Mohan Dutta: Culture-Centered Approach

In 2012, based on a promotion and tenure case in Singapore, a number of US academics, many of them who had served on the promotion and tenure review committee of a Singapore academic, had initiated a petition observing what they felt as violations of tenure and promotion processes. The petition was organized around the concept of academic freedom, powerfully suggesting the importance of upholding the principle of academic freedom in the context of Universities and the important role that can be played by faculty. A number of Singapore academics had initiated another petition requesting the University administration to reconsider their decision. Along the same time, a number of US academics had raised their voices on the case, suggesting that the decision-making processes reflected the lack of academic freedom in Singapore and had called for a boycott of Singapore universities. In response to these calls for the boycott of Singapore universities based on this one case, I had penne

I shared in an earlier post my letter to the Chancellor of the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, requesting her to respect the communicative and academic freedom of Professor Steven Salaita. Professor Salaita, who had resigned from his job at Virginia Tech University to accept an offer at the University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign, was "de-hired" from the University. This decision was apparently prompted by tweets posted  by Professor Sailata criticizing the Israeli attack on Gaza. The UIUC decision to de-hire Professor Salaita came in the backdrop of social media conversations that suggested that Profesor Salaita had crossed the line of civility in his criticism of Israel. So what exactly is this line of civility that defines the range of possible conversations on social media? What are the communicative expectations of interaction on social media? When writing on Facebook, how are we expected to voice our opinions, thoughts, and feelings? What are the exp

Phyllis M. Wise Chancellor, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) Robert Warrior, Department of American Indian Studies (UIUC) August 7, 2014 Dear Chancellor Wise and Professor Warrior, I refer to the recent decision by the University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign to “de-hire” Professor Steven Salaita, apparently in response to his social media posts on Gaza.   That social media foster spaces of social change, bypassing the dominant narratives circulated in the establishment media is an observation that has been solidified in US academic and public sphere celebrations of the Arab Spring. In a wide ranging collection of essays, communication experts studying social media point to the democratic possibilities fostered by social media such as Facebook and Twitter. In my own work on “Voices of Resistance” documenting grassroots-driven social change processes across the globe, I attend to the possibilities of transformative democratic politics ground

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