Complicity Theory

Complicity theory draws on critical race theory and cultural studies to explore how discourse in opposition to certain groups contributes to the negative social construction of difference as well as identity. Grounded in the theory of the opposite party attributed to the ancient Greek Sophist Thrasymachus of Chalcedon, complicity theory begins with the idea that individuals or groups that are at odds fail to see how their positions are implicated in each other's and applies this observation to contemporary conflicts that center on issues of race, gender, class, and classification.

Complicity theory takes the notion that language creates reality to its logical extreme by suggesting that a language of argument and persuasion that rests on rigid definitions of self and other actually cultivates an understanding of difference as fundamentally negative. This account questions the underlying assumption of much Western communication theory that argument and persuasion are “natural” forms of human symbolic interaction.

Theories of complicity are not unique to communication studies. In literary theory, for example, complicity critiques account for the ways that those subjected to oppressive symbolic practices reinforce the institutional and ideological systems that oppress them. Within literary, cultural, and rhetorical studies, theories of complicity have offered powerful and provocative perspectives to view the problems and possibilities of oppositional resistance and emancipatory action.

Within literary and cultural studies, complicity critiques have focused on the ways in which social actors participate socially and symbolically in the creation and maintenance of oppressive symbolic and material practices of late capitalism. Within communication studies, complicity theory has focused on the recognition of the subtle and sometimes insidious ways that individuals are implicated in systems of domination by certain oppositional discursive strategies employed to critique those systems. This conception of complicity as a theory of negative difference is grounded in research on rhetoric and race that explores the symbolic and epistemological aspects of oppositional discourse and criticism.

The most sustained considerations of complicity theory have emerged in studies of African American culture, consciousness, and identity. The earliest discussions of complicity as a theory of negative difference emerged in research on the rhetoric of racism that challenged accepted notions of domination and subordination and examined the underlying assumptions of traditional Western communication theories and practices, including notions of Black authenticity and unity. The theory has been adopted by African American communication scholars to examine the complexities of Black nationalism and Black masculinity, as well as notions of racial difference and identity. Complicity theory has also been utilized by scholars writing on reconciliation and reparations to [Page 161]explore the ways in which public and intellectual discourse has actually been reinforced and sustained by oppositional communication.

Complicity theory has also influenced scholarship in studies of Whiteness, gay and lesbian identity, race and gender in higher education, and the power of media to cultivate interracial understanding. In each of these areas, complicity theory offers a useful lens through which the complex character of discursive resistance and reification can be analyzed and explicated. Whiteness studies have drawn on complicity theory to consider how conceptions of racial identity taken to be essentially true contribute to symbolic and social antagonisms and also reinforce White privilege and ideological innocence. Gay and lesbian studies have explored the complex contradictions that emerge at the intersection of Christianity and sexuality and how rigid notions of difference and identity are challenged in this context. Complicity theory has been applied to studies of how educational institutions function with fixed notions of race and gender identity, even as these institutions ostensibly call such notions into question, and has also been used to investigate the potential of film to reshape and transform racial attitudes.

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