Mohan Dutta: Culture-Centered Approach

They say they tap on the roof. The sound that warns of the impending doom. They say run with whatever you have. We show you mercy. They say this is civilization, a fair warning to collect all that we have and run to save our lives. They say the children are human shields placed amid security threats that must be bombed. So in the darkness as the bombs drop from the skies, We wait for the tap. The children huddled on my lap.

Imagining today a world where many voices come together in standing witness to injustice. Where many voices come together in the faith that truth shall prevail where injustice will be erased by stories of justice. Where many voices speak unchained that which is truth challenging what we see on TV and read on paper stories. Where many voices sing together the songs of freedom Standing together witnessing, accounting returning the gaze.

A salient liberal response to the ongoing Israeli attacks on Gaza is a call for dialogue. Dialogue is a key tenet of the CCA, as an avenue for disrupting the silences and marginalization that are perpetuated by dominant power structures. I will reflect here on the concept of dialogue in CCA. More specifically, in this essay, I will draw upon a piece that Mahuya Pal and I wrote in Communication Theory , "Dialogue theory in marginalized settings" to suggest that dialogue is impossible in the face of colonial violence. Here is a link to that piece: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-2885.2010.01367.x/full There are two intertwined ideas I will put forth. First, dialogue is "constituted in" erasure and is "constitutive of" erasure. Second, colonialism, as the systematic erasure of the sovereignty of a people, is intrinsic to the conceptualization of dialogue. Inherent in the idea of colonial violence is the fundamental erasure of the

When we interact with individuals, households, communities in our fieldwork, we do so as social scientists. The traditional framework of the social sciences have taught us to name the people we converse with as participants or respondents in our social scientific projects. The participants are sources of data. Data that we can then plug into our excel files or NVivo coding sheets for the purposes of sense making. In the confines of our labs , we then run our analyses, often through software packages such as SPSS and NVivo, seeking to glean patterns of thought, emotions, and behaviors, and correlating these patterns with other patterns. We observe the correlation between social class and health information seeking, the patterns of experiences among foreign domestic workers, the remittance patterns of male construction workers that have migrated from China etc. We then write up these results in our discipline specific journals in disciplined language, giving a seemingly objectiv

Only in the heart of the Empire does one witness such grotesque celebration of violence. Violence as a way of life. Violence as sacred. Violence normalized into everyday stories, and violence exalted to a powerful cultural story. Violence in the guns that are sold openly, guns that are carried by everyday people as an expression of some fantasy of liberty, guns that are weapons in the hands of a killer that turns to violence to express her or his angst, and advanced weapons that are the symbols of liberty in the killing fields in Iraq and Afghanistan and Libya. The cultural affinity for violence is manufactured in the valorization of soldiers. The celebration of heroes of the many wars that the US has waged in the name of freedom, the celebration of fallen martyrs who are framed as the protectors of the freedom, the commemoration of the courage of soldiers, the memorial day and the veteran's day: these are all expressions of  violence that elevate violence as a cultura

In the tears that witness in silence The longings of separation. We will hope And plant the seeds of Imagination. In the tears that remember in silence The stories of loss and suffering. We will imagine the beginnings of change And transformation. In the tears that recount in silence The stories of unpaid work. We will create the inspiration for joy And resolution. In the tears that remember in silence The child left behind. We will join our voices together Singing the lullabies of Freedom. In the tears that fight in silence The memories of abuse. We will come together To hope for new beginnings.

For the many professional Indians that live abroad, the struggles for a green card are integral to the journey of economic progress, of making a life abroad. Making a life for oneself abroad provides many opportunities and most importantly, a ladder to succeed economically. This is the premise of many an immigrant dream, the ultimate rendition of the IIT-IIM fantasy. I myself have pursued this dream, and understand the anxieties that surround the processes of securing a visa, getting a green card, securing permanent residence, and ultimately may be, securing a citizenship. When going through the reams of paperwork, it certainly is overwhelming to fill up document after document. The anxiety around the immigration process occupies the dinner table topic of many an immigrant conversation, sharing in stories of an unfair immigration system. In the sharing of the anxieties, professional immigrants often share their lack of understanding of what seems to them to be a racist syste

I was unable to join the NUS IMOOC group trip to Willing Hearts in April, as such my views are based upon the video that was compiled at the end of the trip and prior experiences. When I heard that the NUS IMOOC group would be traveling down to Willing Hearts for a field trip, I was surprised. This was because though I have heard of Willing Hearts prior to undergoing this module in NUS, it is not well-known charity organization. We probably all have heard of charities such as National Kidney Foundation, Ren Ci and such, but rarely is there publicity about food pantries. Reading a reflection by Cephas on the field trip, reveals that perhaps Willing Hearts really does need greater publicity. Perhaps greater publicity would really be useful as it would be able to inform those who need help, that there is an avenue to source for hope. Through the video, I was able to see youths from junior colleges and corporations helping out at Willing Hearts, this made me think about the age-old p

As the world experiences dramatic inequalities, an increasing burden of these inequalities are being transferred to the youth. Employment and access to a basic standard of living have emerged as vital concerns among students. Add to this the large amounts of student debts in countries such as the US that students have to take out in order to simply afford the exorbitant tuition fees, large parts of which go toward supporting large administrative structures and other parts go toward large unsustainable departments. The student loans often come with interest rates that add up to substantive amounts of debts that students have to pay up once they graduate. Naturally for the students and their parents, employment remains a major concern. Am I going to find a job? What I am going to do with this degree? how does this degree help me? As a Professor of Communication, I find these questions to be excellent. Indeed, students should be asking these questions. How are we preparing them

I personally have not visited Willing Hearts but I am writing this based on a short video taken on that day as well as personal accounts from those who have been there.   As a country known for being cold and unfeeling, it is indeed refreshing to hear about Willing Hearts and its operation in Singapore.   From different accounts, it appears that the food preparation operation is planned and supervised by a small group of dedicated people while the food is prepared by one-off volunteers. On the other hand, the food is being delivered to specific locations where the recipients of the food packets are waiting.   It is heartwarming to know how much joy a packet of food can bring – something that most of us take for granted. However, after thinking deeper, two things struck me. First, the issue of manpower for the food preparation operation. As the preparation is done mainly by one-off volunteers, it is possible that there are days where there are no volunteers or days where m

Neha works for one of those offshore software production farms in one of those many cyberhubs that have sprung up in Shining India. With a not so spectacular career, a degree from a C grade engineering college where her father donated Rupees 60 lakhs to get her in, the software job has been Neha's window into the world of opportunities that awaits the new India, with promises of economic growth, development, and global leadership. Neha does not mind the late night shifts. After all,  she works for an American employer and gets to interact with Americans. She likes the put on accent. She also enjoys the economic freedom. She can go mall hopping, eat at trendy places, check out one of the many discs, take vacations abroad. All of this is made possible because of the deliverables of economic growth. As Neha considers her career trajectory ahead of her, she thinks of earning an MBA from a US university. It is at this juncture I meet Neha. The Indian elections are coming up

When we were first told that we were headed to the Willing Hearts (WH) soup kitchen, where close to 100 volunteers expected were already there before 7am preparing food for the needy, I could not help but feel a little skeptical. Why would so many Singaporeans, known for their pragmatism and borderline coldness, be willing to sacrifice precious hours of sleep for no pay or any other forms of reimbursement? However, when we stepped into the food pantry, I was astounded by large groups of people inside, scrambling in assembly lines and all playing their part in ensuring that food would get to the needy by lunchtime. These volunteers, numbering an estimated 120 that day, more than usual, were predominantly either from OCBC & CJC or middle-aged volunteers overseeing the large-scale operations. The students were charged with cooking rice, peeling and slicing ingredients, while the OCBC Community Group members were scooping, portioning and packaging the food. Raw and cooked food sta

I wasn’t entirely sure what was going to happen for our field trip. It just seemed to be a rather exciting prospect, hopefully something new and different. After all, the last field trip I had gone for was during JC which was 3 years ago. What did happen though, was an extremely eye opening experience, which exposed me to something I never thought would exist in Singapore.  During the brief that Prof Mohan gave on the bus ride there, I imagined that Willing Hearts had a building of its own and would be rather prominent, because after all, it was a soup kitchen of sorts and they would definitely need all that space and facilities to house their operations right? I was rather surprised when we turned into an ulu industrial building which looked rather old and empty, except for the few people at the loading bay and the packets and packets of food, which at that moment seemed to have appeared out of nowhere as the building looked rather dead.  Imagine the surprise I felt when we took t