ABSTRACT
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.
