InterdIscIplInary CommunIcatIon StudIes from the PerIphery: Ways of BeIng and DoIng

CALL FOR CHAPTERS

CALL for CHAPTERS

Interdisciplinary Communication Studies from the Periphery: Ways of Being and Doing

Editors
Cansu Koç (Istanbul Bilgi University)
Ezgi Altınöz (Istanbul Bilgi University)
Yusuf Yüksekdağ (Istanbul Bilgi University)

This edited volume seeks contributions from scholars whose subject matter, methods, or researcher identities resonate with what might be considered peripheral in communication studies. We aim to explore how diverse perspectives—often shaped by specific contexts, marginalized identities or cases, or alternative approaches—can challenge, expand or be an alternative to traditional paradigms, perspectives and cases in the field. The concept of the periphery is not defined here as a rigid geographic or socio-political category, nor is it a simple counterpoint to the North or Western paradigms. Instead, we understand the periphery as a space where various ‘ways of being’ and ‘ways of doing’ emerge, offering insights into communication processes and practices.

We define the periphery in three interconnected ways. First, it can reflect geographic and contextual realities rooted in specific locations and their challenges. Second, it may describe the researcher’s identity, which, while often tied to context, can stand apart from geographic definitions. Third, it relates to the subject matter and theoretical gaze, especially when these are understudied, overlooked, challenge dominant paradigms, or offer alternative epistemologies.

We embrace the challenges of working from the periphery. Research from peripheral contexts often faces biases, such as being deemed less generalizable compared to studies originating from the center (Kubota, 2019). The dominance of the Matthew effect in media and communication scholarship exacerbates this imbalance (Demeter, 2017). And this is a relative positioning too, as the scholars in the CEE countries might be considered peripheral to Continental Europe (Demeter, 2017), or an early career researcher might feel like undervalued or heavily scrutinized. While internationalization attempts from many Western universities and de-Westernization efforts in the field (Wang, 2011) have opened new opportunities, the extent to which these initiatives allow for diverse voices and perspectives remains uneven. Moreover, the concept of the periphery itself is not fixed; it shifts and adapts depending on the context, reflecting evolving power dynamics and disciplinary boundaries.

This book aims to strengthen the periphery—not by centralizing it but by amplifying its voices. We invite contributions from anyone who identifies their ways of being, doing, and knowing as peripheral.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Submission Guidelines and Contributions Sought

We aim to hold an online (closed) workshop on March 22, 2025 (subject to change) in order to facilitate discussion among the potential authors. The workshop will be a medium for the authors to debate their argument with each other as well as making themselves familiar with other contributions through informal paper presentations. The target publisher (e.g. Springer, Brill Books, Routledge, Lexington Books) will also be decided during the workshop. After the workshop, the authors will have 4 months to finalize the contributions. Full chapters will be around 6,000 words including the bibliography.

You can send the abstracts around 500-600 words (including the references) and a 100-word author bio to cansu.koc04@bilgiedu.net by January 20, 2025. The abstract should clearly outline the theoretical framework, specific context(s), and the broader implications of the proposed chapter for communication studies. The authors will be notified about the selection results by February 20, 2025.

This project is stemming from the Interdisciplinary PhD Communication Conference series at Istanbul Bilgi University. The previous edited collection, Collaboration in Media Studies, was published by Routledge in 2024.

We welcome submissions that address, but are not limited to, the following themes:

Researcher Situatedness and Methodology
– Reflections on how researchers’ contexts, identities, or positionalities influence their approaches, perspectives, and contributions to media and communication studies.
– Explorations of methodologies that embrace situatedness, such as autoethnography or reflective practices.

Diverse or Transgressive Communication Spaces and Practices
– Analyses of how communicative practices—particularly in less conventional or transgressive spaces like digital sex work, hacktivism, or grassroots art movements—shape identity, expression, and community.
– Studies highlighting understudied or alternative communication practices, including those rooted in indigenous knowledge systems, oral traditions, and embodied performances.

Expanding Theoretical Boundaries in Communication Studies
– Contributions that challenge, extend, or reimagine dominant theories in media and communication studies.
– Theoretical insights from underrepresented regions or traditions, such as Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Oceania, or Latin America.
– Understudied areas of communication, including theories or methods from other disciplines—such as ethics, political science, or performative arts.

Non-Human Subjectivity and Communication
– Investigations into the role of non-human subjectivities (e.g., animals, plants, or artificial intelligence) in communication processes and how these subjectivities challenge traditional human-
centered paradigms, especially in non-Western contexts.
– Analyses and case studies of embodied, non-verbal, or other-than-human communicative practices that engage with human-animal, human-environment relationships, or offer theoretical and practical implications of decentering the human gaze.

Beyond the Digital Turn
– Explorations of non-digital communication spaces and practices—such as those in architecture, urban spaces, theater, or other embodied forms—and their contributions to the discipline.

Economic Class and Communication
– Inquiries into how economic class shapes communication practices, representation, and access in varied contexts.
– Perspectives that place economic inequality at the forefront of communication studies, offering alternative ways of thinking about class and media.

Knowledge Production in Communication Studies
– Discussions on the structural biases in academic publishing and scholarship that influence which voices and perspectives are elevated or marginalized. Implications of working in authoritarian contexts.
– Critical engagements with global and local knowledge hierarchies, offering alternatives to reductive binaries and promoting diverse epistemologies.

Perspectives and Challenges of Early-career Scholars
– Considerations of the experiences of early-career researchers in regard to academic and professional challenges.
– Innovations in methodology or theory that arise from the perspectives of early-career scholars.

CONTEXTUALIZING THE THEMES

Contextualizing the Themes

We welcome works that reflect on how a researcher’s situatedness shapes methodologies and perspectives, following the notion of situated knowledge (Haraway, 1988), as well as approaches like autoethnography (Ellis et al., 2011) that foreground the interconnection between researcher identity and the act of research itself.

In addition, how communicative spaces and rituals – and especially transgressive ones (e.g. digital sex work, hacktivism, alternative art spaces) mediate identity, performance, and expression within diverse cultural contexts invites exploration into how peripheral modes of engagement with media shape individual self-representation and collective social practices (Ringer, 2019; Chib et al., 2021). We encourage contributions that examine the politics of becoming, encompassing how identity and selfhood are constructed, expressed, or contested through everyday interactions, local ceremonies, or in the face of alternative forms of media (Asenbaum, 2023). As a somewhat underrepresented area of discussion (Inuzuka, 2013), taking on economic class identity and going beyond merely accepting its significance, is also something we would like to see.

We also encourage submissions that avoid reductive East-West comparisons, focusing instead on the complexities and specificities of the contexts in which communication practices occur (Darling-Wolf, 2014; Ameka & Terkourafi, 2019). We hope to accommodate insights that transcend typical binaries and instead attend to local particularities, grounded in diverse ways of knowing and communicating (Wang & Huang, 2016).

Additionally, we encourage studies that move beyond traditional paradigms in communication studies, taking on understudied and non-paradigmatic approaches or cases. This collection is also committed to advancing knowledge not confined to the current digital turn in communication studies. We seek to enrich the discipline by emphasizing research that addresses forms of communication beyond digital spaces and media. Contributions may focus on non-digital communication spaces and practices (e.g., theater, urban space, architecture), indigenous knowledge systems, or embodied and oral traditions, among other areas (Manyozo, 2018).

In this spirit, we encourage contributions that engage with underrepresented and understudied theories and contexts coming from Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Oceania, and Latin America as we would like to strengthen the links and increase visibility (Demeter, 2017). We also welcome studies from North America and Europe that reflect a peripheral or alternative perspective.

References

Ameka, F. K., and Terkourafi, M. (2019). What if…? Imagining non-Western perspectives on pragmatic theory and practice. Journal of Pragmatics, 145, 72–82.

Asenbaum, H. (2023). The politics of becoming: Anonymity and democracy in the digital age. Oxford University Press.

Chib, A., Nguyen, H., and Lin, D. (2021). Provocation as Agentic Practice: Gender Performativity in Online Strategies of Transgender Sex Workers. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 26(2), 55–71.

Darling-Wolf, F. (2015). Imagining the global: Transnational media and popular culture beyond East and West. University of Michigan Press.

Demeter, M. (2017). The Core-Periphery Problem in Communication Research: A Network Analysis of Leading Publication. Publishing Research Quarterly, 33, 402–420.

Ellis, C., Adams, T. and Bochner, A. (2011). Autoethnography: An overview. Historical Social Research, 36(4), 273–290.

Escobar, A. (2015). Thinking-feeling with the Earth: Territorial Struggles and the Ontological Dimension of the Epistemologies of the South. Antropólogos Iberoamericanos en Red, 11, 11–32.

Haraway, D. (1988). Situated knowledges: The science question in feminism and the privilege of partial perspective. Feminist Studies, 14(3), 575–599.

Inuzuka, A. (2013). When the periphery becomes the center: a critical turn in intercultural communication studies. Journal of Multicultural Discourses, 8(1), 86–92.

Manyozo, L. (2018). The Context Is the Message: Theory of Indigenous Knowledge Communication Systems. Javnost – The Public, 25(4), 393–409.

Mbembe, A. (2019). Future knowledges and their implications for the decolonisation project. In J.D. Jansen (ed.), Decolonisation in universities: the politics of knowledge, Wits University Press,
Johannesburg.

Ringer, A. L. (2019). Sex, Labor, and Digital Spaces: A Critical Discourse Analysis of GPGuiaDelas, a Brazilian Sex Worker Twitter Feed (Doctoral dissertation, The University of New Mexico).

Wang, G. (2011). De-Westernizing Communication Research: Altering Questions and Changing Frameworks. Routledge.

Wang, G., & Huang, Y.-H. C. (2016). Contextuality, Commensurability, and Comparability in Comparative Research: Learning From Chinese Relationship Research. Cross-Cultural Research, 50(2), 154-177