Mohan Dutta: Culture-Centered Approach

In a post made in response to the changes to how my discipline operates made by the Executive Committee of the largest organization of the discipline, the National Communication Association (NCA), one of the editors of a disciplinary journal Rhetoric and Public Affairs (RPA), Professor Martin J. Medhurst, a Distinguished Scholar of the discipline, calls out what he sees as the threat of identity (see below for his full piece published in the journal that he has edited for 20+ years, with 2019 SJR score of 0.27). In what he notes is a threat to the "scholarly merit" of the discipline, Professor Medhurst sets up a caricature of what he calls "identity." In his rhetorical construction of the struggles the NCA has faced over the years to find Distinguished Scholars of colour, he shares with us the facts. So let's look at the facts presented by this rhetor. It turns out, as a member of the Distinguished Scholar community of the NCA, Mr. Medhurst has problems wit...

Chic radicalism is opportunist. It uses the performance of radicalism to prop itself up. Radicalism is another market for the opportunist. It sells. It cultivates an image that is oppositional, and therefore seductive. It brings in new audiences. Branded right, radicalism works wonders. Chic radicalism is epitomized by the Calcutta antel. The one to pick up radical causes as career opportunities to markets, professions, and audiences. The next radical cause is the chic radical's career opportunity. The chic radical will make superficial claims to secularism and change to suit her/his purposes, all the while co-opting the transformative capacities of change. The Calcutta antel's chic radicalism is quickly evident in the cause that he/she will jump to, presenting himself/herself as an agent of change and quick to disappear. A recent interview of the film-maker Aparna Sen on NDTV captures well the opportunism and selective memory of the chic radical. The interview is s...

As part of our ongoing series on "Decolonizing Anti-racist Interventions," CARE is delighted to host Teanau Tuiono, an activist who connects the local with the global in anti-racist, anti-capitalist interventions. Teanau has over 20 years’ experience as an activist, advocate and organiser at local, national and international levels on social justice and environmental issues.  In Pasifika communities, he is known for his work in the education sector and climate change advocacy.  In Māori communities, he is known for his indigenous rights activism.  He has an interest in working at the intersection of indigenous rights and environmental issues where he has worked with remote indigenous communities on the frontlines of climate change and biodiversity loss.

Singapore stands out as a "model" of governmentality that travels across Asia, with a seductive appeal that is built on the mechanisms of authoritarian control that it consistently deploys to silence dissent. Many of these techniques of authoritarian control, deployed in Singapore, are not the grotesque authoritarian excesses one witnessed in China three decades ago at Tiananmen Square, or ones that one witnesses now. The authoritarian control exercised in Singapore is sophisticated, dressed up in the language of democracy. Meant to produce processes of internalization such that disciplined subjects self-censor, knowing from model performances of control the price to be paid for not towing the line. Seemingly democratic forms of management, directed at producing supposed clean governance, are often the tools deployed to control dissent and silence alternative voices. One such tool, dressed up as an instrument of clean governance, is the audit. The audit is deplo...

Release of the RSS book at World Hindu Congress in Chicago If you are alarmed at the outcome of the Indian election 2019, you should be. This is the largest democracy (used to be) in the world that has now turned to full blown Hindutva fascism. You should also be alarmed with the knowledge that a large chunk of the money funding Hindutva fascist party, the BJP, and its sister fascist organizations, the RSS, Bajrang Dal etc. comes from the diaspora. How do you recognize a Hindutva fascist?  From the surface you can’t.  Not especially in the diaspora. You see, Hundutva fascists use the sort of cultural tropes that fit perfectly the Western liberal ideas of multiculturalism. His/her performance of culture will serve the perfect recipe of multiculturalism to your claims of being diverse. He/she won’t be the scary image of the lumpens shouting Ram chants with spear in his/her hand.  More likely, he will be suited booted. More likely, she will be decked up in t...

The Zip Code 4412 in New Zealand, the address of our first rental home. This zip code on the map is Highbury. Highbury, a space that is the site of racialized classist stigmas. Highbury, labeled as the poor area of Palmerston North. As the crime-prone area of New Zealand. As the place to avoid. Deciding to live in Highbury as a family in our first years in New Zealand has beautifully shaped our sense of space and our relationships. How we belong, how we craft our identities, and how we understand our aspirations are weaved into our understandings of this community. Much like Gary, Indiana, where our team carried out our heart health advocacy project in collaboration with African American communities, Highbury bears on itself the stigma of the forbidden place. Negotiating people's responses when we say "we live in Highbury" is a reminder of the many racist comments made by Indians in the diaspora when I would share our work in Gary. Questions such as, ...

The phenomenon of the suited-booted Sanghi in the diaspora is a strange apparition. Unlike an apparition however, the suited-booted Sanghi is a grotesque reality of the diaspora. An everyday diaspora reality that threatens Indian democracy. His ideas of hate, hidden carefully by a well-managed front that appeals to Whiteness, are the ideas that make up the infrastructures of the Hindutva terrorist groups in India. The suited-booted Sanghi comes in both male and female versions. Dressed up to assimilate. With the suit and the designer sunglasses. Or with the shade of Dior and Christian Louboutin. With the designer bag. And the accented English. It might be a Kiwi accent, or a put-on British accent, or an American-midwest accent. The suited-booted Sanghi is your model immigrant. At least on the surface. He works hard, is polite in the office, stays up until late to get his work done. You would think this is the face of multicultural US, or multicultural UK, or multicul...