Dismantling Communicative Inequalities with Mohan Dutta

In today’s episode, we talk about how the study of communication can help us understand and resist social inequity.   My guest is  Prof. Mohan Dutta, Dean's Chair Professor of Communication at Massey University. He is the Director of the Center for the Culture-Centered Approach to Research and Evaluation (CARE).  Prof. Dutta is the winner of the 2016 International Communication Association (ICA) Applied/Public Policy Communication Research Award, and the 2018 Outstanding Health Communication Scholar Award. He serves on the Advisory Panel of the World Health Organization (WHO) Cultural Contexts of Health (CCH) group. 

Mohan discusses how we can the CCA as a lens to better understand the current political environment, communication inequality, as well as communicative sovereignty. His take on disinformation, as a critical scholar myself, is one of the most thought-provoking I’ve heard 

Here are a few of Mohan’s  articles that relate to our discussion:

Dutta, MJ. (2023). Applied communication, witnessing, and decolonizing futures. Journal of Applied Communication Research. 51(6), 579-581

Elers, C., & Dutta, M. (2023). Academic-community solidarities in land occupation as an Indigenous claim to health: culturally centered solidarity through voice infrastructures. Frontiers in Communication. 8

Dutta, MJ. (2022). Communication as raced practice. Journal of Applied Communication Research. 50(3), 227-228

Dutta, MJ. (2022). De-centering the whiteness of applied communication research: some editorial strategies. Journal of Applied Communication Research. 50(2), 109-110

Māori Scholars on the role of disinformation (or myth-making) in colonisation 

Jackson, M. (2018). Colonization as myth-making: A case study in Aotearoa. In Being Indigenous (pp. 89-101). Routledge.

Jackson, M. (2020). Where to next? Decolonisation and stories in the land in Imagining Decolinsation Bridget Williams Books

Mikaere, A. (2013). Racism in contemporary Aotearoa: A Pākehā problem. Colonising Myths-Maori Realities: He Rukuruku Whakaaro, 92-126.

Miller, R. J., & Ruru, J. (2008). An indigenous lens into comparative law: the doctrine of discovery in the United States and New Zealand. W. Va. L. Rev., 111, 849.

Ngata, T. (2019). Kia Mau: resisting colonial fictions. Kia Mau Campaign.

Ritchie, J., Skerrett, M., & Rau, C. (2014). Kei tua i te awe māpara: Countercolonial unveiling of neoliberal discourses in Aotearoa New Zealand. International Review of Qualitative Research, 7(1), 111-129.

Transcript

Unsettling Extremism 

Dismantling Communicative Inequalities with Mohan Dutta 

Mohan  00:05

The ongoing organizing of communication spaces around logics of colonialism, capitalism and patriarchy produces systemic erasure of voices,

Avery Smith  00:23

Kia ora. I'm Dr Avery Smith, and welcome to unsettling extremism. In today's episode, we talk about how the study of communication can help us understand and resist social inequities. My guest is Professor Mohan Dutta, Dean's chair professor of Communication at Massey University. He is the director of the Center for the culture centered approach to research and evaluation. Professor Dutta is the winner of the 2016 Communication Association applied public policy communication research award and the 2018 outstanding communication Scholar Award. He serves on the advisory panel for the World Health Organization, cultural context of Health Group. Mohan discusses how we can use the culture centered approach as a lens to better understand the current political environment, communication inequality as well as communicative sovereignty. His take on disinformation. As a critical scholar myself, is one of the most thought provoking I've heard. Make sure you listen for it. Now I'm happy to introduce you to Mohan. Mohan, it is such a pleasure to be able to talk to you today, so why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself. What were you like as a kid growing up? What were you into? Were you always into communication? What? What were you like?

Mohan  01:50

What a beautiful question, you know. So talking about myself as a kid, I think I would have to reflect a little bit about my whanau and I grew up in this large extended family where the family lived together, and sort of, my grandmother was the matriarch of the family, and that really shaped my years of growing up in the sense that I was surrounded by uncles and aunts and the family who were involved in union organizing, in Left Party organizing, and that really shaped my awareness of the world, particularly in terms of working class politics. I grew up in Bengal, West Bengal, in the 1970s and then going into 1980s so this is also a time when the Left Party in Bengal had been consistently elected back to power and drove a series of pretty progressive policies, like the land reforms, for instance, that were some of the largest land reforms carried out in India. And I would say that that broader context shaped my years of growing up. So I grew up, you know, doing theater, a lot of street theater, participating in protests, performing theater at strikes, you know, so and many of those elements actually fluidly moved between the family spaces like, you know, my aunt was herself a union organizer and organizer of the women's Democratic Party locally. She was one of the key architects of these performances, and I think that really created a register for my social awareness growing up. You know, the other thing I wanted to say is that I loved being in public spaces performing, whether it is public speaking or choreography or being involved in drama, and those became avenues the expressive and performative arts really became avenues through which I learned a lot about the world around me. Yeah,

Avery Smith  04:28

yeah. You know that's so interesting, because it really does make me think. And as I do these interviews, hearing about people's early lives, it does really make sense how you ended up where you did right? Because you have that, that radical left element, right, with your family, the union organizing, and then your own sort of expression through, through the performing arts, right? And I can kind of see how that comes together in your in your work. Right? And in your research. So can you tell us a little bit about what your area of research is?

Mohan  05:04

Yeah, and I think Avery it's beautiful that you sort of draw this connection between our growing up years and then how that shapes our engagement with the world in the contemporary context, right? And my research, which really explores the question of, what does it mean for communities who have systematically been disenfranchised to have a voice? So I talk about this concept called Voice infrastructures, which refers to material resources to tools, to spaces that communities own, where they can articulate their voices and through which they can express their voices in public, discursive registers to try to shift policy, both in terms of engaging with policy, but also in terms of resisting the kinds of structures of settler colonialism, capitalism, patriarchy, you know. And I think that question in terms of how do communities materially mobilize to have their voices be heard is at the core of my research program. And here I want to point out one thing again, going back to my childhood, Avery, you know. So I grew up in a very conscious left environment, but it is only later reflecting back upon it is as a child I reflected back upon it in a way that made me feel very empowered. But also there were inequalities that were built into those left spaces that remained uninterrogated, the patriarchy, the cisn ormativity, the caste structures so the left parties, for instance, in India, for the longest time, did not have Adivasi or indigenous leadership, did not have leadership of oppressed caste communities, had limited opportunities for women. So those kinds of questions that then started coming to me, particularly in terms of interrogating my own familial history, became quite pertinent to my current research program in terms of asking the question, then, when we talk about communities having a voice, whose voice is being represented, that communities are not monolithic spaces. So how do we conceptualize the inequalities that exist within communities, the inequalities of gender, caste, inequalities of heteronormativity, and the ways in which then that shapes who can and cannot participate. So I'm also increasingly interested in this question, how do these voice infrastructures work as spaces that are continually open to listening to the voices of the margins of the margins?

Avery Smith  08:16

Let me ask you about your research and what is community centered approach when it comes to communication.

Mohan  08:22

So, you know, at the heart of the culture centered approach that I 

Avery Smith  08:27

Sorry, culture centered approach, sorry, 

Mohan  08:29

That's okay. At the heart of the culture centered approach that I work with is this idea that the ongoing organizing of communication spaces around logics of colonialism, capitalism and patriarchy produces systemic erasure of voices. So at the heart of marginalization is what I call communication inequality, inequality in the distribution of communication resources, which include information, including information about how to access structures, like, where do you go to get health care? Where do you go to get particular services to resources for participation and decision making, to resources for voice. So what we then see is that these communication inequalities between communities and within communities shape the material inequalities that we witness and in turn, are shaped by those material inequalities. Now a significant chunk of my work has focused on health disparities or health inequalities, and I have made the argument that when you really want to make sense of what shapes these. Health inequalities, we need to look at the communicative resources. So just to give you an example, say, I'm going to go back to the US and my work in the US, because that was one of the earliest starting points of this work. When you look at heart health inequalities between the African American population and the Caucasian population, you see that there is a significant and tangible gap. Now, the dominant approach to addressing this is to say that, well, you know, one of the things that we know is that eating five servings of fruits and vegetables shapes your heart health so you create culturally based programs with African American communities trying to promote eating five servings of fruits and vegetables. Now the culture centered approach comes in and says that that kind of messaging that might be called culturally grounded or culturally sensitive is good, but it leaves the dominant structure intact. So how could you be talking about eating fruits and vegetables and five servings of fruits and vegetables when you have deeply unequal structures in terms of how food is distributed, who has access to food? You have a racist organizing of food systems that shape who does and does not have access to food. You have racist organizing. So spaces like parks such as you know, Gary is one of the spaces where I did quite a bit of my work. And Gary Indiana, south of Chicago, used to be a steel town, predominantly African American, with very large health disparities compared to the Caucasian population average. And when you look at spaces of Gary, the spaces for play, working out, exercising, have been systematically either dismantled or encroached upon. So the culture centered approach then comes in to say, Well, if the nature of health inequalities are shaped by structures and how resources are organized, how do we build spaces in communities where communities can have their voices and mobilize toward advocacy to change those structures. That's why at the core of my work is communication advocacy to change the organizing structures or the upstream structures of that shape health inequalities.

Avery Smith  12:38

What I'm hearing from you is that communication and equality comes from some real, material kinds of structures that impact who is able to have a voice, how they're able to have a voice, and sort of who, who impacts the policies and the procedures and the structures of perhaps larger society, right? So it's that. It's not just this theory that, oh well, you know, we need to listen to marginalized voices. It's real world impacts of the systems that create us not listening to those voices in the first place. Is that right?

Mohan  13:23

Absolutely. And so in that sense, then the question is, when we build spaces for listening, if we were to turn this then, in terms of walk through the CCA or the culture centered approach to where it wants to have an impact, it says that, well, we need to build architectures of listening in dominant spaces. Now what does that mean? That's not just saying, let's listen to voices. What it is saying is that let's fundamentally dismantle these communicative inequalities and how the logics in which these structures are organized, so that communities that are already participating can be heard. And this part is really important in ways that are meaningful. So yes, yes, yes, that are meaningful meaning that way they can create tangible impact, you know. So going back to I'll just give you two examples, going back to my work in the US with the African American heart health, a critical part of that work was developing anti racist strategies addressing policing, security, and this is, you know, before Black Lives Matter, Right? But broader context really sort of trying to articulate some of those threads that then found expression in BLM in much more powerful ways, which is that if you're feeling insecure, if you're just walking through, say, a store like Walmart shopping, and you're being surveilled, and that's. Impacting your heart health. How do we change the racist organizing and surveillance of Walmart? So what that actually translates into Avery is organizing in material ways that changes how these racist structures are fundamentally organized. That's just one example. I want to do another example in a different context. You know, another piece of work, again, going back to the US that we did in the context of the financial crisis, is around voices of hunger. And what it was organized around is trying to address food insecurity among highly precarious working class families that had lost their jobs in the context of the financial crisis. And you know again, that space worked toward fundamentally, then reorganizing ideas of food and food distribution, saying that even notions like you have food pantries, for instance, you know that were organized around neoliberal logics that then decide who is the deserving recipient and who is not the deserving recipient and continue to perpetuate marginalization. So how do we fundamentally dismantle that by changing the very meaning of what underlies that organizing, by changing this idea that access to food ought to be determined by who deserves and who doesn't deserve, but rather by ideas of universality, that food is a universal resource. So, so in that sense, you see what actually, then, this process of communities having voices does is it changes the very meanings that we take for granted in the dominant structures. And by changing those meanings, it creates spaces for reorganizing those systems.

Avery Smith  17:01

I get you. Yeah, I understand. And you know, it's actually resonating with some of my own research. So I'm, I was looking at education, and I was really interrogating this question of because, you know, in in New Zealand education system, there's a big push for having inclusion of Māori perspectives and voices. And I was really interrogating that, that term inclusion, because, what? What does that really mean? Right? Because, if you're including something, you've already made everything. You've made the structure, and this comes in as an afterthought, right? So what, what I was sort of arguing for is, let's get rid of that. What we've already done, that organizing that's already been done, and start from the bottom again. And you know, meaningfully include, not just include, but have it be the foundation, I guess, is really of the educational system here, right? And so I'm hearing that you are actually advocating for a lot of the same things. Because what you're doing is you're going in and you're saying the structures that we have are not fit for purpose, for what we're trying to do here, and we need to change those systems so that they work for the people who need them?

Mohan  18:21

Yes, beautiful. And I love how you interrogate the term inclusion itself in this sense, because, after all, the rules of inclusion are set by structures of whiteness that keeps the power intact and determines who will and will not be included. So I love your idea of then starting from communities in terms of articulating what does it mean to be in this space. And I want to just expand on that example you gave on education to funding, you know. So for instance, you know, this is my critical response to a funding structure like, say, Marsden, on one hand, I think that it is really sad in terms of the ways in which the structure has dismantled Humanities and Social Science Education. On the other hand , you know, I also acknowledge that the funding structure has served as an important mechanism for supporting important work, including Māori scholarship, having said that, you know, if you look at the ways in which the structure is organized, I think it is very much organized within the logics of settler colonialism and within the broader ideology of whiteness, such that it continues to perpetuate notions of inclusion with mechanisms like you know, you're required to write in your vision mataranga, you're required to write in how your proposal fits into a particular idea of how the crown as a structure of whiteness sees vision Matauranga as palatable and acceptable. So crown still sets the terms for what is acceptable. And one of the things that I see there is sort of, for instance, you look at the kind of superficial performativity around Te Tiriti that comes in as signal or a gesture to secure a funding application. But then when Te Tiriti is actually under attack, you don't see that body of scholarship actually be in public, in the open, actually advocating for Te Tiriti and standing up against the structure. And I think that perversity is produced by that logic of inclusion, because whiteness has made sure that it retains its power by including in the terms that is palatable to itself.

Avery Smith  20:51

You know, it just, it's just occurred to me that we're using this term whiteness a lot, yes and it's one of those, those issues where people can easily have misunderstandings about what we're talking about. So when you're saying whiteness, Mohan, what is it that you're talking about? Are you talking about white people? 

Mohan  21:09

Not  at all. I'm talking about a larger underlying ideology that is based upon the organizing values of white culture, and then the ways in which these values are upheld as universal. So you take values like individualism, you take values of merit, you take values around competition for resources. You take values around reductionism. These fundamental values shape then how we organize ourselves. So I'll give you an example. Avery, I come as an Indian. I come from a post colonial context, but I think in many ways, I perpetuate the ideology of whiteness by virtue of being in the university and working through those individualizing reductionist notions of merit and progress and securing resources. Does that make sense?

Avery Smith  22:11

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It absolutely does. And to me, when I when I talk about whiteness, I see it as a system of power that sort of organizes the way that we see and interact with each other in the world, and it just becomes so normal and and, quote, unquote natural that we don't even interrogate it, and we don't even see it anymore, right? Yes. So when it comes to things like, oh, it just makes sense. Well, does it just makes sense, or is it something that's been passed on to us through a colonial legacy, or a racist legacy, or something like that? Because it always it comes from somewhere. It doesn't just appear right exactly. So it's important, important for us to really look at where we get some of these ideas.

Mohan  22:57

Yes, and I think Avery, you know, thank you for that explanation. And I want to give you an example. So say, for instance, I can craft a really cool vision mataranga statement in a proposal that I write and uphold whiteness at the same time. You know? 

Avery Smith  23:15

Oh, well, yeah, yeah. Because what happens is whiteness begins to co-opt the very ideas Yes, and the decolonial messaging and anti racist messaging, like, for example, in the US and starts to use it for its own benefit

Mohan  23:31

Exactly. I mean, you know, one of the most powerful things of the post colonials in a post colonial context, I will articulate, is that you see all these guardians of post colonial scholarship completely go hiding in the context of the Israeli occupation of Palestine. They have no statements to make. And, you know, I was just watching a meme the other day. It was saying, oh, you know these, there are these scholars that are saying, Oh, we will watch from a distance and feel so sad of what is going on. And then once Gaza has been completely dismantled, then we will write pieces on gender and post colonial trauma in Gaza, you know? So it is kind of the perpetuating, the extractive logic, the logic that you can take stories, lived experiences, communities, extract them into data. And here I think of the work of Linda  Tuhiwai Smith, which is so inspiring, you know. And or the work of my colleague, Graham Hingangaroa  Smith, who talks about ringa ropa, right, right, that the work of building theory is tied to the calluses on your hands, you know. And what that is inviting us to do is actually challenge that whiteness in terms of the system of organizing of power, and to really ask, what does it mean to be in community, in struggle, placing our bodies on the line and being accountable to the people? Culture that we are in the midst of 100%

Avery Smith  25:04

What does sort of your culture centered approach? How does that help us understand mis and disinformation and the way it works? 

Mohan  25:14

Thank you  for that question. So the culture centered approach makes three arguments. First of all, it suggests that misinformation is information. First of all, let's just unpack these things right? Misinformation is information that is incorrect, and then disinformation is the strategic uses of misinformation that classification, I think, is really important. That brings me to the second point, which is we need to really look at systems of power and control that shape how disinformation is organized in society. And then what the culture centered approach suggests is that we need to examine disinformation in relationship to communicative inequality, that disinformation is deployed to reproduce, magnify, create communicative inequalities, to actually erase those communities that are targeted, communities at the margins were often targeted by those at power, To further disenfranchise and erase them. And therefore disinformation as a technique is not something new, but rather it is part of the settler colonial architecture. It is part of the Imperial architecture, and it has been used historically to disenfranchise communities, to invade, communities to carry out genocides and rapes, and to actually justify them by saying that these communities are less than human, by dehumanizing them so communicative inequality, In this sense, intrinsically produces the narrative of less than, or the narrative of other, which lies then at the heart of how disinformation works, which is the continual production of the other as less than and therefore incapable of participating in these discursive spaces.

Avery Smith  27:20

Love it. I love it. So, yeah, I really like what you were saying there, because it really gets to this idea of the purpose of disinformation in a way that I haven't heard articulated before in this way and and I think that you're right, it does serve to sort of produce the other. And you're right, the non-deserving other, the less than the savage, the whatever, right. And I think I really, I really appreciate that, that way of thinking about it. One other thing that I was that I was thinking of as you were talking and you know, in some of my research, I've heard, you know, several Māori academics talking about how colonialism is the original source of disinformation in Aotearoa. And you know, these myths or lies, or whatever it is you want to call it, and how they sort of worked to to produce the the colonial state that we have. I just want to give a shout out right now my my brain is not giving me the names of the of the wonderful authors that have, that have said that, but I will go back and I'll, I'll put those in the show notes for sure when I, when I find them. So

Mohan  28:40

Nga mihi and I look forward to actually reading your show notes.

Avery Smith  28:46

Thank you. Thank you. In an Aotearoa context, what does a culture centered approach sort of add and what are some examples of perhaps a culture centered approach to communication in Aotearoa?

Mohan  29:02

Yeah, thank you for that question. So I think in the Aotearoa context, the culture centered approach asks, first of all, what are the registers for communicative inequality and their linkages with disinformation that continue to produce the erasure of Māori voices, particularly the ongoing attacks on Tino Rangatiratanga. And then you know, the culture centered approach proposes a response to that which is the concept of communicative sovereignty, which is when communities own spaces of communication that serves as the basis for articulating alternative forms of organizing, and I think, for the culture centered approach engaging with Kaupapa Māori in dialog, engaging with the Te Tiriti in conversation is a beautiful way to actually see how does communicative sovereignty get enacted within the broader context of Tino Rangatiratanga. And then let me give you a tangible example of this. So when we most recently, see the suspension of the members of Parliament of Te Pati Māori for performing the haka in response to the Treaty Principles Bill, which is a perfect example of disinformation and that infrastructure of communicative inequality, then the way in which the Crown response further perpetuates that disinformation and communicative inequality, because it now establishes and continues to set up as a norm, the ideals of whiteness and civility in terms of what are the ways to belong in Parliament or to be in Parliament, to fundamentally erase cultural articulations of resistance to a bill that itself is aggressive symbolically in that sense, so I find the culture centered approach beautifully elucidated in Aotearoa, and in fact, as a space for my own theoretical work, I found Aotearoa to be a really meaningful space, because you see that play out quite powerfully, but also in terms of the possibilities of resistance. You know, I often write this, and I say this in any opportunity that I get to participate in korero, which is that we have so much to learn from Te Tiriti. You know, globally, Te Tiriti offers us a register for how to resist disinformation, how to resist hate. And in fact, I say this to my American colleagues, if you're listening to what is going on in Aotearoa, there are lessons to be learned for how we are organizing in the US. And power of that lies in that articulation of Tinu rangatiratanga. So you have, on one hand, for instance, these infrastructures of global think tanks, right wing foundations that are fundamentally seeking to erase all spaces indigenous so that you can continue expanding the spaces of extractive capitalism. The resistance to that comes from Te Tiriti, tino rangatiratanga, and this idea of communicative sovereignty when placed in that conversation, in terms of articulating an alternative sphere for voice and completely bypassing the rules of the hegemonic structure.

Avery Smith  32:58

You've sort of alluded to this a little bit, but I'll, I will just ask this question and see what you what else you might have to say about it. So, how is it that our communication can add to social inclusion and belonging for minoritized communities? How is it that communication can serve, you know, some of these loftier goals.

Mohan  33:22

I think you know that communication lies at the heart of how we challenge these structures, because it comes to voice, and it comes to this question of who has the voice and who doesn't have the voice. So the question for minoritized communities, becomes two fold. One is, how do we build voice infrastructures in communities, so that communities can organize and come together, and then voice infrastructures in an outwardly facing way, where they can organize to be heard in those spaces of power connected to this is the second concept, which is, how do we see connections between struggles? Because when voices express themselves, the structure will push back the structure. That is the nature of the structure. It surveils. It divides the strategies of pushing back, one of those being the classic divide and control, the divide and rule kind of strategy. So it's going to use that. So then the question is, how do we get these voice infrastructures to speak with each other, to be in solidarity, to see connection? And I think again, you know, if you go back to, you know, care, the center I direct, has a residency program for activists. It's called activists in residence program. And we had, at one point, the New Zealand activist, and now a Green Party, MP, Teanau Tuiono as an activist in residence and Tiana and I had worked on a paper talking about whakapapa as the basis for us to thinking about solidarity, so tracing genealogies to map the ways in which our struggles connect with each other. That's just one way, but I think there is a really solid entry point for us to think about how we theorize and how we build practical solidarities. And the third point then, I want to say, is in the context of minoritized struggles, and going back to the concept of communicative inequality within communities, that's where the concept margins of the margins comes in, recognizing that there are deep inequalities within our communities. So how do we build methods of continual reflexivity, such that those at the margins of the margins can participate and their voices be heard, but also such that those of us that have the power are not taking over the space by posturing, safety, by posturing, inclusion in ways that continue to replicate the methods of whiteness. And I think that part is really important, because, you know, one of the things in my studies I have often seen is that once a movement like these voice infrastructures build movements, and once the movement has created spaces, they tend to be captured by elites, you know, or what might be termed, in the words of Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò, as elite capture, you know. And what that essentially means is that the underlying structure of marginalization continues to perpetuate itself while you have small top rim that has been contained so and what happens with that, when that happens is that we really do not effectively build structures of resistance because the foundation has been evacuated, if you will, in order to serve those at the top. So the question, I think, or on an ongoing basis, is that, how do you build the foundation that is wide, that serves those at the margins of the margins and continues to propel broader movements for change, 100%

Avery Smith  37:24

And I feel like, you know this Toni Morrison quote is, you know, coming to my mind, and I'm not going to get it right, but it was something to the effect of the power structures. You know, they keep distracting us by us continually having to prove our worth, you know, say why what we're saying is important, and that doesn't give us the time or nor the energy to be able to build this exact thing that you were just talking about, which is those, those structures that underlie the resistance. And so we have to, you know, stop being distracted by having to prove our worth constantly and just really get into the work of of organizing in community,

Mohan  38:09

yeah. And I think you know, every part of that also is, you know, when you look at critical pieces of work, such as the Revolution Will Not Be Funded. I think there is also a message there in terms of the NGOization of social change, you know, which is that when the organizing of social change has become so funding driven and professionalized, such that it is now in the hands of a professional managerial class which who can get an MBA or a degree at an elite institution and then come lead social change in communities. It we have to be able to actually call that out and say that, look that this is extractive. Because I think that to the extent that we don't do that, we build up structures to fail, such that when you then have a fascist response, or when you have the Trumpian movement, that structure will vanish. Because actually, we haven't really spent the time in community, in solidarity, building the infrastructure. So you know people, when I offer social change workshops, and oftentimes I get sort of a pushback with this idea that, oh, you know, if there is no funding, how can social change happen? And again, I go back to my childhood, and you know, it's seeing how grassroots organizing work, and that work didn't need permission from the state or from the Crown or from the colonizer to act, you know. So I think we have to also look at how our grassroots movements have worked and their politics of refusal, the continual refusal to actually be sold into the structure that has retained the power of organizing at the grassroots, yeah,

Avery Smith  40:02

yeah, no, I hear you, and that's actually a perfect segue into this last question I have for you here, which is, you know, as academics and as community members, how is it we can use our communication to push back against these, these policies and these practices that are really, you know, harming our community. So what do you what do you think?

Mohan  40:27

Wow, you know, you're asking so many beautiful and thought provoking questions, Avery and the real necessary questions for our times. I think, you know, the first thing I want to say is that not all academics are equal. There are those of us with power vis a vis precarious and hyper precarious academics. So academia is a variegated spaces, and the ongoing neoliberal reforms within academia has created hyper precarity in ways where many brilliant students, activists, early career researchers, struggle to find the pathways into mobility in academia. So you know, when I entered academia in 2000s it was a different pace for how academia was organized than what it is today, and I think that's the first thing I would have to say, is that when we talk about how we organize academia and how we respond in community context, it's really important to remember that as academics, we are community And it's important to think about how we are creating spaces resisting the hyper precarization of the academe. So collectivization, unionizing, I think it's really critical. But then, you know, a significant chunk and of the unionizing space, not all of it, but significant chunk of it is needs more pedagogy, much like the union spaces that I grew up amidst many decades back, needs significant pedagogy on race, on colonialism and on those concepts. So there is ongoing need for building up those spaces as well, such that hyper precarity is experienced differently by racialized, gendered scholars at the margins, and then coming to myself, or those of us who have access to spaces of Power, I think it's really critical that we think of how we place our bodies on the line. I talk a lot about this in my own work, which is that we cannot be talking about social change and justice in text and in theory and in protected and safe journal articles without placing our body on the line. And for me personally, that idea body on the line turns to the question of whom am I accountable to? Am I accountable to the communities that I write in solidarity with? If that is the case, then when Te Tiriti is under attack, my body is called upon to write, even if that might be inconvenient, even if that might produce fear. You know, I have a family. I have children. I worry about the safety and security of the family, and I think I what kind of social change would I be doing if I'm not accountable to my father? So I think that sits heavily on me. But at the same time, I think that if I were not to speak up when there is this organized attack on Te Tiriti, then, who would in the sense of the place or the position I occupy? It's not as if the struggle needs my voice to do so, and there are many, many voices, voices of tangata whenua, that are already doing so. But I think there is also an accountability placed on those of us that write about racism, write about the authority to speak up the same way about Palestine. You know, I have heard from Palestinian scholars and activists who say that, you know, it is so unsafe for me as a Palestinian, and within that context, what is the role of an ally to speak up and speak out? So on one hand, you know? And I was talking to my colleague Rand Hazou about this, which is on one hand, we talk about listening to the voices owned by the community that is being targeted. Hmm. But on the other hand, there is also a real need for speaking in friendship, with speaking alongside, looking back at the structures and interrogating them. And then I want to come back to this question of community that you started with Avery, and I think that sometimes we have a tendency to think that community is elsewhere, you know. And I think that can be quite unproductive when thinking about community, because it can shift the work of accountability to elsewhere. So for me, accountability is not just writing an autoethnographic piece about all my privileges, you know, it is really about being held accountable to the people and communities that I materially work with, you know. And for me, in that sense, I like to work with the physical spaces in which I belong. So here in Te papaya, I work in community in terms of how we organize to build voice infrastructures. In Highbury, for instance, which is often framed as a low decile community with deficits. We work on how we build voice infrastructures co-created by tangata whenua and refugees to challenge those narratives. You know, so communities grow food, they grow kai. They create community cupboards for food. They create cultural spaces for refugee children and tangata whenua to come together so that very material, tangible work, I think is really important in terms of keeping us grounded in academia. So I find in terms of the work of the culture centered approach and my own work, that community offers the grounding and the anchor through which I can do the work.

Avery Smith  46:59

Yeah, no, I 100% hear you, and I think that reflects a lot of my own philosophy behind academia and my scholarship as well. Because it's all great if I can go in and I can do these studies and I can learn about all of these different and interesting ideologies. But what difference does it make if I don't go and actually do something material with it? You know what? Scholarship without Praxis is just a self-serving endeavor, I would suppose so. So that's, you know, one of my big things as well. And it sounds like that's something that we share if I'm going to do this work, if I'm going to learn from communities, I'm going to actually do something with this work, to serve the community, to sort of give back, you know, because it's not Yes, and I think it's not extractive,

Mohan  47:55

No, exactly. And I think, you know, the ongoing challenge for that, sometimes, particularly for those entering into community spaces, is that, okay? What is the work that I can do? Yeah, we can do simple things like putting a hand on the community garden and picking up the shovel and doing the work I come. Keep going back to Graham's idea of calluses on your hands, quite literally, you know, or planting seeds or serving in spaces where you're distributing food or drawing posters and placards, to actually bringing in the theory work that you're Doing into making sense of particular moments in struggles and developing strategies together. And this is the point I want to wrap up with, which is that you know, one of the things I've often found so I talk about building community spaces from the margins based upon knowledge systems and ideas that emerge from communities. That doesn't mean, though, that the academic is parceled out. We as academics are very much part of the conversation in that journey, and we bring in our theoretical anchors, our theoretical registers, to engage in that dialog or that conversation. And you know, I've often found that that is perhaps one of the most fulfilling part of conversations, which is when communities come in and say that, you know, this concept actually helped me grapple with the idea and develop strategies. I will give you an example, Avery with this, you know, we have been doing, you know, I was talking about the work we do in Highbury. So we have been developing community led, culture centered, violence prevention strategies, you know, led by tangata whenua and refugee communities. And when initially we started conversing and going. Through the conceptual work together, I introduced the term whiteness. And, you know, the community organizers in the space was like, you know, Mohan that term, you know, it's, it makes me feel uncomfortable. So what is it? And we started having dialogs around it. And this was the most beautiful thing, because, you know, they would then come and say, Aha, you know, so much makes sense in terms of how we negotiate these structures, you know. And as then they developed community pedagogy materials, they incorporated, that is the key term that then they worked with the wider community on in terms of building that register. So I think there is also work to be done in terms of public pedagogy. So much of the neoliberal academia does a good talk of justice and sustainability and all that, while it encloses off the knowledge. So I think part of our challenge is to disrupt you. In the words of Tommy itI, says that, you know, decolonizing is moving beyond the university as a traditional structure. And I think you know, part of that call is to look at what is does our public pedagogy look like. And then I think of, you know, people like Howard Zinn, or in the US context, or, I think of so many Māori scholars here, the work of you know, Linda Smith, the work of Joanna Kidman, you know, our friend and centre director. And I think that those bodies of work, speak to and engage with community. And I wanted to say this, you know, one of the most beautiful things that I have experienced personally within this context, when talking about community, is that when I have personally been attacked by these far right structures, the most solidarity I have experienced are from Māori women, academics, including Joanna and I think that is a beautiful exemplar of that kind of pedagogy of solidarity as a concept that is not just becomes how we teach solidarity, but actually how we practice it in our everyday lives.

Avery Smith  52:20

And that's just a beautiful way to end this interview, isn't it? Lovely. Mohan, thank you so much. I've, you know, I could talk to you for probably three hours straight, and we could keep going and going and going, but thank you. Thank you so much for giving up some of your time. And again, you talked about, sort of, you know, breaking down the walls of the university, and that's sort of how I envision this podcast, you know, is taking some of those ideas from the university and just trying to make it a, you know, a bit more accessible, and, you know, have people be able to engage with it in meaningful ways. So thank you for doing that. Thank you for being on the podcast.

Mohan  52:59

You are very welcome. Thank you for including me. I feel so honoured.

Avery Smith  53:04

Thanks for listening to unsettling extremism. We talked about so much today, and I wanted to highlight some of the takeaways I had from my conversation with Mohan. Studying and theorizing about communication can at times feel a bit abstract. What I appreciate about Mohan's approach is that it grounds the issue of communication in practical considerations. It's not just about the words we say and the meanings we make, but the larger social systems that shape our communication and everyday life. I found the idea of communicative sovereignty or lack thereof, important in this discussion, especially as it relates to Māori and Te Tiriti. Who gets to decide what kinds of speech are appropriate, where? If Māori leaders are not allowed to do the Haka in Parliament without facing harsh consequences, it becomes pretty clear whose rules we're playing by. I was struck by the idea that Mohan put forth of disinformation being a way to produce the other through a particular type of communication. That it works to dehumanize and delegitimize as a means of power and control, and is ingrained into Imperial systems. It's a critical take on disinformation that draws on several areas of scholarship and a definition that I'll be using going forward. Nga mihi Mohan, I want to let our listeners know that this is the second-to-last episode of unsettling extremism. He Whenua Taurikura is in the process of closing down, and with that, we are ending this podcast. Thank you for coming along on this podcast journey with us. Your support has meant so much. One of the best things about this is hearing how this podcast has affected people, how it gave people a new way of looking at things, and it gave people ideas for further discussions. Our hope is that these conversations persist even after the disestablishment of the centre. Our final episode will be a little bit delayed, as I want it to be something special. So please be patient as I work out how to make the vision I have in my head a reality. Ma te wa, see you next time.