Mohan Dutta: Culture-Centered Approach

One of the concepts that we have continually discussed in the culture-centered approach is the vitality of communication as the gateway to social change. The idea built into the culture-centered approach is fairly simple: that when communities at the margins that have been historically erased from the dominant structures find a space in mainstream platforms, their wishes and desires no longer remain the sites of erasure. Rather, the articulations of agendas of community members working individually as well as in communities as collectives become the reference points for structural transformations. Voices of community members when engaged in dialogue with policymakers, program planners, and mainstream audiences, offer entry points to change through the creation of nodes of listening in these policy and program platforms. This concept of listening to the voices of subaltern communities as an entry point to achieving change was beautifully elucidated at the PhotoVoice exhibit today that...

The agency of local communities in resisting structural oppressions imposed by the state-TNC nexus is well illustrated in the indigenous protests in Niyamgiri. The mining company Vedanta, enjoying strong relationships with the Indian government, worked through the military-political apparatus to set up mining operations in the Niyamgiri Hills that would displace the indigenous people from the sacred forests that belong to them and their ancestors. The global oppression of indigenous tribes is situated amidst the political economic gains of the neoliberal configuration in setting up projects of industrialization and development that inequitably benefit the rich and further subalternize indigenous populations. The Niyamgiri example provides an invaluable lesson on the strength of grassroots solidarity at the margins as an entry point to structural transformation.