The reproduction of canonical silences: re-reading Habermas in the context of slavery and the slave trade

Abstract

Recent discussions on “decolonizing” knowledge production have often foregrounded the importance of centering “marginal” perspectives, which is crucial but insufficient as it risks leaving the canon untouched. Jürgen Habermas’ book on the bourgeois public sphere is one of the most frequently cited and debated canonical texts in media and communication studies. Drawing on the case of London’s coffee houses and newspapers, this article argues for a critical re-engagement with canonical thinkers. It examines what the emergence of a bourgeois public sphere in 17th- and 18th-century England looks like if we re-read it within the context of slavery and the slave trade. The article demonstrates that race does not simply provide another “prism” to examine the bourgeois public sphere but instead enables and is constitutive of it. The reproduction of canonical silences through the continued circulation of influential texts has implications for how we conceptualize racialized publics in contemporary times.

Unlearning Communication for Social Change—A Pedagogical Proposition

“…The three perspectives are about listening, participation, and co-conversation. Other relevant and profound critiques drawing our attention to aspects of coloniality, imperialism, and patriarchy can be found in Villanueva (2018Villanueva ( , 2022, Chasi (2021), Manyozo (2023), and in Wendy Willems' decolonial critique of Habermas's public sphere (Willems 2023). In this article, I will, however, highlight the work of Eliana Herrera-Huerfano who, in her doctoral dissertation (Herrera-Huerfano 2022), explored indigenous communication from communities in the Amazon, and who, together with Joan Pedro-Caranana and Juana Ochoa Almanza, developed an interesting heuristic framework, embedded in decolonial thinking, with which to explore communicative justice (Herrera-Huerfano et al 2023).…”

Four concepts to think from the South

“…The wealth in Europe was possible not only because of the Industrial Revolution and other 'local' factors, it was also and fundamentally enabled by the dehumanization that justified the exploitation of racialized people and land in the colonies. As Wendy Willems (2022) shows, the Habermasian concept of a public sphere in 'democratic' and 'developed' societies ignores the role and the concomitant existence of slavery supporting Western societies. Even today, coloniality organizes, as a rationale, the dynamics of many aspects in the extractivist relationship between societies in the global South and the global North.…”

Editorial: encounters with Western media theory

“…Although this special section is now closed, Crosscurrents will continue to be open to contributions and interventions that further advance this approach. Indeed, we hope to publish scholarly interventions that disrupt "the canon by exposing the silences in canonical texts, alongside the crucial work of centering 'marginal' perspectives" (Willems, 2022).…”