Can the other be heard?

Abstract

Drawing from my ethnographic fieldwork among the Buddhist communities residing in the Himalayas, the article proposes an ancient Buddhist philosophical conceptualization as a novel theoretical framework to conceive human communication not as a linear exchange of information but as a mundane epistemological practice. Locating the modern conceptualization of communication at the core of the vocation of academic knowledge production, this article argues that the foundational premises rooted within the conceptualization of communication result in unequal, colonial, and extractive self-other dynamics within knowledge generation practices. The article argues that to resolve the intractable self-other relationality, which results in various forms of inequities, it is imperative to decenter the (Western) meta-scientific worldviews and recenter the mundane epistemic practices of the communities.