Mohan Dutta: Culture-Centered Approach

1.) How do Dutta’s overview of performing for social change and Drake’s in-depth discussion of her involvement in the sustainable food movement allow us to understand the significance of the symbolic and aesthetic dimensions of resistance, mobilization, and social change? How are the contours of agency (for all persons and parties involved) defined through such symbolic and aesthetic practices? What are the dialectical tensions and dialogical possibilities between aesthetic/symbolic practices and political-economic structures? 2.)   Considerable attention in these chapters is paid to the role of the scholar in communicating for (and against) social change. What are the potential pitfalls of academic intervention in movements for change? How do the authors reconcile these potential dangers and justify spaces for the expert scholar? What do these points tell us about reflexivity or the position of the scholar either in research and/or activism roles?

In our advisee group meeting today (Zhuo Ban, Uttaran Dutta, Vicky Ortiz, and Shaunak Sastry, October 30, 2010), we discussed the idea of solidarity through reflexivity (see Dutta & Pal, 2010. As we participate in culture-centered processes of change, how do we articulate projects of solidarity that work toward change and are simultaneously critical of the dominant articulations of emancipation in global discourses of neoliberalism? How can we create avenues for discussing meaningful local participation in global scapes that celebrates the agency of local participation even as it works toward points of critique, both of processes of neoimperialism and the processes of local hierarchies that carry out the marginalization of the subaltern? Solidarity is at once a journey of friendship and a reflexive process that is critically aware of the locations of power one inhabits and the silences attached to these locations. This critical awareness by turning the lens on the self creates entr...

I am reflecting on a very stimulating conversation I had with a student of mine at coffee today...It was a filled out room, there were other familiar faces, and the tables were situated pretty close by, so we had to somewhat monitor how loud we could get, and also watch our language/content somewhat, given the setting and our topic "Reflexivity, the postcolonial moment, dialogue, and proselytizing missions." This was an extension of an earlier class discussion where I had noted that "I feel more violated when someone is trying to convert me religiously than when a right wing republican says something really offensive about one of my ideals." The discussion in class was fruitful but for the sake of time, we had to move ahead to other topics. Our coffee conversation today was beautiful as it recognized for me once again the potential for dialogue as transcendental...When we explored ideas such as faith, the limits it places on dialogue, the openings it creates for dia...