CARE Activist in Residence Programme Dr. Vijay Prashad | 25 October 2024

Center for Culture-Centered Approach to Research & Evaluation (CARE), Massey University is excited to announce the Activist in Residence Programme featuring a world-renowned historian and journalist Dr. Vijay Prashad.

This highly anticipated CARE event called Third World Futures – A Dialogue with Vijay Prashad and Professor Mohan Dutta will take place on 25th October 2024 at the Sir Geoffrey Peren Auditorium (SGP2.01) on the Manawatū Campus, Massey University at 10.30 am NZDT.

About Dr. Vijay Prashad

Dr. Vijay Prashad is a distinguished Indian historian, journalist, and author, widely recognized for his influential work on global history and politics. He has authored forty books, including prominent titles such as Washington Bullets, Red Star Over the Third World, The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World, and The Withdrawal: Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and the Fragility of U.S. Power, co-written with Noam Chomsky.

In addition to his literary contributions, Dr. Prashad serves as the executive director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, the chief correspondent for Globetrotter, and the chief editor of LeftWord Books in New Delhi. He has also appeared in the films Shadow World (2016) and Two Meetings (2017), which further amplify his critique of global power dynamics.

The CARE Activist in Residence Programme offers a unique opportunity to engage with Dr. Prashad’s extensive research and activism, spanning topics from the history of the Global South to the fragility of U.S. power in the 21st century. Attendees will gain insights into current global political challenges and the transformative role of activism and scholarship.

This event is free to attend and open to all. We look forward to welcoming you to what promises to be an enlightening and inspiring discussion.

Watch the full event recorded on the CARE YouTube and CARE Facebook channels:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sLGQtHdFF8

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/1399316128140020

Facebook events page: https://www.facebook.com/events/1237882210738575

RSVP here: https://forms.office.com/r/GVXSdq2Sh1

Event Details:

– Date: Friday, 25th October 2024 

– Time: 10:30 AM – 11:30 AM NZDT 

– Venue: Sir Geoffrey Peren Auditorium (SGP2.01), Manawatū Campus, Massey University (Google Maps: https://maps.app.goo.gl/uiPcVek6LbFRCxB2A)

Read more: https://www.massey.ac.nz/about/news/care-to-host-renowned-intellectual-for-activist-in-residence-programme/

#CAREConversations#MasseyUniversity #CAREMassey #Aotearoa #NewZealand #ThirdWorldFutures #GlobalSouthVoices#Anticolonialism #SustainableFutures #MasseyEvents #CAREActivistInResidence #TransformingTheSouth

Professor Mohan J Dutta features on Ayaan Institute’s podcast on Global Hindutva: Communicative Strategies and Impact on Leicester Disorder 2022

CARE: Center for Culture-Centered Approach to Research and Evaluation is excited to share the podcast by Prof. Mohan Dutta, Massey University with Mr Jahangir Mohammed, Ayaan Institute on #GlobalHindutva

The latest Ayaan Institute podcast episode features an insightful discussion with Professor Mohan J Dutta from Massey University. Dive into his groundbreaking research on Global Hindutva and its impact on the #Leicester disorder in September 2022. This episode also explores the connections between #Hindutva, far-right narratives, and violence.

This podcast was streamed LIVE and recorded on 2nd October.

Don’t miss out! Watch now: https://www.youtube.com/live/5TPK7dDs_Lk

Read more about Ayaan Institute here: http://www.ayaaninstitute.com/

Opinion: The Free Speech Union: Leaping from climate surveys to moral panic

Wednesday 18 September 2024 by Professor Mohan Dutta

Photo credit: Skitterphoto via Pixabay.

The trope of academic freedom in danger is a critical resource in the organised attack of the far-right on the modern university. One of the core techniques of the far-right in its efforts to destabilise academic institutions, is cook up a frenzy around free speech – intentionally conflating free speech issues with academic freedom. As an exemplar of the communicative inversions performed by the far-right, the panic around academic freedom is actually a critical tool in catalysing attacks on the academic freedom of decolonising practices in the university environment. What the far-right, and the underlying infrastructure of white supremacy is triggered by, is that universities are slowly transforming, starting to acknowledge that centuries of colonial epistemic violence have erased the knowledge infrastructures of colonised peoples.

In Aotearoa New Zealand, as I have demonstrated in my analyses, the Free Speech Union uses ideologically motivated faulty surveys to create panic around academic freedom. With a fundamentally incorrect understanding of academic freedom (the freedom of academics to teach and publish in their areas of expertise) that conflates it with free speech, the Union constructs its propaganda around specific ideological issues (Te Tiriti o Waitangi, gender justice, and so on) which are at the heart of the far- right’s culture war propaganda in Aotearoa.

In its most recent campaign, the Free Speech Union has turned to releasing leaked climate surveys to construct the argument that academic freedom is under threat in Aotearoa. Deploying the tactical tool of leaks, it builds an affective register around academic climates, suggesting these environments are threatening academic freedom.

In August, the Free Speech Union targeted the Law School at Auckland University of Technology (AUT), placing its propaganda around a leaked climate survey (to David Farrar, yes, the same David Farrar that runs the debunked Free Speech Union survey on academic freedom) that suggested faculty dissatisfaction. Commenting on the selective excerpts from the survey published on David Farrar’s blog, noted Jonathan Ayling, the Chief Executive of the Union:

“Academics are being criticised and punished for speaking out, causing them and others to resort to self-censorship. Again, results from an internal law school survey displayed very low levels of satisfaction. This included 30% claiming they feel uncomfortable reporting inappropriate behaviour and more than one-in-three respondents experiencing bullying in the past six months.”

Mr Ayling’s blog then reports on a letter sent out to the Minister of Education and the AUT Vice-Chancellor. When you look closely at the items shared on Mr Farrar’s blog however, there is not a single reported item on the blog that substantiates the claim “academics are being criticised and punished for speaking out.” You also won’t find an item that actually measures self-censorship.

In other words, the frame around threat to academic freedom that is part of the moral panic crafted by the Free Speech Union in its press release and the letter to the Minister of Education is not substantiated empirically. There is no evidence of academics being punished for speaking out, as Mr Ayling claims.

Professor Mohan Dutta.

Mr Farrar’s blog embellishes the ideological reading of the survey with leaked emails and speculations. The survey creates the opening for attacking the Dean of Law at AUT who had spoken out against the attack on the teaching of Tikanga Māori. Writes Mr Farrar: “Now readers will recall that the Dean of Law is Khylee Quince and she attracted a lot of publicity when she called a senior KC a racist dinosaur who should go off and die in the corner.” The blog wraps up by further constructing the Dean as threat to academic freedom:

“As you can see the results for the Law Faculty are much much lower than AUT as a whole. So this would suggest the major issue is not the central administration, but the faculty management itself. I am told by sources that everyone knows what the major problem is, but people are too scared to say so.”

Note here the slippage from the report of a leaked climate survey to hearsay – the architecture of gossip in: “everyone knows what the major problem is, but people are too scared to say so.”

It is worth noting the targeting of the AUT Dean of Law, Māori academic Khylee Quince, is part of a broader campaign targeting senior Māori academics (often women) who have spoken out publicly against the white supremacist structures that make up universities in settler colonial Aotearoa New Zealand, and their organised campaigns directed at erasing the decolonising registers that have been built through decades of struggle. The ideologically motivated campaign around academic freedom mobilised by Mr Farrar and Free Speech Union works on slippages to construct the narrative of academic freedom under threat. Implicit in this, is the positioning of Te Tiriti o Waitangi as a threat to academic freedom in Aotearoa.

Indeed, the academic climate of settler colonial universities, embedded in whiteness and mobilised to uphold white supremacy, has worked historically to erase decolonising registers of knowledge generation. Prevailing norms of whiteness have devalued and undermined Indigenous knowledge claims, often working aggressively to silence decolonising scholarship. The voices of Indigenous and postcolonial academics have historically been silenced, with the academic freedom to do decolonising scholarship severely constrained by the norms of whiteness, upheld by notions of civility and norms of communication within white academic structures.

As universities in Aotearoa New Zealand, as with universities across settler colonial spaces globally, have started their decolonising journeys around reconciliation and recognition of Indigenous rights, the far-right white supremacist campaign seeking to silence these efforts has worked incessantly to construct decolonisation as a threat to academic freedom. The implicit and explicit targeting of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and the positioning of Te Tiriti in opposition to academic freedom must be read within the broader architecture of the global proliferation of white supremacist backlash against decolonisation. Any conversation on academic freedom must begin with the recognition that the far-right panic around academic freedom is a threat to the academic freedom of academics studying, teaching, researching and publicly engaging on decolonisation, postcolonial theory, critical race theory etc. It must also be noted that academics teaching and researching in these areas have historically faced diverse intersecting forms of marginalisation, harassment, and threats to their academic freedom.

Professor Mohan Dutta is Dean’s Chair Professor of Communication. He is the Director of the Center for Culture-Centered Approach to Research and Evaluation (CARE), developing culturally-centered, community-based projects of social change, advocacy, and activism that articulate health as a human right. He is a member of the board of the International Communication Association.

Article Source: Massey News

URL: https://www.massey.ac.nz/about/news/opinion-the-free-speech-union-leaping-from-climate-surveys-to-moral-panic/

CARE | Future Directions Of Applied Communication Research Lecture Series | Leveraging Network Science to Address Grand Societal Challenges

The Second Lecture:

Leveraging Network Science to Address Grand Societal Challenges with Professor Noshir Contractor, Jane S. & William J. White Professor of Behavioural Sciences, Northwestern University.

This second lecture in the Future Directions of Applied Communication Research Lecture Series is from Professor Noshir Contractor from Northwestern University. It centres around network science and how it can support applied communication scholarship.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/1548409152440542

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbyRrGhqcTc

Noshir Contractor is the Jane S. & William J. White Professor of Behavioral Sciences in the McCormick School of Engineering, the School of Communication and the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. He investigates how social and knowledge networks form and perform. He is the former President of the International Communication Association. He is also a Distinguished Scholar of the National Communication Association and a Fellow of the Academy of Management, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Association for Computing Machinery, the Network Science Society, and the International Communication Association. He received the Lifetime Service Award from the Communication, Digital Technology, & Organization Division of the Academy of Management. Additionally, he received the Simmel Award from the International Network for Social Network Analysis (INSNA). He received the Distinguished Alumnus Award from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras where he received a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering. He has a Ph.D. from the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Southern California.

#NetworkSCience #SocietalChallenges #NoshirContractor #NorthwesternUniversity #AppliedCommunicationResearch #CARELectureSeries #CARECCA #CAREMassey #MasseyUni #Aotearoa #NewZealand

Future Directions of Applied Communication Research Lecture Series | Strategies for Conducting Applied Communication Research that Can Make a Difference

Lecture Topic: Strategies for Conducting Applied Communication Research that Can Make a Difference with Distinguished Professor Gary Kreps, George Mason University

Tuesday, 3rd September 2024 @ 10 am NZST on Facebook LIVE & YouTube LIVE!  

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/RMBrKaZwjuCLG5XZ/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/live/H-KCN0hnwuU

About the Lecturer: Prof. Gary Kreps is completing his 20th year on the faculty at George Mason University, where he currently serves as a Distinguished University Professor of Communication and Founding Director of the Center for Health and Risk Communication.   Prof. Gary teaches courses concerning Communication Research, Health Communication, Risk Communication, Interpersonal Communication, Organizational Communication, Consumer-Provider Health Communication, Health Communication Campaigns, and Digital Communication.  

Prior to joining the faculty at Mason, he had the pleasure of serving as the Founding Chief of the Health Communication and Informatics Research Branch at the National Cancer Institute (NIH), where he planned, developed, and coordinated major new national research and outreach initiatives concerning risk communication, health promotion, behavior change, technology development, and information dissemination to promote effective cancer prevention, screening, control, care, and survivorship.

Prof. Gary also served as the Founding Dean of the School of Communication at Hofstra University, Executive Director of the Greenspun School of Communication at UNLV, and in faculty and administrative roles at Northern Illinois, Rutgers, Indiana, and Purdue Universities.  

Read more here

Read more about the CARE Lecture Series:

https://www.massey.ac.nz/about/news/care-to-host-renowned-academics-in-its-applied-communication-lecture-series/

#AppliedCommunicationResearch #CARELectureSeries #CommunicationResearch #GaryKreps #CAREMassey #MasseyUni #GeorgeMasonUniversity #CARECCA #Aotearoa #NewZealand

Prof. Mohan Dutta ranked in the Top 10 scholars globally for his research in Cultural Studies

The Center for Culture-centered Approach to Research and Evaluation (CARE) congratulates Professor Mohan Dutta for being ranked among the Top 0.5% of all scholars worldwide by ScholarGPS.

ScholarGPS “provides rankings of individuals and institutions Overall (in all Fields) in 14 broad Fields and in 350,000+ Specialities.

Professor Dutta is ranked 12 worldwide in his field of Journalism for his research accomplishments over the prior 5 Years and is ranked 30 worldwide in Journalism in the Lifetime.

In his specialisation area of Cultural Studies, he is ranked  number 7 worldwide for prior 5 Years. During the same period, he is ranked 4 worldwide for the quality of his scholarship. He is ranked 17 in the area of Cultural Change.

For his accomplishments in the area of Social Change, he is ranked 35 worldwide in the Lifetime. He is ranked 18 worldwide over the prior 5 Years for his productivity in the scholarship of Social Change, and 24 for his productivity in area over Lifetime.

Opinion: India’s General Election 2024: Everyday habits of democracy that resist authoritarian populism

Friday 7 June 2024, By Professor Mohan Dutta

Image credit: Naveed Ahmed – Unsplash.

The outcome of India’s 2024 General Election marks a significant moment in the nation’s democratic journey, punctuating the beginning of the process of democratic renewal since Hindutva’s take-over of institutional structures and democratic processes that started unfolding since the 2014 General Election. The renowned activist Harsh Mander describes it as “the most consequential in India’s journey of 74 years as a republic.” The critical question that lies ahead is: How does the 2024 moment form the pathway toward the renewal of India’s constitutional values that were born out of the anti-colonial struggle?

The results stand testimony to the power of those at India’s margins, Dalits, Muslims, and women, to stand up to the forces of authoritarianism that have worked over the past decade to destroy India’s fundamental democratic institutions. Amidst the jubilant celebrations of the power of grassroots democracy to halt powerful political and economic forces that have worked in tandem seeking to turn India into a Hindu Rashtra (Hindu nation), we must critically reflect on the deeper implications of this electoral exercise for the future of democracy in India, and the broader implications for global geopolitics.

The elections witnessed overwhelming participation of Dalits and Muslims, with the election of Dalit and Muslim leaders into the parliament. Consider here the election of the Dalit leader Chandrashekhar Azad from the Nagina constituency, based on a campaign platform seeking to protect the Indian constitution, designed by the Dalit lawyer B. R. Ambedkar. Consider similarly the electoral win of the 26-year-old Sanjana Jatav who hails from a Dalit community, from the Bharatpur constituency in Rajasthan, among the list of the youngest members of the Parliament. Despite Hindutva’s organised strategies of suppressing Dalit and Muslim votes, those at the margins mobilised to exercise their democratic rights at the ballots, underscoring the power of democracy at the grassroots, secured through everyday struggle. It stands witness to the beautiful experiment on the global stage that is India’s democracy, resilient against the repressive forces mobilised behind the strongman politics of Narendra Modi.

Over the past decade, and more so since his election in 2019, Modi has carried out systemic attacks on democratic institutions. Opposition politicians, independent journalists critical of the Modi regime, dissenting activists, and a wide range of civil society organisations have been systematically targeted and harassed through raids by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), the agency charged with fighting economic crimes, creating a climate of fear and intimidation.

The Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), designed as an instrument to regulate activities that threaten the sovereignty of India, has been broadly interpreted to target dissenting voices against Hindutva, instrumentalised to label dissenting activists as “anti-national,” and incarcerating them. Salient here is the deployment of the law to target Adivasi (Indigenous) rights activists, human rights activistsenvironmental defenders, and journalists critical of Hindutva’s power grab. The large-scale attacks on dissenters have produced a chilling effect, creating an atmosphere of fear and self-censorship that has undermined democracy.

These repressive processes have been directed toward journalists and media infrastructures as well, while corporate interests aligned with the BJP’s right-wing politics have taken over mainstream media infrastructures, systematically turning them into the lapdogs of Hindutva.

Both the judiciary and the Election Commission of India, two critical pillars of India’s democracy, have been categorically undermined, with the BJP making wholesale political appointments into these institutions. Civil society organisations note the large-scale failure of these institutional structures to place checks and balances on the BJP as it has launched a full-blown assault on the constitution.

Note here the electoral bonds scheme passed by the BJP, allowing anonymous donations to political parties and undermining the transparency of the democratic process by facilitating the flow of undisclosed funds. The ruling BJP strategically utilised the electoral bonds to subvert Indian democracy, benefitting disproportionately from the bonds alongside vested corporate interests exerting undue influence on policies through this pathway.

Professor Mohan Dutta

Hindutva’s direct attacks on democratic institutions and institutional capture have been accompanied by its large-scale mobilisation of anti-Muslim hate, both offline and online, with television channels forming the critical infrastructure of hate. Termed India’s version of Radio Rwanda, these hate channels have manufactured and amplified the narrative of the Muslim infiltrator threatening the safety and security of India’s majority Hindus. Building up to the elections, BJP politicians, including its lead campaigner Narendra Modi delivered extreme Islamophobic speeches, referring to the Muslim population explosion, Muslim threats to Hindu property, and Muslim infiltrators, designed to evoke fear among the Hindu voter base. Critical observers have described the 2024 election campaign as the most hate-filled campaign, specifically highlighting Modi’s extremist speech. The violent rhetoric of Hindutva is juxtaposed in the backdrop of extreme violence directed at Adivasis, Dalits, Christians, and Muslims.

The discursive infrastructure of the “Hindu in fear” is mobilised alongside the propaganda of Modi as Godman, constructing him as a cult-like figure that has descended from the Gods to save India’s 1.1 billion Hindus and return India to its lost glory. Through various manufactured events, Modi has designated himself as the voice of God, reminiscent of fascist techniques of propaganda around Hitler and Mussolini. In a speech in the 2024 election cycle, Modi proclaimed himself as a divine essence who has transcended biological birth.

That the BJP was unable to secure the hegemonic position that would enable it to transform the Indian constitution along the lines of Hindu Rashtra speaks to the power of grassroots participation as a pillar of deliberative democracy. That the BJP candidate in Banswara where Modi labelled Muslims as infiltrators lost to Rajkumar Roat of the Bharat Adivasi Party (BAP), by a margin of 2,47,054 votes, speaks to the power of India’s margins in challenging Hindutva’s hate politics. That the BJP lost in the Faizabad, the very constituency in which Ayodhya – the place where the sixteenth-century mosque Babri Masjid was located until it was destroyed by Hindutva mobs and where the temple consecrating Lord Ram was built, forming the foundation of Hindutva’s voter appeal to the Hindu majority – is located, speaks to the critical role of bread and butter issues such as unemployment and social welfare.

The 2024 General Elections offer hope for India. This hope lies in the participation of those at India’s margins who are often the targets of the techniques of authoritarian repression, as the very antidote to the rise of authoritarian populism. This process of constitutional renewal however has a long road ahead that requires sustained dialogues and collective organising around the rights to voice and democracy of the margins of India who have been systematically disenfranchised by Hindutva’s far-right politics. It requires the ongoing and careful work of building and sustaining civil society as spaces of resistance to Hindutva, both in India and in the diaspora.

It requires those of us who have risked our lives and livelihoods to challenge Hindutva’s onslaught over the past decade to bear witness to Hindutva’s excesses and to build broad coalitions in India and in the global community that work toward dismantling the pernicious ideology. It requires the mobilisation of the global community around the plights of India’s minorities, particularly its 200 million+ Muslims, developing mechanisms for international legal infrastructures to hold India to account on its human rights record. It requires global civil society to draw on this moment to secure the release of unlawfully incarcerated political prisoners in India.

Here in Aotearoa, it requires the Crown to recognise that Indian Dalis, Muslims, Sikhs, and Christians form a significant proportion of the diaspora, and listening to their voices should be at the core of how Aotearoa engages India. It requires mainstream politicians and Crown ministers to educate themselves on Hindutva, recognising its presence here, and developing policy mechanisms to regulate Hindutva funding and Hindutva organisations.

It requires global civil society to draw on this moment to secure the release of unlawfully incarcerated political prisoners in India. It requires the global recognition that the state of democracy in India is vital to the security and sustenance of the international rules-based order.

As we move forward from the elections, let us commit ourselves to the task of strengthening and deepening democracy in India. Let us commit to uprooting the infrastructure of Hindutva seeded by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), including in the form of Hindutva organisations here in Aotearoa. What happens to India’s democracy matters to the global community’s journey in co-creating sustainable futures.

Professor Mohan Dutta is Dean’s Chair Professor of Communication at Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa Massey University. He is the Director of the Center for Culture-Centered Approach to Research and Evaluation (CARE), developing culturally-centered, community-based projects of social change, advocacy, and activism that articulate health as a human right.