Persistent Difference: The Critical Tenets of the African Communication Theory

Despite increased globalization and intercultural communication, cultural differences persist across the globe. These developments have led to a discourse on dis-placement and dis-location. Dis-placement refers to a more severe situation than dis-location because it involves movement from a place to an entirely different place, a place that is dissimilar. This chapter focuses on a theory of cultural dissimilarity that marks African communication as different. The African cultural theory of communication (ACToC) proposes five key tenets differentiating African communication from the West. Four cultural assumptions support the proposal of five theoretical tenets of African cultural communication. Each tenet is inducted from and supported by extant research, across decades, from works of intercultural researchers.