Nommo, Kawaida, and Communicative Practice: Bringing Good Into the World
In: The Global Intercultural Communication Reader
New York; London: Routledge, 2nd ed. (2014), pp. 211-225
ISBN 9780415521468 (pbk); 9780203508534 (online)
Signature commbox: 10-Culture-E 2014
"In this chapter, Maulana Karenga explores ancient and ongoing African traditions of communicative practice in understanding African American rhetoric. For Karenga, African rhetoric is essentially the communicative practice that is oriented to building community and bringing good into the world, which is in stark contrast to the utilitarian inclination of contemporary Western rhetoric that accentuates persuasiveness without sufficient consideration of the ethical dimension. From a Kawaida vantage point, he argues that African rhetoric is a rhetoric of community, resistance, reaffirmation, and possibility." (Page 211)