Communication is fundamentally a relational phenomenon. Through communication we create relationships that frame how we perceive and relate to the world and each other. Every relationship sets off different social, political, and epistemological implications and consequences, and possesses the potential to fundamentally change the world. This book presents an emergent definition of communication and demonstrates the promise of this definition for enlarging our understanding and experience of what is possible.

Communication is defined in terms of vulnerability. Vulnerability assumes that our humanity is bound up with the humanity of others. This book is about possibility and our own potentiality to create just and humane worlds, and it demonstrates how a new vision of communication studies, by expanding our moral and theoretical imagination, can allow us to look anew at our own potentiality and that of the world.