Mohan Dutta: Culture-Centered Approach

In articulating communicative practices utilized by the North and West in marginalizing women in the global South, Dutta (2011) logically shows how local elites and Not for profit organizations are complicit in gendered marginalization of the Subaltern women often utilizing the rhetoric of participation, empowerment, and democracy to give legitimacy to their hidden agenda. My questions: Given the complicit role of local elites in the marginalization of its own people, should global corporations and Transnational Corporations be blamed for such acts of erasure and marginalization of women? Should local leaders who serve as conduit for implementing the neoliberal agendas of TNCs against its own people not be held accountable? Also on page 155, Dutta (2011) highlights how increasingly women from the South are recruited to the North and West where they are exploited as nannies and for domestic purposes at global sites of oppression. Again, should the local elites of such countries that ...

1) Based on the reading, how have current feminist studies ignored or even perpetuated misconceptions about women's relationship with neoliberalism? What sort of studies would you propose to highlight this relationship (i.e. correct what is missing in feminist studies)? 2) Other than embracing neoliberalist concepts of private property, how else might you resolve the tension between "women's work" and "men's work"? Along with this, how might you value "women's work" economically? In society? In government policies and structure?

1.)   How is the connection between consumption and overpopulation conceptualized in this chapter? What do they have to do with gender? And more specifically, what are the relations between overconsumption in the West and the problematizing of population growth in the Global South? 2.)   Given the discussion of the patriarchal biases and logics of neoliberalism that enact gendered forms of violence and marginalization, how can we begin to link this to similar logics and processes within the academy?

1) On what scale must a culture-centered health campaign be launched such that it not only disrupts the narratives of the dominant discourse in one particular context but also compels the neoliberal structures to sit up and take note of the difference that such a bottom-up initiative is capable of making? 2)W hile I do not underestimate the power of a grassroots initiative such as the Sonagachi HIV/AIDS Program (SHIP), I wonder to what extent such an initiative changes the way the mainstream, neoliberal health campaigns pertaining to HIV/AIDS in India operate especially in the context of sex workers elsewhere in Kolkata or in other Indian metropolitan cities?

1) Is healthcare a right that should be provided by the state? Privatizing health care makes it a commodity, but socializing health care leads to over-burdening the doctors, as described by the man who said "I stopped going to the state hospital. If something big happens, I will sell everything and go to the private doctor." (p.141).  What explains this poor marginalized man's priviledging of the private healthcare over the public healthcare? Along with that, what types of healthcare should be public? Given the current debate about making birth control available with insurance, does a neoliberalist reading of poverty shed any light on the correct approach? 2) The culture-centered approach priviledges an idea that the people who want to change their situation know what they need better (or as well as) the people from the dominant discourse, but the counter-argument is often given to similar ideas that just being in the situation doesn't necessarily make you better qua...

In Chapter four of Communicating Social Change, Dutta (2011) discusses how dominant structures marginalize the subaltern sectors by erasing their voices from the discursive spaces where health policy decisions that impact the Subaltern’s lives are taken. He further illustrates how Transnational Corporations and global organizations contribute in the marginalization of the subaltern through International Trade Agreements and Structural Adjustment Programs that give TNCs unfettered access to the local knowledge and commodification of indigenous knowledge. My comments: 1. Not for Profit Organizations in Third World countries are engaged by the Dominant structures to implement their hidden agenda using the rhetoric of Public Private Partnerships (PPP), participatory development and community partnerships as catch phrase for coopting the subaltern populace. My question is: Given that these NGOs rely on donors for funding, can they really resist the directives of the dominant structures espe...

1.)   How is “culture” understood in the cultural sensitivity approach? In recognizing cultural difference, does this approach represent a break from the notion of the universality of biomedicine and Western worldviews more generally? Why or why not? 2.)   Where would the cultural sensitivity approach locate the role of researchers (especially newer ones, e.g. grad students) in developing health campaigns?

1) In chapter 3, while talking about "experiences at the margins" the author says that culture-centered approach discusses the relevance of participatory dialogues in underserved communities. My question is, are the corporate structures even interested to pay attention to the perspectives of the subalterns? And more importantly, how can these "dialogues" play a role in making the corporate structures pay due attention to the concern of the subalterns? 2) Is there a just and right way to use land that belongs to indigenous communities for activities such as mining? In other words, if there is a great natural resource in lands belonging to tribals, for example, is there a recommended way to use that land without disrupting the lives of the tribals?

In Chapter 3 of Communicating Social Change, Dutta (2011) unpacks how the logic of positive values attributed to technology and modernization are used communicatively to market Western agricultural agendas that displace Third World agricultural practices, consequently forcing Third World farmers to depend on the West. Examples of such communicative strategies include the rhetoric of innovative practices, modernization, mechanized farming, and high productivity. Dutta also discusses how the rhetoric of philanthropy, development, aid, and scientific legitimacy are utilized to diffuse Western agricultural concepts that disenfranchise and impoverish peasant farmers in Third World countries. My Questions: 1. Given that local elites who own the spaces for the expression of alternative rationalities for listening to the voices of the Subaltern advocated by Dutta are often times accomplices in development projects, what other strategies can be employed to challenge the status-quo. 2. Accordin...

1) Is there a way to adapt capitalism to a non-neoliberalist framework, or is it inherent in the model?  In other words, is there a substitute for "profit" as a driving motivation for experimentation?  One of the reasons biotech engineers plants that can't reproduce on their own is to hold on to the profit to be gained to offset the millions in research to develop higher-sustaining foods, etc., while allowing it to still be sold at a lower price so that more people can buy it over and over again than would be able to buy it if it was a one-shot deal.  Non-reproducing plants also help ensure that even a ecologically unsustainable plant can be a) grown, and b)not get "loose".  Given these conditions, would it be better to encourage biotech to sell to "exclusive" farmers and let the plants reproduce on their own? 2) Mohan discusses the difference between innovation and improvement.  Since "innovation" is merely "different than what was th...

What are material and symbolic domains of agricultural knowledge and practices, and where are they located? How are these domains situated in the culture-centered approach to global agricultural issues? In what ways do the material and symbolic work together, and where do they diverge as privileged sites in understanding the issues discussed in the chapter?   In what ways can be compare/contrast the enabling of the exploitation of local, predominately indigenous knowledges around the world by trade rules for intellectual property rights (TRIPS) to the academic project of research? In other words, how are the systems of power/knowledge and logic behind TRIPS tied to or  manifested in scholarly research?

In Chapter 2 of communicating Social Change, Dutta (2011) discusses the communicative practices utilized by the West and transnational corporations in maintaining the status quo that continuously marginalize Third World countries. Dutta highlights the use of languages such as primitivism, modernity and culture as words that negatively frame the activities of Third World countries. Alternatively, the TNCs and the West use the language of development, enlightenment to carry out actions that perpetuate poverty in the South: My questions: 1. What strategies can the South employ to change such negative framing of its practices? (B) What are some of the communicative strategies to counter the rhetorical framing of cultural practices as barbaric and backward?

1) In chapter 2 of Communicating Social Change one comes across a very comprehensive picture of how the World Bank along with the national elite promote neoliberalism and an overall societal ambiance where voices of the poor go unheeded. But when one tries to disrupt these structures, what does one do -- in practical terms? Where does one start? 2) Instead of disrupting the overall structure of neoliberalism, is there a way to ensure -- through proper policies -- that the profit that's made in a neoliberal market actually do trickle down to the lower segments of society? In other words, is there a way to ensure through appropriate policies that neoliberalism keeps its promise? Or is that idea itself an illusion?

1-Does defining capital as private versus public, as neoliberalist or marxist or otherwise, effectively change one's access to basic resources? Isn't the starving man starving whether he doesn't own bread because he doesn't own the money to buy bread or doesn't own bread because it's not a commodity? So neoliberalism might really only have an effect on the middle class, not the rich or the poor. 2-Is it possible to eliminate poverty without eliminating wealth? Can you ensure a higher standard of living for everyone (meaning, is it possible to change a uniform standard of living for the better)??

What are the roles of research (or knowledge production more generally) in understanding and acting upon poverty? How do these roles change across the different theories of poverty and development? In what ways does our own research reflect or constitute these roles? How can the conception of agency outlined in the culture-centered approach help us in understanding how marginalized individuals and communities act in ways that uphold (or at least appear to uphold) the structures of their oppression?

US communication programs are increasingly repositioning themselves toward the Asian market, with the growing number of Asian students that are being drawn into US programs as the US markets take a downturn. Simultaneously, in search of markets abroad, these programs are repositioning themselves to set up shop abroad, making the teaching of communication skills a marketable commodity for a new market segment of students in China and India. As a result, many communication programs across the US are setting up satellite campuses across Asia. This is a repitition of the same old imperialist strategy that has marked the conquests carried out by Western empires across the globe: the commodity that they are trying to sell here is "communication." However, a quick look through most of these satellite campuses demonstrates that most of the academics who are placed to carry out the communication programs are not locals. From the vitas of these academics who are managing the satell...