts with different people, ideas, and products from different societies that must have initially caused confusion and friction in their communities. Miike (2003b) contended that one of the key domains of Asiacentric inquiry is to explore how each Asian society has historically coped with those intercultural encounters and has eventually incorporated and integrated heterogeneous elements in harmony. For Afrocentrisits and Asiacentrists, nevertheless, it is not of heuristic value to simply demonstrate the dynamic, complex, and hybrid nature of culture. Asante (1998) responded to Cornel West in debating over cultural centricity and cultural fluidity:

Asiacentricity was criticized for its inability to deal with realities of cultural hybridity in Asia and elsewhere. Under the impact of globalization, in the eyes of its critics, nothing remains, or will remain, purely Asian. They totally missed the thrust of centricity as it relates to active centering, sustainable development, and cultural ecology. In truth, any culture is hybrid. As Ohnuki-Tierney (2006) elucidated, hybridity is the sine qua non of all cultures, each of which is a historical product of interaction between cultures and continuous interpenetration between the external (the foreign) and the internal (the indigenous). The presence of cultural hybridity, however, should not be confused with the absence of cultural distinctiveness. The fact that Asian cultures are hybrid does not diminish the development of Asiannesses (Miike, 2011, 2012a). Deep frying as a cooking technique was imported to Japan from Portugal in the 16th century. But tempura is not recognized as Portuguese food either in Japan or abroad today. Likewise, the Japanese not only imported Chinese characters from China but also invented their own kanji. Hataraku (working) in kanji is written in the combination of the two parts: person-moving. This is not the case with gong-zuo (work-making) in the original Chinese language.

Cultural hybridization is not happening coincidentally in a power-free vacuum. It is taking place in specific political, ideological, and economic contexts (Miike, 2008). The lopsided argument that cultural hybridization is an effective solution to power imbalance in the postcolonial world is seriously flawed. The third space is not a platform where different voices are evenly heard (Kalscheuer, 2009). It is precisely because the local is in more and more exchange with the global that the importance of centricity must be stressed. Such ceaseless contact actually makes it all the more important for Asiacentric communication critics to scrutinize the motives, forms, functions, and consequences of hybridity in cultural Asia toward the healthy and balanced centering of the Asian heritage. Chen and Dai (2012) perceptively described how cultural hybridization has had different purposes and effects in Western and non-Western settings:

Ngũgĩ (1993) used the metaphor of body and health to address the issue of intercultural learning, cultural preservation, and cultural integration:

Ngũgĩ’s metaphorical account of intracultural dynamics and intercultural contacts is further substantiated by Mowlana’s (1996, 1997) theoretical framework of “communication as cultural ecology.” He held the view that balanced intercultural interaction and learning is critical to the well-being of culture because “the ecological perspective argues for sustainable development and a communication system that satisfies our needs without diminishing the prospects of future utilization” (p. 235). Mowlana’s ecological model of culture and communication is predicated on three fundamental assumptions: (1) all elements of culture are closely interrelated and mutually interdependent; (2) both internal and external communication affect the totality and health of culture; and (3) the preservation, restoration, sustainability, and development of culture depend, in large measure, on our attitude toward intracultural and intercultural communication and their environments. His holistic approach to communication as a life-support system takes into consideration such overlooked issues as harmonious symbiosis among human beings, nature, and the supernatural, the ethics of cultural continuity and change, and the context of community building.

From his communitarian perspective, Tehranian (1990, 1993) warned that, although it can liberate us from material poverty, modernization can enslave us to spiritual poverty. Without the bonds of fellowship and community, we can be easily driven to the world of psychological alienation, status anxiety, social envy, relentless acquisition, and conspicuous consumption. Tehranian’s caveat echoed Weaver (2007b) who pondered very poignant questions: “If you earn $500,000 a year, but you don’t have a family, is that progress? If you are consuming an endless amount and variety of different products, is that a sign of success? What about the impact on the environment or the overall physical and social ecology?” (p. 161).

It is in this ecological sense that centricity is vitally important and profoundly significant in the age of precipitate intercultural encounters. Cultural hybridity does not negate the raison d’être of centricity since no culture and society shares the exact same hybrid form and path of development. The careful assessment of balanced centering and decentering in dynamic multicultural exchanges with the world is a difficult but rewarding task for Asiacentrists in the era of globalization. We cannot be closed-minded with our sense of cultural superiority, whereas we cannot be too open-minded with our sense of cultural inferiority (see Miike, 2003a, for the meaning of cultural preservation). Asante (2009) averred that he is not against cultural exchange and mutual learning across cultures but opposed the idea of cultural superiority because “the imposition of this bad idea does not lead to discourse, but to dis-ease, where the ultimate objective becomes not dialogue, but control, prediction, and subjection” (p. 72).

The foregoing discussion on cultural hybridity and cultural ecology illustrates that Asiacentricity as a reconstructive paradigm does not purport to be merely descriptive. Asiacentric scholarship is committed to generating self-defining ideas and taking self-determined actions that underscore ethical visions for human freedom and flourishing and communal solidarity for cultural preservation and integration in Asian societies.⁷ Centric scholars informed us that tradition as inherited wisdom is an essential resource for self-understanding, self-assertion, communal development, and intercultural dialogue. At the same time, critical scholars reminded us that tradition as communicated continuities is a site of negotiation and invention (Dissanayake, 2009a). Then, key questions for Asiacentric communication theoreticians and practitioners are: What kind of tradition should Asians reinvent for themselves and their society from their venerable cultural heritage? What kind of continuities do Asians feel, and do they want to feel, interpersonally, communally, nationally, and regionally across generations? The present discussion turns to this ethical objective of the Asiacentric paradigm and its related concern of criticality in the succeeding section.

Asiacentricity and the Question of Criticality

Can Asiacentricity be critical of past and current negative communication practices and facilitate positive social change in the Asian milieu? This is an interesting question that has been posed by critics of the Asiacentric paradigm. Like foreign intervention rhetoric, the question was intended to underplay the capacity of the Asiacentric enterprise as a self-critical and self-corrective thought and practice. Asante (2008) lamented over the intellectual proclivity of African Studies to conduct Eurocentric studies of African communication through “critical theories” grounded in Western traditions of thought: “Even our criticism has been criticism from foreign critical categories. Our research often begins with a review of the European literature on our subjects. What we need is a method to prevent the invisibility of our own scholars and history” (p. 51). Asante is of the opinion that Afrocentric critical analyses in concordance with African ethical ideals should gain more currency among African (American) communication researchers. The same problem of theoretical dependency exists in critical/cultural studies about Asian regions, nations, and societies. Hence, there is the dearth of Asiacentric critical inquiries into Asian activities and systems of communication.

In mapping communication theory as a field, Craig (2005) advanced the disciplinary position that all theoretical traditions can be viewed as types of “theoretical metadiscourse,” or “conceptually sophisticated ways of talking,” about communication. As such, they are, in one way or another, embedded in actual practices and problems of communication in everyday life. According to his constitutive metamodel (Craig, 2006), therefore, communication theory as theoretical metadiscourse not only can reflect, describe, and interpret communication practices as everyday discourse but also can critique, change, and cultivate them. For the future growth of communication theory as a multicultural field of learning, Craig (2009) recently exhorted communicologists to embrace the spirit of “theoretical cosmopolitanism” and attend to different ways of thinking and theorizing about the complexities of human interaction from non-Western cultural traditions (see Gordon [2007], Gunaratne [2010], Miike [2006], and Shi-xu [2009b] for more specific suggestions).

If Craig’s (2005, 2006, 2009) pragmatic position is agreeable and acceptable, it stands to reason that the Asiacentric paradigm can build critical theories of Asian communication because there have always and already been critical communication discourse in Asia. Asiacentrisits can engage in theory construction that corresponds to critical voices and vocabularies about Asian communication practices and problems. Eurocentric cultural critics are eager to interrogate and castigate Asian traditions as sources of oppression that undermine individual liberty and social equality in Asian nations and regions. It is hardly surprising, however, that since their intellectual discourse is detached from Asian everyday discourse, those Eurocentric interrogators are not so successful in their righteous attempt for social change (Miike, 2010a). Thus it would prove to be of utmost importance to theorize from Asian critical voices and vocabularies with the aim of reflexively constituting and critically transforming communication discourse in Asian societies and communities (see, for example, Suzuki [1963] for his intriguing discussion on the Japanese concept of jiyū).

The question of ethics is part and parcel of the Asiacentric project. Although Asian approaches to communication theory have been accused of their essentialism, romanticism, exoticism, and ahistoricism due to their emphasis on ancient and classical traditions (Dissanayake, 2009a, 2009b), Asiacentric communication philosophers strive to canvass ethical visions for a new Asia from Asian cumulative wisdom. As Starosta and Chen (2003) noticed, centrists ask what might be or ought to be sometimes even from cultural ideas distant in time that may run counter to current practices because “cultural traditions are mined as a source of strength, renewal, and survival” (Starosta & Chen, 2003, p. 281). There have been commendable Asiacentric attempts to theorize communication ethics from Buddhism (Dissanayake, 2010), Confucianism (Chang, 2008), Hinduism (Babbili, 2001), and Islam (Mowlana, 1989). The codes of ethics outlined in such path-breaking works can be productively harnessed to systematically ascertain and analyze negative communication practices in Asian countries and cultures.

The Buddhist ethics of “right speech” [samma vaca] discourages (1) false speech (with deliberate lies and deceptive intents), (2) divisive speech (which maliciously disunites and separates people into conflict), (3) harsh speech (using offensive and hurtful language), and (4) incessant speech (that is, unproductive idle chatter). Positively worded, the four pillars of “right speech” are (1) truthful speech, (2) harmonious speech, (3) gentle speech, and (4) purposeful speech. In passing, it is noteworthy that the Chinese character of harmony signifies gentleness. Chang (2008) proffered four guidelines of speaking based on her close reading of the Analects of Confucius: (1) Words define and reflect moral development; (2) Beautiful words lacking substance are blameworthy; (3) Actions are more important than words; and (4) Appropriate speaking relies on rules of propriety.

It is possible, for instance, to deploy and employ these codes of ethics as Asiacentric theoretical frameworks for Asian media analysis or political communication studies. Mowlana (1984) made a keen observation that mass media often mobilized for war and exacerbated tensions between nations and wondered if they could do the reverse to prevent war and promote international peace. Gunaratne (2005a) duly insisted that the existence of some repressive authoritarian regimes of governance and their regulations and restrictions of communication should not adamantly deny the self-critical and self-corrective possibilities of Asian ethics drawn from Asian religious-philosophical traditions, all of which emphasize that the rulers must abide by the wishes of the people. This Asian spirit is exemplified in an old Chinese saying: “Heaven sees as the people see; Heaven hears as the people hear” (Tu, 2010). Can Asiacentric critical inquiries rooted in Asian ideas and ideals⁸ then facilitate ethical communication, say, Buddhist Southeast Asia, Confucian East Asia, Hindu South Asia, and Islamic West Asia so as to posit the Asian positive and negate the Asian negative?

For both Afrocentrists and Asiacentrists as reconstructionists, the question of criticality is the question of ethics for community building and collective solidarity. In the waves of poststructuralism, postmodernism, postcolonialism, and Cultural Studies, the Derridarian method of deconstruction has emerged as a powerful mode of inquiry in the contemporary academic arena. Deconstructing knowledge is important because we can understand and acknowledge the limitations of our current theory and research. However, as Karenga (2006) shrewdly pointed out, there is a deconstructionist tendency to detect the defective of knowledge rather than to raise up the possibility of knowledge. Furthermore, more and more scholars are realizing the problem of unlimited deconstructive criticism, which can undermine any form of belonging, collectivity, and community (Miike, 2008). Deconstruction alone does not unite us to move forward. Rather, we often seem to move around the same-old issues. In constructing an Asiacentric feminist communication theory, Yin (2009) forthrightly asserted:

It is imperative for Asiacentrists to ruminate more earnestly on, and probe more deeply into, Asian cultural identity and heritage and reconstruct knowledge not just for “what it is (science)” but “what ought to be (ethics)” and “what can be (politics)” (see Tehranian, 2007, for his model of these three interlocking circles of knowledge). They should not only describe but also envision. They should not only make abstract arguments but also take concrete actions. Asians have long been passive participants in globalization who have always coped with the waves of change from the mainstream West. But the time is ripe for Asians to become active agents of globalization and localization and re-shape and re-direct them (Miike, 2005). In what kind of global society and in what kind of local community do Asians want to live? Self-defining ideas and self-determining actions are more necessary than ever before for Asian individuals and societies with the Confucian spirit of reanimating the old to attain the new.

Moreover, it behooves the Asiacentric paradigm as a reconstructive enterprise to go beyond Eurocentric criticality and to expand and enrich the notion of criticality and the quest for global ethics with a view to re-humanizing and re-harmonizing our troubled and conflict-ridden world.⁹ Asiacentric communication inquiries will be able to portray Asian versions of global consciousness based on different worldviews and point to the fact that there are indeed many visions, although not necessarily entirely different, of the global village. Babbili (2008), for example, articulated India’s locally grounded global ethics based on the Hindu assumption of relatedness:

The current ecological crisis demands that we have true appreciations of all cultural traditions and their locally grounded global visions so as to enrich a limited humanity and envision a higher humanity. All continents, countries, and communities have had their global consciousness on their own soil throughout human history. They have accumulated indigenous wisdoms about equally valid and vibrant ways of being, knowing, and valuing in the universe, from which we can learn a great deal in searching for answers to the question of humanity (Miike, 2004a, 2012b). The notion of criticality ought to connect with all indigenous knowledges around the world (Shuter, 2000). Otherwise, the righteous quest for global ethics will be merely another form of discursive imperialism even though they concern themselves with global justice and world peace. Intercultural communication not at the superficial functional level but at the deep affective level is the only way to mitigate identity politics, social disintegration, religious conflicts, and ecological vulnerability in the global community. On the basis of assumption that “the best of African culture is among the best of human culture” (p. 11), Karenga (2008) eloquently stated the importance of culture-centricity and our moral obligation to transform the local and the global for a good and just world:

Conclusion: “Outwardly, Be Open; Inwardly, Be Deep”

Daisetsu Suzuki (1870–1966), who fulfilled his life in building a bridge between the East and the West through his voluminous work on Zen Buddhism, perfected a philosophy of intercultural communication in his final book, Tōyōteki na Mikata [The Eastern Outlook] (Suzuki, 1963). His message was simple and yet profound: “Outwardly, be open; inwardly, be deep” (Ueda, 2007). This philosophy aptly captures the essence of centricity that the present essay has delineated and resonates with many great Asian thinkers like Mahatma Gandhi who also ardently advocated rootedness and openness in communication across cultures as keys to “unity in diversity” and “harmony without uniformity.” Coincidently, Tehranian (1995) elegantly elaborated on the intention and implication of Suzuki’s poetic message: “what the new age requires is not an escapist strategy to return to one’s own cultural fortress but a confrontation with all of the other global cultural flows and an earnest search for finding in one’s traditions of civility the responses that are at once ecumenical in spirit and indigenous in roots. This is a challenge that requires thinking globally and acting locally” (p. 189).

We are living in a paradoxical age when every corner of the world is confronted by the question of “the living standard” (e.g., economic growth) and “the quality of life” (e.g., human warmth). Both the local community and the global society are struggling to achieve a sustainable balance among the complementary and contradictory themes of individual liberty, social equality, civil order, benevolent community, and sacred earth (Miike, 2012b; Tehranian, 1993, 1999). The triumph of capitalism in the economic sphere, the expansion of Christianity in the religious sphere, the dominance of English in the linguistic sphere, and the rise of individualism in the cultural sphere may characterize “global trends.” On the other hand, however, we are increasingly concerned with the emergence of “market society” in addition to market economy, the danger of “the clash of civilizations” instead of the principle of religious pluralism, the problem of “linguicism” and “linguicide” as opposed to the right to communicate, and the dilemma of social disintegration in favor of individual choice and freedom (Brooks, 2008).

Mowlana (1997) proclaimed that the communication revolution is unfinished. The 20th century has witnessed the communications revolution in terms of the diffusion of technological innovations and the speed and quantity of messages exchanged. In his opinion, nonetheless, the real communication revolution in quest of the quality of social interactions and interpersonal connections has not yet occurred within and across communities around the world in the 21st century. He further observed that there is the deeply felt need to revive the human capacity for communication among already alienated individuals because the growth of instrumental and functional transactions became inescapably paramount in the decline of genuine dialogue.¹⁰ It is in this global landscape that the Asiacentric turn in Asian communication studies holds great promise, and that theoretical and practical contributions of the intercultural communication field must be reconsidered. After all, as Mowlana (1997) noted, “it is the mode of communication—not in its technical and instrumental forms but in its human-interaction form—that determines the outcome of social processes” (p. 239).

Author’s Note

An earlier version of this chapter was presented on the kick-off panel, “Asian Perspectives on Communication,” at the International Communication Association Preconference on the theme, “The Communication Discipline in Asia,” in Tokyo, Japan on June 20, 2010. I would like to thank Professor Akira Miyahara at Seinan Gakuin University, then President of the Communication Association of Japan, and Professor Jiro Takai at Nagoya University, then President of the Japan–U.S. Communication Association, for affording me an opportunity to think through some of the paradigmatic issues and challenges of Asiacentricity. I also wish to acknowledge, with gratitude, the perceptive comments and incisive criticisms from the other panelists and respondents: Professor Min-Sun Kim at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, Professor Bonnie Peng at National Chengchi University, then Minister of the National Communications Commission of Taiwan, Professor Kiyoko Sueda at Aoyama Gakuin University, Professor François Cooren at the University of Montreal, then President of the International Communication Association, Professor François Heinderyckx at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, then President of the European Communication Research and Education Association, and Professor Terry Flew at the Queensland University of Technology, then President of the Australian and New Zealand Communication Association. Their feedback helped me improve my Asiacentric idea and its disciplinary implications.

Notes

1.Since the publication of my first article on Asiacentric communication scholarship (Miike, 2002), I have consistently used the term Asiacentric (instead of Asiocentric or Asian-centric) in order to honor Paul Wong, Meera Manvi, and Takeo Hirota Wong who co-authored the 1995 Amerasia Journal article entitled “Asiacentrism and Asian American Studies.” To my knowledge, they are the first group of scholars who sought to apply Asante’s Afrocentric idea in the context of Asian (American) Studies and suggested the possibility of constructing an “Asiacentric” paradigm. However, I do not employ the term Asiacentrism because I want to make the conceptual distinction between Eurocentricity and Eurocentrism (see Miike, 2010a, 2010b).

2.Asante’s (1998) rhetorical framework of “hierarchical discourse” is pertinent to the present discussion. He contended that discourse hierarchy exists according to established social hierarchy. A dominant group can control over the rhetorical territory (1) by redefining established terms in such a manner that the original meaning is lost, (2) by creating a self-perpetuating ritual whereby the truth is reserved for those who are initiated; and (3) by stifling oppositional discourse in a way that the opposition can be heard but is not taken seriously. Languages and histories of the colonizers over those of the colonized, Western “philosophy” over non-Western “thought,” “civilized” modernity over “primitive” traditions, and the “modern art” and “classic music” of the West over “traditional” non-Western art and music are still in hierarchical relationships in intercultural communication discourse (see Babbili, 2001; Chen & Miike, 2006; Mendoza, 2006; Shi-xu, 2009a, 2009b; Wang, 2011).

3.Postcolonial studies in vogue, more often than not, shed light only on individuality and intersectionality when they lay bare discursive imperialism. It seems to me that collective solidarity and community building are rarely their theoretical and practical concerns. For postcolonialists, to be Eurocentric is to perpetuate the colonial and neocolonial structure of the imperial West and refuse to acknowledge its pervasive impact on the contemporary world. We are non-Eurocentric, therefore, as long as we participate in sustained resistance to colonialist and neocolonialist discourses and practices. It comes as no surprise, then, that only objective-specific, non-systematic, temporary, and highly imaginary collective representations of the colonized in the form of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s “strategic essentialism” are allowed in the predicament of postcolonial struggle. The positive idea of collectivity and community based on shared primordial ties is totally absent in postcolonial thought, although there are always oppressive cultural nationalisms within the non-Western world. In passing, such absence is also the case in postmodern thought because “the postmodernists tend to be permissive pluralists and globalists who propose to extend civil liberties beyond previous boundaries to all nations, women, minorities, gays, lesbians, and indigenous peoples” (Tehranian, 1995, p. 188). There is a clear difference between postcolonial studies and Afrocentric/Asiacentric paradigms about what it means to be “Eurocentric” and “non-Eurocentric.” See Dissanayake (2009b), Kalscheuer (2009), Nakayama and Martin (2007), Shome (1996), and Shome and Hegde (2002) for postcolonial approaches to rhetoric, culture, and communication.

4.Tanno (1992) voiced her legitimate concern that methodological correctness in the Western sense does not guarantee meaningful contextualization and theorization about non-European (American) cultures. In reality, methodological Eurocentrism is often functioning as the symbolic power to define “advanced,” “rigorous,” “sophisticated,” and “ethical” ways of doing research even in non-Western contexts (Miike, 2010b). As Tanno (1992, 2008) instructed, one way to solve this widespread problem of Eurocentric knowledge production may be to equalize the conventionally hierarchical relationship between the researcher and the researched and incorporate the process of “contextual validation” by fully recognizing research participants as “co-producers of knowledge” and realizing research as “authentic dialogue.” This power shift, however, can occur only when researchers are willing to admit their “trained incapacity” in the words of Everett M. Rogers (1990) and reconsider methodological correctness itself as a source of definitional power. See Aluli-Meyer (2006), De la Garza (2008), Tanno and Jandt (1993/1994), Jandt and Tanno (2001), and Reddi (1996) for non-Western methodological reflections, orientations, and guidelines.

5.Edmondson (2009) heuristically related the Asiacentric idea to the Chinese fu-bian perspective. Fu refers to a return to the wisdom of ancient times, whereas bian means change. The fu-bian perspective, which may seem to be paradoxical in a linear-reasoning sense, is the idea of returning to old roots and exploring new grounds at the same time. It is about rethinking, transforming, and enriching traditions in seeking change. Edmondson (2009) wrote: “The process of fu-bian is a tradition, but tradition itself changes. … Prolonged fu leads to bian, and vice versa; old leaves fall and new leaves come out, but they are no longer the old leaves” (p. 110).

6.With reference to the lack of engagement in non-Western traditions of thought on the part of postcolonial theorists, Dissanayake (2007) is worth quoting here: “Postcolonial studies seek to map the misrepresentations, injustices of colonial rule and to forge newer modes of analysis that would be able to do justice to the complexities of social experience of the colonized countries. The work of writers such as Frantz Fanon, Edward Said, Gayatri Spivak, and Homi Bhabha have played a crucial role in forming postcolonial studies. While recognizing the importance of the theoretical path-clearing, the work on diasporic experiences, nationhood, globalism, as well as on modern writings as for example the work of Mahasweta Devi, the inescapable fact is that postcolonial theory operates within the Western discourse. It is mixture of neo-Marxism and poststructuralism. Indeed, the vocabulary of analysis is heavily indebted to poststructural thinkers such as Derrida, Foucault, Lacan. Hence it is hardly surprising that postcolonial theorists have displayed neither a desire nor competence in engaging the classical traditions of the colonized countries. This is indeed a great lacuna, and one that needs to be addressed if postcolonial studies is to emancipate itself from its self-imprisonment” (p. 225).

7.Wu and Guo (2006) reported the grassroots efforts of many Chinese individuals and communities to redefine Chineseness and reclaim Chinese culture, which are different from the government efforts to create an official version of the national culture of China. Needless to say, cultural preservation and integration projects are not necessarily led by nation-states as some critics of cultural nationalism simple-mindedly presuppose.

8.Dissanayake (2009b) featured “self-reflexivity” and “critical introspection” as essential elements of Buddhist communication theory. These intrapersonal themes in relation to the ethical and moral use of language can also be explored in depth and explained in detail in order to construct Asiacentric criticality and critiques of Asian communication discourse. Yin’s (2011) comparative analysis of the original and Disney versions of Mulan also demonstrated that Western dislocations of Asian classical texts can be scrutinized through Asiacentric critical lenses.

9.I am indebted to Professor Christine B. N. Chin, Director of the International Communication Program at American University in Washington, D.C., for bringing to my attention this important role of Asiacentricity in ameliorating Eurocentric criticality for the purpose of restoring and elevating humanity in diversity.

10.As we move beyond the Enlightenment mentality of the modern West, Tu (2010) advised us to turn our renewed attention to the interactive rituals of collective being, becoming, and belonging in indigenous traditions: “The destiny of kinship relations, the rich texture of interpersonal communication, the detailed and nuanced appreciation of the surrounding natural and cultural world, and the experienced connectedness with ancestors point to communities grounded in ethnicity, gender, language, land, and faith” (p. 117).

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