Reading Carol Warren’s chapter on Qualitative Research brought back to mind a comment a senior colleague once made to me when I was a journalist in California. Speaking about feature stories – personality profiles, in particular – he pointed out how interviews often revealed that people rarely overcame their roots, their childhood experiences, their pasts, no matter how far they went in life. I recall, we agreed unanimously that people’s roots indeed had the greatest influence on their worldview and their philosophy in life. At that time, though, it never crossed my mind, to what extent my own roots could be coloring what I heard in the numerous interviews I did throughout the day as a reporter. Being the “objective” journalist – that I presumed I was – I was oblivious of the fact that the discursive space of an interview was an arena where both my interviewee and I were engaging actively and simultaneously in the act of meaning-making; and that I, as the interviewer, was participating
This blog offers Mohan Dutta's reflections on the theoretical framework of the culture-centered approach, examining the interplays among Structure, Culture, and Agency in shaping marginalisation and the ways in which communities at the margins challenge structures. Writings on the blog are continually being revised to reflect the organic analysis of structure and agency.