Cultural studies has taken much inspiration from postcolonial studies, and adopted critique as its main strategy. Critiquing,
although a powerful tool, especially in creating counter discourses, whether
it is to counter colonial historiography or neoliberal consumerist
logics, it is basically a tool in the hands of the literate intellectuals
having abilities to express the critique eloquently. How does then cultural
studies relate to the indigenous struggles and everyday lives of people? How
does the project of cultural studies change
the material conditions that facilitate neoliberal capitalism? As Pezzulo (2011)
contends, drawing inspiration from Grossberg, that there is a need for pragmatic
practices of social change (p.127). A necessary shift from postcolonial
studies, according to me is to engage not in historical narratives, but with
the contemporary ones, where change can be effected in the present. Cultural
studies stands to offer important guidance for this agenda, because of its
conception of power as multimodal and its understanding of contemporary culture
as its relation to everything else that is not culture (Pezzulo, 2011 citing
Grossberg). Speaking on the basis of case studies of three consumer-based
movements in the US, Pezzulo suggests that cultural studies needs to engage
with consumer based advocacy campaigns, such as boycotts and buycotts, that seek
to change consumption patters, even though it doesn’t mean overthrowing the
logics of free-market capitalism. The impact of such campaigns is significant
on the basis that they change the relationships of production within a given company. I believe that acknowledging that power exerts itself
not in a monolithic fashion, but through micro-practices such as relationships
of production, the change could begin with un-doing these relations. As Pezzulo
suggests ranking the success of these campaigns from least to most successful
is immaterial, but the new agendas they set for theorization of cultural
studies is significant, as is their impact in bringing about change.
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...