Mohan Dutta: Culture-Centered Approach

1) In "A Brief History of Neoliberalism," Harvey ends hoping for "an open democracy dedicated to the achievement of social equality coupled with economic, political and cultural justice." But looking at how in the practical world money and power corrupts politics, I wonder whether such "an open democracy" is possible in the real world. Your thoughts? 2) With its existence tied to the logic of the neoliberal market, is there a way the mass media -- particularly mainstream journalism -- can critique and expose the negative outcomes of neoliberalism?

Questions 1 From this week’s reading, we saw the critical role of the mass media in aiding and promoting the “hidden transcripts” of the ruling elite in the society. My question is given the business interest of media organizations, how can civil society groups get the media to unpack the hidden agendas of the ruling elite without compromising its own standards? 2.Given the level of violence and loss of lives that often result from overt resistance to neoliberal agendas, especially the use of military force by government to further marginalize the public, what are some of the strategies for resisting unfavorable policies? 3.Beyond theorizing about concepts such as “hidden transcripts”, how can the academe translate such theories to practical that help to address marginalization of the subaltern population? Where does one draw the line between academe and activism?

1.) Given Greenhouse’s discussion of James’ hidden transcripts and critique of hegemony, is it ever possible for hegemony to be total? How and why do hidden transcripts differ between the powerful and the powerless? What sets hidden transcripts apart from other discursive or communicative acts and practices? 2.)  How do understandings of the workings and modes of power help our understanding of neoliberalism and the movements challenging it? How might a view of power as ongoing practice, “as potential rather than property, something to be exercised rather than held,” as well as rejecting “dualistic divisions between individual and society, structure and agency” resituate or reconceptualize definitions of change and acts of resistance?

1) Given that neoliberalism dominates U.S. policy on issues such as IP and Piracy, can the push for "freedom" against the IP Act by Wikipedia and other sites be seen as minority cultural discourses? Or a cry for change of the dominant view? 2) Harvey's book on neoliberalism seems to present the idea of this discourse as being orchestrated by intention and purposeful minds.  Do you agree or disagree and why? Should Neoliberalism be viewed this way? What other kinds of "free" state might Iraq/Iran accomplish without the influence of the U.S.?

Posted on January 21, 2012 Yesterday (January 20, 2012), Debalina and I went to meet with the Tippecanoe County school officials to contest the categorization of our son Shloke as a "English as a Second Language (ESL)" child. This was after I had written to the school administrator about how that categorization was incorrect and had asked to see race-based data from him about decisions that are made on the basis of the categorization (resources provided or denied on the basis of specific metrics, and the race-based breakdowns of these metrics. I was interested to know how often children of color were denied specific resources although they qualified under a certain metric as compared to Caucasian children). At the meeting, the school officials were very gracious. They had also brought in a bilingual expert who specialized in Spanish and English, and who in someway understood our struggle although she was not conversant in Bengali. This particular expert worked with the in

How often is it that people of color negotiate with racist frames directed at them and couched in the form of evaluations? These racisms that one experiences are furher nuanced when one is a foreigner, with the foreignness marked on the skin/name/last name! One of these instances happened very recently with the Tippecanoe County School System. Speaking to one of the school staff, I was appalled when she told me that our child grew up in an "English as a Second Language" (ESL) home. Her assumption was that we were Indian, so English was our second language. I went on to use this opportunity then to tell her that what she said was racist because her biases were based on assumptions she made about what happened inside our home by looking at my child's last name and by perhaps assuming that we came from someplace else where people didn't speak English. I then told her how I made my living teaching White kids from Americana how to read and write in English "prop

1) While conducting culture-centered research, how does a communication scholar ensure that she is "listening" to subaltern voices in an unbiased way? In other words, being a product of the elite knowledge structures, how does she ensure she isn't inadvertently bringing the values of the dominant culture in her way of assessing the subalterns or their condition? Alternately, how does she also ensure that given her sympathy for the subalterns, she doesn't fail to see the entire situation facing the subalterns, in an unbiased way? And also, is there ever a way to avoid biases while doing research? 2)While "cheaper air travel and new electronic communication technologies have speeded up information flows and enhanced personal contact among activists thus forming 'a global electronic fabric of struggle,'" is there a way for people at the margins -- who themselves have no access to technology -- to bring their struggle to the attention of ot

I was reading today a facebook post from a friend about how there are several engineering, medical, and management institutes that are mushrooming all around India that charge exorbitant sums of money to afford admissions to large numbers of prospective candidates who are willing to pay the money for an engineering, medicine, or MBA degree. The large scale and fast-paced growth of educational outfits all over the country is accompanied by the weak regulations of the education market, marked by rampant corruption and a climate of false advertisements. 100 percent placements, foreign collaborations, teachers from abroad- these have all become markers of educational outfits across India that promise the allure of success to anyone that enters through the door. Children, and more importantly, their parents are willing to shell out the money, sometimes going in debt, at other times even selling their valuable little savings in order to secure a bright future for their child. What is how

So much of the discipline of Communication research and the pedagogy of Communication is founded on the principles of developing communication skillsets for effectiveness. As global markets have opened up to the export/import of education, Communication skills training has sought to find robust markets abroad. The assumption behind this marketing enterprise is that Americans have something to offer (in this case, a US-branded knowledge base about what makes up good and effective communication) to the rest of the world. The competitive advantage of the American brand of communication education therefore ties to this ability of the brand to develop a unique selling proposition and to sell it well to its target audiences abroad. So we have wholesale programs ranging from public speaking to writing that are attempting to make entries into Asian markets. What I find completely misguided about this picture though is that it continues to reek of US-style imperialism and arrogance (based o

So we have known for a while that the richest 1% consume most of the global resources. We have also known for a while that the richest 1% use loopholes in legal processes to exploit financial rules and regulations to aggrandize wealth; having known this though, one of the questions that often strikes me is what structures and processes do the richest 1% utilize in order to carry out their injustices, illegal activities, and acts of corruption that facilitate the accumulation of wealth. The example of the tax havens I posted on earlier depicts the active and catalyzing role played by the middle classes, by a battery of executives and lawyers who are paid by the richest 1% to carry out the illegal activities by figuring out the legal loopholes in global policy structures and by configuring ways in which legal processes can be manipulated to serve the interests of the rich. In figuring out the loopholes and in manipulating them, the petty bourgeoisie are trained through management program

This post was prompted by a Facebook post made by one of my doctoral advisees Rahul Rastogi. The post depicted the ways in which a group of students occupied a Recruitment session held by Goldman Sachs at Princeton University. The occupation of the Goldman Sachs recruitment session, similar to many such occupations happening across the US, was innovative in its ability to draw our attention to the interplays of corruption and greed on college campuses, and in raising some fundamental questions about practices such as corporate recruitment on our college and university campuses. Universities and colleges are often the breeding grounds for the unethical practices that are embodied in the corporate cultures of organizations like Goldman Sachs, J P Morgan Chase, and Lehman Brothers. However, on many college and university campuses, and particularly among the elite students of elite MBA programs of these universities and colleges, for the longest time, these were the most coveted jobs.