Mohan Dutta: Culture-Centered Approach

Recently, I heard an articulation where a colleague made an evaluative statement about how international scholars present their research in such and such way, and how as an American, this scholar thought that this was an inferior way to present research compared to the American way, with the implied assumption that the American way is the "correct" way. This statement was followed by a qualifier about ethnocentrism. As somebody who often has had to deal with the international label (although I do have a US citizenship) in the past, I remember often having to just put up with arrogant and demeaning comments such as this from colleagues. However, the timing of this statement is appalling, given the growing presence of international scholars in the communication discipline, the increasing calls for internationalization, the fall of the US empire precisely because of this arrogance, and as exemplified in most recent years, the global criticism of this sort of US ethnocentrism.

In a recent piece co-authored with an advisee, we decided to not present effectiveness data in critiquing an intervention. The choice to not present the effectiveness data was a strategic choice situated in the critical impetus of CCA, based on the argument that the mainstream articulations of campaigns narrowly focus on effectiveness without attending to the dimensions of power, co-optation, and oppression that are often played out by the very same campaigns. Therefore, in our piece, we issued a call for the foregrounding of alternative criteria that question the very paradigm of effectiveness, the ways in which it is measured and reported etc. In one of our reviewers, a reviewer insisted that this was an unethical choice because the manuscript did not present the evidence that was available. What intrigues me about this argument made by the reviewer is how situated amidst ideology this specific evaluation of ethics is. Why is it that discussions of oppressive ideologies perpetrated b

He comes With his interview protocols And questions About cultural practices, magic, and ritual. He Comes Because he has the tools Of this thing He calls Ethnography. Through which he says he can Figure out our culture And explain our weird customs. He comes To conquer Disguised as a friend Lives amidst us, eats our food, And dances in our pagan dances Only to write back To his other White friends About our primitive stories.