The Canonic Economy of Communication and Culture: The Centrality of the Postcolonial Margins

Abstract

This paper examines three major paradigms—mass communications, political economy, and poststructuralism—to demonstrate how the process of knowledge production erases their connection with their postcolonial subjects and locations. This mapping indicates that what one perceives to be at the margins actually subtends or holds together the theoretical centre. As such, I explore and explain how a canonic economy of value operates within the field of communication and cultural studies. This discussion is followed by a brief reflection on the institutional, and potentially imperial, effects of this canonic economy on university programs and curricula and on the distinction between what is required and what is optional or elective in a course.