Mohan Dutta: Culture-Centered Approach

In the past two days I have been listening to the stories of community members participating in our hunger and food insecurity project, and their stories are very touching. The stories range from simple to complex. Simple in that some were simple mistakes that have cost them their livelihood. Complex in that some are constrained by circumstances beyond their control. The stories of hunger and painful experiences that continually rob them of the dignity of human existence. The stories are humbling in that majority of these voices are never heard yet, they are our neighbors. Though their stories are separate, yet related in that the trio who shared their experiences with me exemplify in different ways how everyday persons in our neighborhoods struggle to get food which is a basic necessity of life in a land of plenty. America is globally regarded as a land of plenty, but listening to these stories after stories makes me wonder aloud. Having been involved in a similar study in previous se

For anonymity’s sake, I will call him Ralph – a Purdue alum who once had everything he needed in life, until a rare form of arthritis debilitated him, elbowing him out of the workforce and leaving him in his present condition – homeless. Like my earlier interviewee, Laura, Ralph too had no bitterness in him, no animosity towards a system that had few safety nets for sick people, no one to blame, no anger at all – which surprised me – yet again. How does one do it? I wondered. But Ralph seemed to have no clear answer for his positive outlook. All he said was that when one suddenly found himself in a predicament like the one he was facing, one simply survived it – a simple choice between sink or swim. Unlike Laura, however, Ralph has no family members – being the only child of deceased parents who were the only children of their parents. He never married and is in no relationship at present. His friends – about five, who hadn’t drifted away – help him with gas for his vehicle and the

For anonymity’s sake, I will call her Laura – a face I will never forget and a story I will cherish for a lifetime. That is because within the scope of an hour-long culture-centered in-depth interview, I realized she – who couldn’t afford an apartment of her own and who wasn’t even sure where her next meal was going to come from – was nonetheless superior to me on so many different levels. She was wiser. Calmer. More patient. More level-headed. More grateful for whatever little she had. And her expressions of faith in God could well be turned into a motivational bestseller. I am not being sarcastic or remotely facetious when I say this. Listening to Laura discuss her fight with hunger and food insecurity in Tippecanoe County, I realized here was a person who was not willing to accuse a single individual or social system for her fate despite being faced with the most inclement circumstances in life. Born in a socio-economically depressed family, and growing up with a grandmother who w

In articulating communicative practices utilized by the North and West in marginalizing women in the global South, Dutta (2011) logically shows how local elites and Not for profit organizations are complicit in gendered marginalization of the Subaltern women often utilizing the rhetoric of participation, empowerment, and democracy to give legitimacy to their hidden agenda. My questions: Given the complicit role of local elites in the marginalization of its own people, should global corporations and Transnational Corporations be blamed for such acts of erasure and marginalization of women? Should local leaders who serve as conduit for implementing the neoliberal agendas of TNCs against its own people not be held accountable? Also on page 155, Dutta (2011) highlights how increasingly women from the South are recruited to the North and West where they are exploited as nannies and for domestic purposes at global sites of oppression. Again, should the local elites of such countries that

1) Based on the reading, how have current feminist studies ignored or even perpetuated misconceptions about women's relationship with neoliberalism? What sort of studies would you propose to highlight this relationship (i.e. correct what is missing in feminist studies)? 2) Other than embracing neoliberalist concepts of private property, how else might you resolve the tension between "women's work" and "men's work"? Along with this, how might you value "women's work" economically? In society? In government policies and structure?

1.)   How is the connection between consumption and overpopulation conceptualized in this chapter? What do they have to do with gender? And more specifically, what are the relations between overconsumption in the West and the problematizing of population growth in the Global South? 2.)   Given the discussion of the patriarchal biases and logics of neoliberalism that enact gendered forms of violence and marginalization, how can we begin to link this to similar logics and processes within the academy?

1) On what scale must a culture-centered health campaign be launched such that it not only disrupts the narratives of the dominant discourse in one particular context but also compels the neoliberal structures to sit up and take note of the difference that such a bottom-up initiative is capable of making? 2)W hile I do not underestimate the power of a grassroots initiative such as the Sonagachi HIV/AIDS Program (SHIP), I wonder to what extent such an initiative changes the way the mainstream, neoliberal health campaigns pertaining to HIV/AIDS in India operate especially in the context of sex workers elsewhere in Kolkata or in other Indian metropolitan cities?

1) Is healthcare a right that should be provided by the state? Privatizing health care makes it a commodity, but socializing health care leads to over-burdening the doctors, as described by the man who said "I stopped going to the state hospital. If something big happens, I will sell everything and go to the private doctor." (p.141).  What explains this poor marginalized man's priviledging of the private healthcare over the public healthcare? Along with that, what types of healthcare should be public? Given the current debate about making birth control available with insurance, does a neoliberalist reading of poverty shed any light on the correct approach? 2) The culture-centered approach priviledges an idea that the people who want to change their situation know what they need better (or as well as) the people from the dominant discourse, but the counter-argument is often given to similar ideas that just being in the situation doesn't necessarily make you better qua

In Chapter four of Communicating Social Change, Dutta (2011) discusses how dominant structures marginalize the subaltern sectors by erasing their voices from the discursive spaces where health policy decisions that impact the Subaltern’s lives are taken. He further illustrates how Transnational Corporations and global organizations contribute in the marginalization of the subaltern through International Trade Agreements and Structural Adjustment Programs that give TNCs unfettered access to the local knowledge and commodification of indigenous knowledge. My comments: 1. Not for Profit Organizations in Third World countries are engaged by the Dominant structures to implement their hidden agenda using the rhetoric of Public Private Partnerships (PPP), participatory development and community partnerships as catch phrase for coopting the subaltern populace. My question is: Given that these NGOs rely on donors for funding, can they really resist the directives of the dominant structures espe

1.)   How is “culture” understood in the cultural sensitivity approach? In recognizing cultural difference, does this approach represent a break from the notion of the universality of biomedicine and Western worldviews more generally? Why or why not? 2.)   Where would the cultural sensitivity approach locate the role of researchers (especially newer ones, e.g. grad students) in developing health campaigns?

1) In chapter 3, while talking about "experiences at the margins" the author says that culture-centered approach discusses the relevance of participatory dialogues in underserved communities. My question is, are the corporate structures even interested to pay attention to the perspectives of the subalterns? And more importantly, how can these "dialogues" play a role in making the corporate structures pay due attention to the concern of the subalterns? 2) Is there a just and right way to use land that belongs to indigenous communities for activities such as mining? In other words, if there is a great natural resource in lands belonging to tribals, for example, is there a recommended way to use that land without disrupting the lives of the tribals?