The Call for De-Westernization

De-westernization
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The call for de westernization is rapidly gaining momentum due to the rise of non-western states such as China, India, Latin America and Africa that has been characterized by the eruption of international and trans-local media and cultural spaces among other prevailing issues.
Although it elicits a problematic front, the call to eradicate the Euro-American experiences in the Asian media and knowledge production has been vocalized by both western and Asian researchers. The need to decolonize the academic knowledge production of media studies suffices due to the continuous criticism from the dominant elitist. Ideally, the highly advocated call seeks to uphold the universal and philosophical traditions of the non-western setting and establish uniformity that aligns to the locals that have been neglected for so long. The process of de-westernization follows a transitional step that requires the questioning, restructuring and deconstructing dominant Eurocentric bias that impedes the operationalization of the non-western research projects. The process involves both Asian and western elites who have dominated this sphere. Although there is no consensus on the practicability of the call of for de-westernization due to the varying opinions of the extent and nature of western theories have on the academic knowledge production in Asia, majority of the westerners have concurred with the phenomenon as an ongoing global discourse in uprising non-western countries that would have seemed less significant in the last two decades (Sabry, 2009).
Even though the majority of the existing theories and methodological approaches have been scrutinized thoroughly to make alterations rather than outright rejection, the call for de-westernization is still a highly advocated topic (Park and Curran, 2000). The call for de-westernization is centered on varying perspectives between the Euro American and non-Euro American scholars while reading and interpreting local and international cultural and media studies. Scholars argue that western elites read cultural studies works in another social context, while Euro Americans working in non-western countries view media studies in the western paradigm. Western scholars argue that there is a need to break down the structural, physical pillars that subject the emerging non- Euro America theories to the deep-rooted western theories. It explicitly shows the interdependence on, and bias imposed on the non-western countries as the Euro-America theories are predominantly yokes in the academic knowledge production in many countries across the world (Chakrabarty, 2000). Therefore there is contention that majority of non- western media do not go beyond the cultural imperialism embroided in the Euro-American media and cultural studies. As a result de-westernization is the rallying call for the to decolonize the hierarchy of knowledge production amidst the ongoing rise of “China, India, Latin America and Africa. The upheaval of these non-westerners states has reiterated the de-westernization call however decolonization has been regarded as a controversial subject as many cases of rise and fall have been largely isolated. For the longest time de-w...