Where Is the Critical Empirical Interpersonal Communication Research? A Roadmap for Future Inquiry into Discourse and Power

Abstract

Despite calls to integrate critical theory into interpersonal communication research over the past 25 years, and despite the considerable influence of critical theory in other communication subdisciplines, critical interpersonal communication research remains limited. I argue that poststructural theory, and specifically a Foucauldian orientation toward discourse and power, can provide scholars of interpersonal communication a novel yet disciplinarily grounded avenue for future critical empirical research. By providing a roadmap that traverses the history of critical thought in interpersonal communication, redirects key vocabulary, offers avenues for integrating critical theory into empirical research, and emphasizes pathways of critical qualitative inquiry, I contend that the subdiscipline of interpersonal communication will be enriched through attention to power in the discursive constitution of identities and relationships.