Rethinking the theories, concepts, and assumptions that shape the study of risk and crisis
Much of the contemporary knowledge on risk and crisis communication has been developed through theoretical traditions, concepts, and empirical assumptions originating primarily in Western academic contexts. These traditions have made important contributions to the field, but their applicability across different political, cultural, institutional, and historical environments cannot simply be assumed.
De-Westernization in Risk and Crisis Communication is a theoretical research programme at labC – Lab on Crisis that examines the foundations of knowledge in risk and crisis communication and explores how the field can be reconceptualised beyond predominantly Western theoretical assumptions.
The project asks a fundamental question:
What happens to theories of risk and crisis communication when the Global South is treated not merely as a context for applying existing theories, but as a source of theoretical knowledge?
Rather than rejecting Western scholarship, the project seeks to critically examine its assumptions, boundaries, and conditions of applicability. It investigates whether concepts developed in particular historical, political, cultural, and institutional environments adequately capture how risk and crisis are understood, communicated, and governed elsewhere.
From application to theory building
A central concern of the project is the unequal relationship between theory and empirical contexts in the field.
Research conducted in non-Western societies has often been positioned as an opportunity to apply, test, or adapt theories developed elsewhere. De-Westernization approaches this relationship differently. It asks whether empirical realities from Southeast Asia and other Global South contexts can themselves reveal conceptual limitations, theoretical blind spots, and alternative mechanisms that contribute to the development of theory.
The project therefore moves from:
Western theory → application in non-Western contexts
towards:
Multiple contexts → comparison → theoretical interrogation → conceptual development
This does not imply that theories should be divided into “Western” and “non-Western” categories as mutually exclusive systems. Instead, the project investigates how theories can become more context-sensitive, plural, and empirically grounded.
What does the project examine?
The research programme focuses on several interconnected questions:
Theoretical assumptions
What assumptions about society, communication, rationality, institutions, publics, and crisis are embedded in dominant theories?
Conceptual universality
Under what conditions can concepts developed in one context legitimately claim broader explanatory relevance?
Culture and meaning
How do cultural and epistemic systems influence what societies understand as risk, crisis, normality, and appropriate response?
Politics and power
How do political structures and unequal relations of power shape the production and circulation of crisis knowledge?
Institutional diversity
How do different forms of governance, organisations, media systems, and state–society relations challenge established models?
Knowledge production
Who produces authoritative knowledge about risk and crisis, whose experiences become theoretically visible, and whose knowledge remains peripheral?
Theory building from the Global South
How can empirical research in Southeast Asia and other Global South contexts generate concepts and theoretical propositions rather than simply provide additional cases?
Southeast Asia as a site of theorising
Southeast Asia occupies a central position in this programme.
The region’s political diversity, cultural plurality, rapidly changing media environments, different forms of state–society relations, and exposure to complex risks and disasters provide an important setting for examining the limits of universalist assumptions in risk and crisis communication.
For labC, Southeast Asia is therefore not simply a geographical area of research. It is a theoretical laboratory in which established assumptions can be examined against different social realities and from which new conceptual insights may emerge.
This perspective is consistent with labC’s broader intellectual mission: rethinking risk, crisis, and disaster from Southeast Asia.
Toward a more plural field
De-Westernization does not seek to replace one intellectual centre with another. Its objective is to contribute to a field in which theoretical knowledge can emerge from multiple intellectual, cultural, political, and empirical locations.
The project therefore asks not only whether existing theories travel across contexts, but also what those contexts can teach us about the theories themselves.
Ultimately, De-Westernization in Risk and Crisis Communication seeks to contribute to a more reflexive and globally inclusive field—one in which Southeast Asian and Global South experiences participate in the production of theory, rather than remaining primarily objects of theoretical application.
Research Programme
De-Westernization in Risk and Crisis Communication
Research focus: Theory · Epistemology · Culture · Power · Global South
Approach: Theoretical · Comparative · De-Westernizing
Regional focus: Southeast Asia and the Global South
Principal Investigator: Dr. phil. Ngoc-Son Le
labC – Lab on Crisis