Mohan Dutta: Culture-Centered Approach

Aotearoa New Zealand is celebrating this week the effectiveness of the policy measures taken by the leadership in curbing the spread of COVID19. Globally, and at home, the Prime Minister has been celebrated for her strong response that is grounded in compassion. Her social media presence, supplementing a sequence of strong public health measures reflect leadership anchored in empathy. This does not however mean that the New Zealand public health response has not been criticized. Or that there can be no criticism of the New Zealand response. For instance, a number of my Māori colleagues have said that we should not get carried away by the "Jacinda Magic," as CARE graduate student and researcher  Christine Elers  puts it. A number of my Māori students and community organizer colleagues have educated me about my own blinders that limit my ability to see the entrenched inequalities in the COVID19 response in New Zealand. They have challenged me, educated me, and in...

In response to the World Health Organization (WHO) celebrating Singapore's COVID19 response, I had noted in an earlier  post  that international organizations play important roles in foregrounding the vitality of democracy to the prevention and management of public health crises.  Citing   Singapore  as an exemplar of COVID-19 response, WHO Director General, Dr. Tedros Adhanom, linked to the speech of the Prime Minister of Singapore, Mr. Lee Hsien Loong as an exemplar of pandemic response.  Attack on communicative equality and neoliberalism In my earlier blog, I had drawn on the key theoretical tenets of the culture-centered approach (CCA) to argue that the absence of communicative equality in the "Singapore Model" threatens the health and wellbeing of communities, and particularly of communities that exist at the margins of Singapore's extreme neoliberal economy. The "Singapore Model" is the ultimate seduction for neoliberal market...

Image courtesy Julio Etchart as part of CARE's "Migrant Worker Rights" campaign (with Thanks to Monishankar Prasad, Julio Etchart and Abdul Rahman) Epidemics render visible the grossest forms of inequalities that constitute and reflect the societies we live in. In Singapore, the record number of single-day cases, with the largest concentrations in dorms housing low-wage migrant workers, makes visible the political, economic and social organizing  that render legitimate these inequalities. The plight of low-wage migrant workers, often tucked away by carefully crafted public relations narratives mainfests the deep inequalities that constitute Singapore. The poor working conditions, eevryday racisms, workplace abuse, and poor living conditions experienced by migrant construction workers in Singapore is juxtaposed in the backdrop of their labour that forms the foundation of Singapore's "smart" urban infrastructure. The techno-seductive appeal of a sus...

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...