Mohan Dutta: Culture-Centered Approach

Community radio of Deccan Development Society (DDS): Professor Vinod Pavarala is a pioneering scholar of community radio The ongoing conversation of #Whiteness in the discipline and the emerging impetus for changing the infrastructures of the discipline foreground the roles of the National Communication Association (NCA) and the International Communication Association (ICA). As these conversations seek spaces for voices of difference, the hierarchical structures of our organizations and their hegemonic formations are critically interrogated. In this snippet of Facebook conversation between Professor Vinod Pavarala and Professor Pradip Thomas, the very hierarchies built into the articulation of "Distinguished" is interrogated. Professor Pradip Thomas  at the University of Queensland is a leading scholar of communication for social change, with much of his impactful work spread across the global South. Professor Vinod Pavarala  at  the Department of Communication at th

One of my blog posts, " Whiteness, NCA, and Distinguished Scholars " speaks to a recent conversation that has been generated in my field. The conversation responds to changes in how the field selects its Distinguished Scholars (with the capital D and capital S), the response of a current subset of DS to the changes in the form of a letter (a number of whom have rightly so, withdrawn their support for the letter), and an editorial by Professor Martin J. Medhurst, a DS, initially proposed for his journal Rhetoric and Public Affairs. The impetus of the conversation focused on the false dichotomy between diversity and merit that is set up to seemingly protect the "purity politics" of the discipline, embodying the racist infrastructures of the discipline. That diversity somehow threatens merit is often deployed across departments, graduate programs, and associations to prop up a White structure, while hiding strategically the very rules of this structure that consti

Departures in Critical Qualitative Research (DCQR) Special Issue :   “Merit, Whiteness, and Privilege” Co-Editors : Elizabeth Desnoyers-Colas (Georgia Southern University); Mohan J. Dutta (Massey University); Amardo Rodriguez (Syracuse University) Hard Deadline : July 1, 2019 Submission Length: 1500-2000 words The Communication Discipline has a racism problem. In fact, the discipline has long had a racism problem, silenced by overarching structures that deploy the language of civility to erase conversations. These racist undertones of the discipline, written and co-opted into the articulations of diversity, equity, and inclusion came tumbling out on June 10, 2019, when an editorial written by a Distinguished Scholar of the discipline, Martin Medhurst, for his edited journal, Rhetoric and Public Affairs was widely circulated. In the letter, Professor Medhurst rehashed the oft-used trope of “diversity and merit” to attack the democratizing processes being built by

The International Communication Association (ICA) has over recent years established an internationalization agenda. As a part of the leadership, I had an opportunity to witness this agenda as it developed. Internationalization is seen as a way for diversifying the ICA beyond its US-centric roots in #Whiteness. Drawing on my experiences heading a department in Asia in a University that is deeply entrenched in the global rankings, I will argue that the agenda of internationalization articulated by ICA works alongside the orientation toward the Discipline from Asia as a space outside to reproduce #WhiteColonialism. As Asian Universities have emerged on the global rankings games, the aggressive chase for rankings has translated into the upholding of journal rankings and impact factors as the basis of climbing the rankings charts. The deep and constant awareness of the rankings as the drivers of performance orients these Universities toward hiring and rewarding scholarship that is

After having spent a day's labour dealing with the effect of the racist editorial statement made by the RPA editor and Distinguished Scholar Professor Martin J. Medhurst and listening to scholars of colour who have to inhabit the racist spaces of our discipline, I woke up this morning to the letter that was sent by 66 Distinguished Scholars (DS) of our discipline to the leadership of the National Communication Association. The list of colleagues signing the letter includes beloved colleagues and mentors who shaped my own journey as a scholar in the discipline, and colleagues whom I have seen as vital sources of solidarity. It is therefore in much pain that I write this response. This response to the letter is written with humility and in anguish, recognizing that the letter is not addressed to me.  I write my response shifting between third and first person, aware of the (im)possibility of dialogue as a wider collective in our discipline, scholars of colour and current leaders

In a post made in response to the changes to how my discipline operates made by the Executive Committee of the largest organization of the discipline, the National Communication Association (NCA), one of the editors of a disciplinary journal Rhetoric and Public Affairs (RPA), Professor Martin J. Medhurst, a Distinguished Scholar of the discipline, calls out what he sees as the threat of identity (see below for his full piece published in the journal that he has edited for 20+ years, with 2019 SJR score of 0.27). In what he notes is a threat to the "scholarly merit" of the discipline, Professor Medhurst sets up a caricature of what he calls "identity." In his rhetorical construction of the struggles the NCA has faced over the years to find Distinguished Scholars of colour, he shares with us the facts. So let's look at the facts presented by this rhetor. It turns out, as a member of the Distinguished Scholar community of the NCA, Mr. Medhurst has problems wit

Chic radicalism is opportunist. It uses the performance of radicalism to prop itself up. Radicalism is another market for the opportunist. It sells. It cultivates an image that is oppositional, and therefore seductive. It brings in new audiences. Branded right, radicalism works wonders. Chic radicalism is epitomized by the Calcutta antel. The one to pick up radical causes as career opportunities to markets, professions, and audiences. The next radical cause is the chic radical's career opportunity. The chic radical will make superficial claims to secularism and change to suit her/his purposes, all the while co-opting the transformative capacities of change. The Calcutta antel's chic radicalism is quickly evident in the cause that he/she will jump to, presenting himself/herself as an agent of change and quick to disappear. A recent interview of the film-maker Aparna Sen on NDTV captures well the opportunism and selective memory of the chic radical. The interview is s

As part of our ongoing series on "Decolonizing Anti-racist Interventions," CARE is delighted to host Teanau Tuiono, an activist who connects the local with the global in anti-racist, anti-capitalist interventions. Teanau has over 20 years’ experience as an activist, advocate and organiser at local, national and international levels on social justice and environmental issues.  In Pasifika communities, he is known for his work in the education sector and climate change advocacy.  In Māori communities, he is known for his indigenous rights activism.  He has an interest in working at the intersection of indigenous rights and environmental issues where he has worked with remote indigenous communities on the frontlines of climate change and biodiversity loss.

Singapore stands out as a "model" of governmentality that travels across Asia, with a seductive appeal that is built on the mechanisms of authoritarian control that it consistently deploys to silence dissent. Many of these techniques of authoritarian control, deployed in Singapore, are not the grotesque authoritarian excesses one witnessed in China three decades ago at Tiananmen Square, or ones that one witnesses now. The authoritarian control exercised in Singapore is sophisticated, dressed up in the language of democracy. Meant to produce processes of internalization such that disciplined subjects self-censor, knowing from model performances of control the price to be paid for not towing the line. Seemingly democratic forms of management, directed at producing supposed clean governance, are often the tools deployed to control dissent and silence alternative voices. One such tool, dressed up as an instrument of clean governance, is the audit. The audit is deplo