As a faculty member who has been teaching for almost two decades, I recall the many times I have felt so lucky to have the mentorship and support of senior colleagues. Senior colleagues have thoughtfully provided feedback on my paper, with line-by-line edits, the paper entirely marked by notes in pencil. Senior colleagues have observed me teach, make mistakes, built up my spirit, and shown me strategies of teaching large and small lectures. Senior colleagues have taken me aside and given me advice on various aspects of academic life. To all these senior colleagues, I owe much of my academic survival. That I survived in the academy and did so somewhat well is a product of the countless hours and unpaid labour these colleagues put in. They did all this with a smiling face, with compassion, and with care in their hearts. The increasing privatization of the University in recent years and the ascendance of the privatized logic however is breeding a different kind of self-serving
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.