Mohan Dutta: Culture-Centered Approach

#canyouhearthewarcries Can you hear the war cries? The calls for revenge for blood, and more blood for the poor and tired soldiers from this side and that to be sent to the battlefields to protect the honour of the nation. Can you hear the war sounds? The planes hovering over in the skies manufactured by military corporations American, French, British the celebrations of #josh on this side and that. of bombings and hits of killings and deaths. Can you hear the war posts? on WhatsApp And Facebook And Twitter Manufactured images on TV screens Expert analyses of war rooms on channels. Made up stories Made up declarations Thumping chests and joyous hearts Beating to the sounds of the drum. Can you hear the war spin? The promises of a fascist king Of another 2014 A resounding victory. who will save the nation and her people from the Muslims and terrorists and anti-nationals? the promises to bring back the glory of a nation under the threat of war.

I had first met the Singapore Jolovan Wham in 2008 when I had started my ethnographic work with migrant construction workers in Singapore. Jolovan was with the Humanitarian Organization for Migrant Economics (HOME) and he generously shared his time and powerful insights about the exploitation of migrant construction workers and foreign domestic workers in Singapore. He gave me a scholarly tour of the oppressive conditions the migrant workers toiled in, the chilling effect of the crack-down on migrant worker activists that went under the label of the "Marxist Conspiracy," and the importance of pushing the  boundaries of the state to make space for migrant worker activism. What was so impressive about our interaction was Jolovan's theoretical clarity about the underpinning principles of social change and his crystallized applications of the ways in which these concepts applied to the advocacy work he participated in. When I returned to Singapore in 2012 to build the

Professor Mohan Dutta will deliver the plenary address at the International Conference on Media and Communication in Sustainable Development, organized by the Centre for Journalism and Mass Communication (CJMC), Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan, India. The talk is titled "Sustainable Spaces for Radical Democracy: Communities as Spaces for Socialist Transformations of Development". In this talk, I will draw on the culture-centered approach that I have been working with over the last two decades to examine the interplays of culture, structure, and agency in the articulations of voice. Addressing the interplays of communicative and structural inequalities, the talk will draw out the role of communication in creating and sustaining spaces for radical democracy through the participation of subaltern communities. Drawing out the concept of communities as spaces, I will outline the work of communication in socialist transformations of the globe, linking examples of indigenous st

In the island Where freedom Is lost In the glittering brands And shining skyline. ... In the island Where voices Are erased By manicured gardens And offers of security.  Where dreams  Are forever disrupted turned into disciplined repititions of accounts and numbers, of inverted facts. The colonial masters Rule with their Antiquated colonial laws. Their statues and memorials And talks of their legacies, Futures lost.