Mohan Dutta: Culture-Centered Approach

In examining how issues of security and economy are linked with health, Dutta brings to light how global policies can come to impact local actions, particularly in light of determining the availability and distribution of resources. By continually framing health intervention as an opportunity for scientific and technological advancement, coupled with the interests of commercial organizations, health is deeply connected with economic questions at the global level, bringing forth the role of structures in influencing health. Wasteful bureaucratic overhead, high prices, high levels of uninsured, malpractice...it goes without stating that the American healthcare system is in crisis. As a communication scholar, I was intrigued by Dutta’s posing of the question, “How are particular communication strategies used by key political actors to background, discursively, the problems of healthcare?” I began to consider this in light of a side-interest of my own related to the communicative practices...

Growing up as a child, I remember the stories my father taught me...stories of the First International, American Federation of Labor (AFL), and of May Day. These were stories of the American working classes, their struggles, and their organizing to secure eight hour workdays for workers. The stories of 1877, the mass action of the American working classes, the Chicago strikes, and the Haymarket Affair were stories of inspiration. The stories of Joe Hill and worker organizing were stories that were uniquely American in the seeds of hope, solidarity, and global organizing they sowed. The stories of labor however were hidden from much of the mainstream discourses when I came to the US in the 1990s. The images of malls, shopping, advertising, abundance were images that made these stories of workers seem redudant and irrelevant. In fact, I found it difficult to relate any of the stories I had grown up listening to with the images of the US in the 1990s, surrounded by songs of nationalist ...

Today, the first half of the day, Agaptus and I spent at the mobile food pantry in Monticello. Most of our work was broken down into two tasks: unloading boxes and setting up food on the tables, and serving as personal shoppers for the clients of the pantry. These tasks in some ways were the other side of the "specific tasks" we have been doing at the organization, such as sorting food, packing them into boxes etc. The experience of serving as a shopper was overwhelming in many ways. That individual shoppers needed to be guided through the process also meant that we had to tell them how many packages of meat, how many packages of ketchup, how many packages of canned corn/beans etc. they could pick up depending upon their family size. The family size was already figured out at the check-in desk by the volunteer who did the registering. This part of telling how many items to pick up felt difficult to do, particularly as one could tell the discomfort and the pain in the moment...

The second chapter in the book has an excellent explanation of CCA and its principles. The section on values and context reminded me, some of my personal research experiences which I thought could fit into it very well. When I was working among the "Chenchu" people in Andhra Pradesh on my Masters dissertation project I noticed that the huts in the hamlets had small rooms next to them which were either empty or filled with old things. I asked the people around, about the utility of these rooms and they said that they were "latrines" built by the state health and hygiene department. I was surprised to know that latrines were provided by the government officials in such a remote "tribal" area. I probed further as to why they are not using them and they said that they are not used to defecating in these closed room for a various reasons. First was that they treat the hamlet land as sacred and hence would not be doing such a polluting act. They believe in defec...

I find these two key words “Engagement and Dialogue” in chapter two of the Culture Centered Approach to Health (Dutta, 2008) particularly striking, because the words reminded me about a conversation I had with five of my colleagues in my Cross-cultural communication class over listening to the “other” person. In our conversation about the co construction of cultures, we agreed that through listening to the “other” we could get a better understanding of their values that inform their actions and inactions. From our conversation, it became glaring that listening to the “other” is profound because it enhances communication considerably. To arrive at this position, we looked at several contexts. For this brief illustration,I use the example of offering food to a visitor, and how our cultural norms shape our reaction in such an encounter. In some cultures, it is a norm to offer food to a visitor. In such cultures, it is offensive for a visitor not to eat your food before talking to the ...

There are three things I want to share regarding this week’s reading and fieldwork. I apologize for the length, but since I can't be in class, I figured I just speak my mind here.. . ONE: “… a dominant paradigm is located within a meaning community – the community of scholars and practitioners who have come to define what it means to theorize and practice within the discipline” (Dutta, p. 46). What struck me with this statement, and with those that followed it, was the whole idea of meaning, tools, and the universal criteria used by the dominant paradigm in health communication. In many ways, they represent a conditioned approach, one that is well practiced. It is the norm; it is the most logical; it makes sense; it works; and it is dependable. What made me begin to mull this over and think about this so carefully was because, as I sat at home reading this, my five-year-old daughter sat next to me, playing a matching game on the computer. As she uncovered the hidden animals, a v...

After volunteering at the mobile food pantry earlier today, I’ve come to realize that spending time in a classroom discussing health experiences for the marginalized does little in comparison to actually witnessing the effects of marginalization on vulnerable populations firsthand. For the first time in this project, I saw how the meanings of those experiencing health disadvantages were overshadowed and neglected by the structural interests of those in privileged positions. Consequentially, I also recognized how traditional approaches to health communication could blatantly neglect these perspectives, leaving the problem of food insecurity far from resolved. As Dutta suggests, “The silencing of voices of community members is achieved through the circulation of discourse that continues to construct the community as passive and voiceless, and advances policies and programs without the participation of the community...which constructs the community as incapable of participation.” My co-vo...