Mohan Dutta: Culture-Centered Approach

Elitism guts human soul. As a way of dis-engaging from the world of the people, elitism defines the beings of experts, who, sitting from their elitist positions, make evaluative judgments and decisions about the "people," the population. Essential to these judgments are value positions that accord legitimacy to elite expertise. The elite class knows best. The elite must decide policies and programs. These decisions must be removed from the people to give them the legitimacy of expert knowledge. The elite vantage point is one of distance, cultivated through strategies that put up walls, distinguishing expert knowledge from populism, the way of the people. The first step to elitism is the exhumation of the human-ness of connecting to people. To become an elite, one must first be disconnected. To be an elite is to stand out, to be different, to climb the established ladder of hierarchy to the desired position of power. Essential to this climbing to a position ...

I have been struck by how often we call for dialogue only to silence difference. The call to dialogue is usually from power. Dialogue, or the performance of it, thus is a strategic tool for the powerful in such instances. As a strategic tool, dialogue is inherently un-dialogic. It is un-dialogic because it is strategic. Cultural centering of dialogue is a radical departure from this strategic notion of dialogue as a tool of the status quo. To culturally center dialogue is to open to the idea of dialogue as difference. Dialogue as difference is articulated "from" or "with" the margins, recognizing the human agency of those at the margins as participants in production of truth. The recognition of margins as legitimate sources of producing truth claims inherently turns dialogue as a site of difference. Rather than serving as an instrument of the status quo to reproduce truth claims as seen from the vantage point of those in power, culture-cen...

In the post-Trump U.S., following from post-Brexit U.K., the safety pin has emerged as a symbolic declaration of solidarity, the declaration of a safe space. In the face of the rise of bigotry and hatred in public discourse, the safety pin signals a clarion call to stand by those in U.S. society feeling the brunt of the climate of intolerance. We could certainly use more solidarity at this juncture of U.S. history. Wearing a safety pin is also a material marker of standing by the marginalized in public spaces, where bigotry has been making its appearance. As much as the symbolic show of safety pins points toward an entry point for solidarity, it is important interrogate the symbolic nature of solidarity. The sudden expression of solidarity marked by an event (election of a bigot as the President of the U.S. whose campaign has anchored itself in a narrative of hate) declares that event as the moment of crisis. The marking of the election as a crisis moment obfuscate...

In conducting fieldwork with communities living in poverty, I have often had to interact with bureaucrats in a variety of countries. Although these interactions are contextual and culturally constituted, one feature that tends to resonate across the interactions is the impermeability of the bureaucrat. For most community members, the bureaucrat is intimidating. Usually selected through some kind of a grade-based/exam-based system, in a number of these countries, the bureaucrat is identified by his/her pedigree. Strong academic performance. Strong performance on entrance exams. While these qualities prepare the bureaucrat well in analytical thinking, they alone are not sufficient. Without humility and compassion, the bureaucrat becomes the impermeable face of the State, disconnected from everyday people, their lived experiences, and their struggles with making a living. Without the exposure to the reality of the everyday struggles of the people, the bureaucrat beco...

The work of the Center for Culture-Centered Approach to Research and Evaluation (CARE) has applied the tenets of the CCA to work in communities across the global margins. The poverty and communicative inequalities projects that are carried out by CARE reflect the overarching theme of the CCA, theorizing the communicative constructions of poverty in the global mainstream, and creating spaces for the voices of the poor in these mainstream and elite platforms through collaborations in solidarity with the poor. Comparing the discourses of poverty in mainstream  and elite networks with discourses of poverty as voiced by those living in poverty across countries offers a conceptual framework for examining the ways in which communication of/about poverty works in mainstream/elite constructions, the gaps in these constructions, as well as the possibilities of transformative change when  these stories are grounded in the accounts of the poor about their lived experiences. ...

Universities live in communities. Universities breathe in communities. Universities are legitimized because communities afford them the legitimacy. The work we carry out as scholars therefore is founded upon the fabric of community life. Based on the taxes paid by everyday citizens. And much more importantly, on the goodwill of communities that give universities land, trust, legitimacy. Yet, it is often the community, the immediate context of University life, that remains ignored in objectives, mission statements, and statements of strategy crafted by University leaders. For a large number of faculty, university life goes on, walled from the everydayness of the communities we live in. Disconnected from the spirits of community life. And ever so alienated from the spirits, ebbs, and flows in our immediate communities. You can have academics spend their entire career in communities and yet be completely disconnected from community life. You can have academics who don...

Social impact has secured its legitimate place in University conversations across global spaces. In the face of the global challenges we face, Universities both feel the pressure from taxpayers as well as see an opportunity in generating knowledge directed at addressing social impact. Some form or the other of the rhetoric of social impact is a part of the branding strategy of most Universities today. Yet, I worry that the conversation on social impact often ends up in empty sloganeering, devoid of accountability to the various stakeholders that a social impact conversation would hold the University to. Slogans such as "We change the world," and "Making a difference" are so widely used that "change" and "difference" have become commonplace words, devoid of meaning and value, and devoid of mechanisms for holding Universities accountable to these slogans. In other words, like bad advertising campaigns, they have become selling p...