Tonight in our "Culture and Health" class, we discussed the meaning of humility in the lives of scholars, about how without humility, we become the "frog in the well" who defines her/his lifeworld from the boundaries of the well. To this frog in the well, the well is the best place in the world because it offers democracy, freedom, liberty, modern medicine, scientific progress and everything Western. Also, to the frog in the well, other cultures are unenlightened and need to be saved. That the frog itself might be in need for enlightenment does not ever cross the frog because she/he is content with the messages of cultural chauvinism that have been fed to her/him since childhood. That other cultures and ways of knowing have something valuable to offer, that "others" whom we have been trained to construct as primitive have invaluable life lessons and knowledge to educate us, that our so called civilized practices might be most fundamentally uncivilized: t...
This blog offers Mohan Dutta's reflections on the theoretical framework of the culture-centered approach, examining the interplays among Structure, Culture, and Agency in shaping marginalisation and the ways in which communities at the margins challenge structures. Writings on the blog are continually being revised to reflect the organic analysis of structure and agency.