Mohan Dutta: Culture-Centered Approach

Academics in the regime. Speak. You have nothing to lose but your chains. Don't wait for tomorrow Don't wait until you are In another land, To pick up your radical creds And your radical pretence. Speak. Speak Now. Speak today. Speak here. All they could do is tar you Malign you Attack you, But speak you must Because the fear that holds you back is the fear you Self-impose. Break through the chains And Speak. Speak Now. Speak today. Speak here.

By Mohan J. Dutta and Nga Hau Isn't it divisive to talk about racism in the midst of a pandemic? The question posed above is a powerful instrument of erasure. It works precisely to erase the empirically established conclusion that racism makes up the everyday realities of health and health care. What we learn from the existing scholarship on racism is that globally, communities of colour experience racism throughout their life course and this leaves toxic and sustained effects on the health and wellbeing of individuals, households, and communities. Whether it is the health of Māori communities in Aotearoa New Zealand, the health of indigenous communities in the U.S., or the health of African American communities in the U.S., racism is built into the social fabric. Racism prevents access to the basic infrastructures of health care, places significant barriers to the negotiation of health care, and impacts the quality of care received by communities of colour. The n...

The discursive and material sites of COVID-19 render visible the politics of caste and class that make up the fabric of neoliberal India.  The upwardly mobile yuppie class in this neoliberal India lives in gated communities, protected by precarious security guards that run identity checks on other precarious workers entering the gated communities. The urban landscape of neoliberal India is inundated with "smart gated communities," replete with technologies for keeping out risk. Risk is dirty, and is attached to the casteist infrastructure of neoliberal India. Caste thrives in neoliberal India, mixed in with social class, in perpetuating the stigma around dirt and disease.  In much of our fieldwork with domestic workers working in India's IT hubs, smart cities, and high rises, we witness stories of dirt, that are deployed to discriminate, marginalize, mistreat, abuse, and attack precarious workers. For instance, in many high rises in Noida, there are separate...

The language of engagement in the workplace treats engagement as the basis for justifying and propping up neoliberal re-organizing. Workplaces are re-organized on the logics of engagement. Workplace restructuring and job redundancies are legitimized through the logic of engagement. The neoliberal organization justifies these techniques of re-organizing through the language of consultation. Workplace policies are codified on the technologies of engagement. To the extent that organizations follow the "right" steps, they can fire workers, reduce wages, increase hours, reduce permanent positions, and increase the number of precarious positions. In other words, if management follows the precsribed steps of engagement, there is no valid basis for worker struggle. Workers are disciplined into internalizing the lesson, "All I need is engagement." The message is, "Engage us. Consult with us. Follow the policy guidelines. And now, you can fire us. Re-hire u...

The political economy of Singapore, a neoliberal authoritarian state that sustains itself by offering an uber-business-friendly gateway to Asia for global capital through techniques of surveillance and control, thrives on the continual branding and circulation of the "Singapore Model."  The mantra of governance for nation states across the globe is "follow what Singapore does."  Authoritarian management and neoliberalism Copy its authoritarian technocratic mode of state management, and you will effectively discipline your population, generate growth, support capital flow, and effectively address emergent crises. This mode of authoritarian administrative crisis management forms the backbone of the Singapore model, seductive to the transnational capitalist class for its ability to produce a disciplined ready-made workforce for global capital, and sold as the recipe for tackling global challenges.  Technocratic authoritarianism safeguards the free ...

On February 28th, 2020, Janet Napolitano, the President of University of California fired 54 UC Santa Cruz graduate students for going on a strike for a Cost of Living Adjustment to address untenable living conditions (Based on popular demand from colleagues in academe, I am going to translate some of my academic writing on communication and engagement in a series of blog posts. In these blog posts, I will set up a fictitious academic organization, the Engagement University, and use the context of the University to unpack my thoughts. Of course, the analyses connects well with various industries, NGOs, political processes, social-cultural processes. At the end of each post, I will provide links to some of my published articles as anchors for further conversations). The neoliberal University, driven by its accelerated managerial turn toward profits, efficiency, markets, and rankings, pursues a wide range of strategies of financialization and commoditization. The mission of the...

My daddy once told me socialism will come one day, in this land, One day, among the people, on these streets. As we walked And occupied them And raised the slogans, My daddy once told me socialism will come. My daddy once told me the war machine will be dismantled, Because people will rise and call for the end To violence, the senseless killings. Here and there, everywhere The profiting from death will have to stop Because the people will have risen In this land. My daddy once told me That healthcare will be free That education will be free That housing will be free one day, in this land. Because people will have risen raised their hands And proclaimed We will be free We will own our democracy.