Held in trust: Relational sovereignties and the affective life of communication

Abstract

This essay reflects on how trust is lived, performed, and morally negotiated in public life, drawing on the author’s experience as a Filipino scholar trained in Aotearoa New Zealand. It brings into dialogue two distinct yet resonant cultural contexts to explore how communication research might take more seriously the emotional, relational, and historically situated nature of trust. By revisiting Filipino concepts such as tiwala and pagsunod, and Māori-inflected values like manaakitanga and whanaungatanga, the essay proposes a tentative framework of relational sovereignties – understood as culturally embedded performances of care, legitimacy, and belonging. These insights are offered not as a new paradigm but as a small invitation to widen the frame of communication research beyond rationalist and procedural models. At a time when public discourse is increasingly shaped by automation, disinformation, and institutional erosion, this essay calls for renewed attention to the subtle, soft, and often overlooked dimensions of trust: silence, recognition, moral proximity, and the felt experience of being held. In doing so, it gestures toward a more relationally attuned and culturally grounded understanding of communication in both postcolonial and settler-colonial settings.