As noted in ths history of colonial Empires, the language and methodology of "science" have often been used to systematically turn human beings into populations to be studied and scripted, into subjects of interventions, as passive objects to be examined through the methodology of the scientist. The collection of systematic processes has in such instances been set in motion in order to precisely carry out the colonial project through the generation of knowledge. The ways in which knowledge has been produced have been intrinsically connected with the uses of such knowledge to perpetuate the oppression and exploitation of the subaltern classes, simultaneously keeping the subaltern sectors of the globe out of the discursive spaces of the mainstream. It is in this very backdrop that the native is once again silenced because she is told that she can't participate unless she trains with the masters, uses their tools, and speaks their language. The legitimacy of science is used as a basis for maintaining the "Club" of privilege and for carrying out the violence that is embodied in this very privilege. Therefore, any centering that happens in the culture-centered approach has to be continually tied to de-centering the fundamental processes and criteria through which knowledge is evaluated.
The whiteness of binaries that erase the Global South: On Communicative Inversions and the invitation to Vijay Prashad in Aotearoa
When I learned through my activist networks that the public intellectual Vijay Prashad was coming to Aotearoa, I was filled with joy. In my early years in the U.S., when learning the basics of the struggle against the fascist forces of Hindutva, I came in conversation with Vijay's work. Two of his critical interventions, the book, The Karma of Brown Folk , and the journal article " The protean forms of Yankee Hindutva " co-authored with Biju Matthew and published in Ethnic and Racial Studies shaped my early activism. These pieces of work are core readings in understanding the workings of Hindutva fascism and how it mobilizes cultural tropes to serve fascist agendas. Much later, I felt overjoyed learning about his West Bengal roots and his actual commitment to the politics of the Left, reflected in the organising of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), a political register that shaped much of my earliest lessons around Global South resistance, collectivization, and orga...