Methodologically, as we develop participatory processes in culture-centered research, these processes are both organic and cyclical. The organic nature of CCA processes suggest that when we work with community partnerships and community members, the relationships among the multiple stakeholders (and yes, given the circles of participation in CCA, these are indeed multiple relationships in multiple contexts at multiple levels) are continually evolving. Being open to participation in ways that are responsive to community needs suggests that we continually re-evaluate where we stand with respect to the choices and the decisions we make through the lifecycle of the project. This also means that the same decisions need to be revisited at multiple entry points at multiple levels of our relationships, partnerships, and roles within the CCA network. Moving the gamuts of decision-making through these multiple cycles calls for a great deal of patience as the same sets of decisions need to be re-visited again and again.
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...