Mohan Dutta: Culture-Centered Approach

This is a comment in reponse to Yogita's well articulated point about history of ideas...sometimes, comments tend to be hidden, so am posting this again. Thanks for referring to the James Scott piece on domination and resistance, as that's precisely where I would like to then build from in attempting to work out my half-baked ideas of social change articulated through subaltern narratives shared at the margins. As policies and programs carried out within the neoliberal configuration and directed at projects of development continually use the Eurocentric vantage point, albeit working closely with the local elite, to put forth specific development programs and policies, the work of contemporary SS scholarship has to reinvent a strategically organized politics that works on change from the margins by fundamentally disrupting the Eurocentric hegemony, and by acknolwedging the legitimacy of subaltern viewpoints that have otherwise been treated as magic and sub-standard by these ve

This is a reflection of a recent experience with a piece I had sent out for peer review. This piece drew upon Subaltern Studies theory to articulate the processes of erasure in the Eurocentric mainstream. One of the reviewers responded to this piece by noting that this argument has already been made in the Communication literature (citing a piece in rhetoric that was published in 2000 by a Caucasian scholar at a mainstream American university). So I went back to the piece with the idea that I had something new to learn, although even on its face, the reviewer's argument did not work as the postcolonial and Subaltern Studies literature predate to arguments made by South Asian and Latin American scholars starting in the 70s. I still wanted to check out this 2000 piece to see if it was indeed citing some of this postcolonial work (as far as I knew, other than the works of Raka Shome, Radha Hegde, Radhika Parameswaran, and some other scholars of Latin American and South Asian origins,

Two key points that got me thinking in this week’s readings include the erasure of women’s breastfeeding knowledge by the biomedics, and the double speaking that characterize breastfeeding initiatives (the chapter by Emily Kripe in Zoller & Dutta). First,I consider the erasure of women’s agency. I begin with a quotation that accurately reflects the plight of women in Third World countries with regard to breastfeeding: “This transfer of breastfeeding knowledge from its practitioners to the domain of medical professional, from being embodied to requiring learning, involves a privileging of headwork that not only reinstalls the mind-body dichotomy of the Cartesian subject, but disempowers women as mothers at a time when their corporeality is most active and symbolically significant” (Barlett,2002,p.376) quoted in Zoller and Dutta (2008). The move to deny women of their agency interests me because of current trend in some developing countries. In Nigeria for instance, Not for Profit

In reading the final chapter of Communicating Health: A Culture-Centered Approach , I found it very helpful to have a complete overview of the entire culture-centered process in research, understanding, and necessary structural shifts. What was also reinforced for me was that this approach is both challenging and critical, especially when one is willing to recognize that erasure has taken place within a marginalized community. However, something also struck me as I read and was reminded that culture is dynamic and that the “values, beliefs, and practices that constitute the culture become meaningful when articulated in the context within which they are realized” (p. 256). Of course, this definition has been a common statement made in our weekly discussions. But, how it was substantiated for me this week as I read it again comparing it to a notion I recently read in Charles Tilly’s book Durable Inequality. In the opening pages, Tilly describes James Gillray, who was Britain’s first pr

So here's a story of an immediate experience this morning that relates to the conversations we have been having about structural barriers. As I share this story, let me first share that I am a health communication scholar with a graduate education and with almost a decade of experience listening to stories of individuals, families, and communities about their experiences with healthcare. On one hand, I believe that my education and scholarship have given me the skillsets to ask questions, to engage critically, and to push the envelope; on the other hand, I also believe that I miss many opportunities to ask questions, simply because of the length of the interactions in the provider's office. Today's experience that I will share with you relates to billing. So we had gone in to the physician at one of the Arnett locations for a regular physical. The co-payment was made at the counter ($15), and we walked away with the assumption that the rest of the bill ($128 as I would co

I find Mansfield et al.’s (2002) piece on the intersections of faith in God, healing, and meaning of illness interesting for two reasons. First, Mansfield et al.’s revelation that faith and religious beliefs represent important variables in patient’s healing process is intriguing. They found that: “Many people in this region of the Southern Eastern United States (80%) believe that God acts through medical doctors to cure illness. Almost 9 out of 10 African Americans in this region see physicians as instruments of God’s will” (Mansfield et.al.2002, p.406). As illustrated in the quotation, faith in God is central in healing among Christians. As a Christian, I could not agree more with the authors. Among the Christian community, it is a norm to state that “God willing, or by his Grace”, coinages that represent our faith in the power of God to make all things possible. Second, I find the piece interesting because of its similarity with emerging trend in Nigeria. The proliferation of Pentec

Today I had another interview with one of the volunteers for our project. Something she mentioned to me in our conversation was that she is a private individual. She has no family who live in the area. It’s just her boyfriend and her. She admitted that they have no friends really… no one they share experiences with, commiserate with, and celebrate milestones with. I asked her what encouraged her desire to be private. Pride. She and her boyfriend do not want to make widely known their tough circumstances. She doesn’t want others to feel like she is relying on them for anything that, perhaps, they are also struggling to maintain. While the strong sense of pride is unique among the three interviews I’ve been involved with so far, the lack of a network is not. My interview with this woman took place shortly after I had read the article on breastfeeding. In this article, Cripe discusses the difference in privileged, educated women/mothers and low-income mothers. She offers a quote from US