The repressive university is a product of the neoliberal turn, and a robust instance of the authoritarian nature of the neoliberal ideology. The neoliberal ideology, articulating the idea that the "free market will take care of societal ills and challenges" promotes itself on the rhetorical appeals of freedom and opportunity. As I have argued elsewhere (Dutta, 2017), the perpetuation of this ideology relies on communicative inversions, "the turning-on-its head of materiality." The ideology itself needs repressive strategies for it to be perpetuated. Let's take for instance the neoliberal university's culture of monitoring and controlling faculty facebook posts, what my colleague Reshmi Dutt-Ballerstadt refers to as "tone policing." Norms of civility are typically used to justify and perpetuate this repression. That a faculty member has violated some norm of civility, embedded in ideas of those in power, becomes the basis for the haras
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.