Mohan Dutta: Culture-Centered Approach

I have been struck by how often we call for dialogue only to silence difference. The call to dialogue is usually from power. Dialogue, or the performance of it, thus is a strategic tool for the powerful in such instances. As a strategic tool, dialogue is inherently un-dialogic. It is un-dialogic because it is strategic. Cultural centering of dialogue is a radical departure from this strategic notion of dialogue as a tool of the status quo. To culturally center dialogue is to open to the idea of dialogue as difference. Dialogue as difference is articulated "from" or "with" the margins, recognizing the human agency of those at the margins as participants in production of truth. The recognition of margins as legitimate sources of producing truth claims inherently turns dialogue as a site of difference. Rather than serving as an instrument of the status quo to reproduce truth claims as seen from the vantage point of those in power, culture-cen

In the post-Trump U.S., following from post-Brexit U.K., the safety pin has emerged as a symbolic declaration of solidarity, the declaration of a safe space. In the face of the rise of bigotry and hatred in public discourse, the safety pin signals a clarion call to stand by those in U.S. society feeling the brunt of the climate of intolerance. We could certainly use more solidarity at this juncture of U.S. history. Wearing a safety pin is also a material marker of standing by the marginalized in public spaces, where bigotry has been making its appearance. As much as the symbolic show of safety pins points toward an entry point for solidarity, it is important interrogate the symbolic nature of solidarity. The sudden expression of solidarity marked by an event (election of a bigot as the President of the U.S. whose campaign has anchored itself in a narrative of hate) declares that event as the moment of crisis. The marking of the election as a crisis moment obfuscates the his

In conducting fieldwork with communities living in poverty, I have often had to interact with bureaucrats in a variety of countries. Although these interactions are contextual and culturally constituted, one feature that tends to resonate across the interactions is the impermeability of the bureaucrat. For most community members, the bureaucrat is intimidating. Usually selected through some kind of a grade-based/exam-based system, in a number of these countries, the bureaucrat is identified by his/her pedigree. Strong academic performance. Strong performance on entrance exams. While these qualities prepare the bureaucrat well in analytical thinking, they alone are not sufficient. Without humility and compassion, the bureaucrat becomes the impermeable face of the State, disconnected from everyday people, their lived experiences, and their struggles with making a living. Without the exposure to the reality of the everyday struggles of the people, the bureaucrat beco

The work of the Center for Culture-Centered Approach to Research and Evaluation (CARE) has applied the tenets of the CCA to work in communities across the global margins. The poverty and communicative inequalities projects that are carried out by CARE reflect the overarching theme of the CCA, theorizing the communicative constructions of poverty in the global mainstream, and creating spaces for the voices of the poor in these mainstream and elite platforms through collaborations in solidarity with the poor. Comparing the discourses of poverty in mainstream  and elite networks with discourses of poverty as voiced by those living in poverty across countries offers a conceptual framework for examining the ways in which communication of/about poverty works in mainstream/elite constructions, the gaps in these constructions, as well as the possibilities of transformative change when  these stories are grounded in the accounts of the poor about their lived experiences. Essenti

Universities live in communities. Universities breathe in communities. Universities are legitimized because communities afford them the legitimacy. The work we carry out as scholars therefore is founded upon the fabric of community life. Based on the taxes paid by everyday citizens. And much more importantly, on the goodwill of communities that give universities land, trust, legitimacy. Yet, it is often the community, the immediate context of University life, that remains ignored in objectives, mission statements, and statements of strategy crafted by University leaders. For a large number of faculty, university life goes on, walled from the everydayness of the communities we live in. Disconnected from the spirits of community life. And ever so alienated from the spirits, ebbs, and flows in our immediate communities. You can have academics spend their entire career in communities and yet be completely disconnected from community life. You can have academics who don't re

Social impact has secured its legitimate place in University conversations across global spaces. In the face of the global challenges we face, Universities both feel the pressure from taxpayers as well as see an opportunity in generating knowledge directed at addressing social impact. Some form or the other of the rhetoric of social impact is a part of the branding strategy of most Universities today. Yet, I worry that the conversation on social impact often ends up in empty sloganeering, devoid of accountability to the various stakeholders that a social impact conversation would hold the University to. Slogans such as "We change the world," and "Making a difference" are so widely used that "change" and "difference" have become commonplace words, devoid of meaning and value, and devoid of mechanisms for holding Universities accountable to these slogans. In other words, like bad advertising campaigns, they have become selling p

When your White status quo Wants to internationalize Under your oh so Progressive banner I shudder. At the thought of Your pox, malaria, syphilis, cholera That you will bring With your civilizing mission.

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

The Cyber sprawl of Yuppie hi-tech Cities across India is intimately marked by violence. Cities such as Noida, Ghaziabad, Cyberabad, and Bangalore narrate stories of violence, both in the expressions of everyday forms of violence that are narrated in the mainstream, and more powerfully so in the everyday forms of violence that remain hidden, tucked away under the glossy images of smart, green cities advertised in the brochures seducing non-resident Indians (NRIs). Often these sordid stories of violence narrated in the Yuppie media and shared in Yuppie networks, scripted as tales of rape, robbery, and murder obfuscate the violence of class, caste, and displacement that remain hidden from the everyday narratives of a Yuppie culture and the mainstream media that caters to this culture. The enunciation of violence, what gets talked about and what doesn't, is a reflection of the overarching violence of social class and inequality written into the Yuppie City. The telling of the

A normative response that often seems to circulate within our discipline when referring to brown critical feminist scholars is: "She is difficult." The "She is difficult" trope works to signal the potential trouble a department might be inviting when it hires a brown critical feminist scholar. The trope works as heuristic universal, as a signifier to mark the body of the "unruly brown woman." It does so by circulating norms of civility constituted in White privilege. Communicative processes and forms that thus challenge this white privilege fall outside of the norm, as the abnormal. Incivility, as a tool of the oppressor, works fundamentally to shut out interrogation of the Whiteness of the structures we inhabit. Rather than interrogating the structures of White privilege that reproduce this privilege, norms of incivility often work unequally on the bodies of brown women. More so, these norms work on bodies of brown women who question the o

That unregulated globalization processes have produced large-scale global inequalities in the distribution of resources and opportunities is empirically documented. These inequalities are so dramatic and the disaffection produced by them are so widely registered that elites and their mouthpiece pundits can no longer ignore the level of inequalities. Having acknowledged the inequalities though, particularly in the backdrop of the financial crisis, elites fall back upon propaganda to justify and perpetuate the neoliberal status quo. Rather than look at the inequalities as the product of unmitigated globalization processes that privilege those with power, experts offer theories that render as natural the state of inequalities. One such elite explanation suggests that the large-scale inequalities we are witnessing today are the product of the "fourth technological revolution." Without any data to back up their claims, these elites therefore prescribe smart strategie