One of the fundamental tenets of CCA is its struggle against academic opportunism and clientelism that are established in academic structures and the bureaucracies tied to these structures. The critiques offered by earlier CCA projects have continually drawn attention to the middle class elitism and clientelism of mainstream campaigns that continue to use the subaltern contexts as grounds for doing research, gathering data, and publishing papers, without really the commitment to actually listening or making a difference. This albeit is a theme that is continually articulated through CCA projects where communities discuss their marginalization and exploitation in the hands of researchers. It is precisely in this backdrop then that I find myself negotiating the lines of co-optive politics as the language of CCA is turning more toward fundable options. People that trashed ideas of community knowledge or community dialogue are all of a sudden interested in the conversation because there is money here. So how does one retain their skepticism and yet be authentically open to dialogue and learning within and with the dominant structures and the individuals that have historically enjoyed their privileged positions within these dominant structures that we critique.
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...