CARE: Center for Culture-Centered Approach to Research and Evaluation

13/04/2026

Themed panel featuring Leon Salter (University of Auckland), Matt Russell (Massey University). Lisa Vonk (Massey University) and Micah Geiringer (student activist, former President of Te Tira Ahu Pae and former Manawatū Māori student representative, MU).

Following nearly 40 years of neoliberal reform, student voice and political participation have been in severe decline in Aotearoa universities (Nissen, 2019; Roper, 2018). The introduction of voluntary membership of student associations in 2011 rendered them reliant on universities for funding, restricting critical voices at the local level, while their representation on university councils was reduced in 2014. Further, the recent decline of the national NZUSA has deprived students of a voice within government/policy circles. While protest movements such as Students Against Cuts and others have provided energetic encouragement through strongly articulating demands for broad, quality, free tertiary education, they’ve remained dispersed around the different universities and beset by factionalism.

Concurrently, as our recent research with Massey University students has shown, many students lack the time or energy for their studies, let alone to become involved in activism or traditional politics. Students, especially those from working class backgrounds, are increasingly working long hours in precarious jobs. Particularly pronounced among women and people of colour, contemporary students are additionally loaded with caring responsibilities, accentuating disparities which are often exasperated by university structures.

This panel will be comprised of short presentations that provide an introduction to the context of student experiences in 2025 - one on university cuts and one on student precarity. The rest of the panel will be open and interactive, organised around these questions:

How can we as academics best intervene in this space? Drawing on CCA theory, how can we provide resources for the articulation of voice which can challenge oppressive structures, while preventing our own theoretical constructs from overriding their interpretations? At the same time, how do we incorporate CCA learnings into our teaching, ensuring that the “margins of the margins” have a voice in the classroom? And how can we best incorporate our research with students to reflect on and disrupt established forms of communication teaching?

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26/03/2026

We are thrilled to announce that Massey University has once again been ranked in the Top 150 in the world for Communications & Media Studies in the QS Subject Rankings 2026!

🥇 And we're 1st equal in New Zealand once again– a huge achievement that reflects the quality of our programmes, our world-class academics, and our talented students.

From applied communication, creative communication, public relations, media studies, radio and podcasting to digital media, journalism, and strategic communication – our students are gaining the skills that matter in today's fast-changing media landscape. Most vitally, our teaching is anchored in our world class research, immersion in communication practice and community engagement.

A massive congratulations to our incredible team in the School of Humanities, Media & Creative Communication, and to every student and graduate who has contributed to this success!

👏

15/03/2026

The Center for Culture-Centered Approach to Research and Evaluation (CARE) warmly invites you to join us for the next event in the CARE Lecture Series:

Sachet Capital: Platforms, Labour and Everyday Transactions in the Philippines
Speaker: Dr Cheryll Soriano
Date: Monday, 16 March 2026
Time: 12:00 noon (NZDT)
Livestream: CARE page – https://www.facebook.com/CAREatMassey
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/

About the Talk
This lecture examines the cultural economy of everyday micro-transactions in platform labour in the Philippines. Dr Soriano explores sachet capital as a conceptual lens for understanding the mechanisms through which platform capitalism expands. Through an analysis of “just-in-time” exchange logics and transactional interdependencies, the talk highlights how platforms reshape the cultural economy at the margins—particularly by blurring boundaries between labour, consumption, and finance. It draws attention to how transactional units recalibrate time and space for platform labour, the reconfiguration of credit, consumption, and labour through platform-mediated infrastructures, and the expansion of extractive operations across platform apps and gig work systems. These insights illuminate the tensions between economic aspirations and the precarities embedded in digitally mediated livelihoods.

About the Speaker

Dr Cheryll Soriano is Professor of Communication at De La Salle University, Philippines. Her research covers digital cultures, platform labour, feminist media activism, and communication rights. She leads several major projects including the Philippine leg of the “Digital Transactions in the Global South” programme and co-leads research on resilient platform work, community networks, and material care infrastructures.

We hope you will join us for this timely and critical conversation.

03/03/2026

CARE: Center for Culture-Centered Approach to Research and Evaluation at Massey University and Professor Mohan Dutta are delighted to welcome New Delhi-based artist Pallavi Paul as Artist in Residence from 4 – 6 March 2026.

Friends in Palmerston North are warmly invited to attend Pallavi’s public lecture “World-making in Troubled Times: Art as Intervention from the Global South” alongside a screening of her film How Love Moves on Wednesday 4 March, 6pm.

How Love Moves

This experimental documentary film revolves around one of the largest Islamic cemeteries in New Delhi, surrounded by both the beauty of multi-species and spiritual life, as well as the brutality of political and racialised violence. Pallavi Paul unpacks the timespan of a breath through five chapters, which are titled after Islamic prayer times – Fajr (before dawn), Zuhr (afternoon), Asr (late afternoon), Maghrib (after sunset) and Isha (nighttime) – simultaneously marking a disruption in the prayer’s connection to the circle of life.

Following Shamim Khan’s daily work on a burial site over the last two years, the film attempts to comprehend an event unprecedented in the recent history of the world – the COVID-19 pandemic – through the eyes of a keeper of the dead. Eventually, this cinematic work also traces a cross-border love story that defies religious divides, yet ends in loss and relays the daily cost of mortality in an authoritarian nation and how caregiving manifests across devotional acts at the onset of death.

26/02/2026

Starting at 7 p.m. NZST tonight the discussion around the release of our new white paper:

"Racist Bullying in New Zealand Schools: A Culture-Centred Approach to Prevention"

Ara Alam-Simmons and Professor Mohan Dutta

Grounded in the Culture-Centred Approach (CCA), this white paper theorises racist bullying in Aotearoa New Zealand schools as systemic structural violence — produced through whiteness-embedded institutions, performative diversity, and complaint processes that erase subaltern voices and sustain communicative inequality for Māori, Pasifika, and minoritised communities.
Foregrounding subaltern agency and community-driven praxis, the paper issues an urgent call for binding policy reform — co-constructed with racialised communities, anchored in Te Tiriti o Waitangi, and committed to the redistribution of institutional power toward genuine racial justice in education.

Ara Alam-Simmons and Mohan Dutta discuss the structures that perpetuate racism in New Zealand schools and outline a culture-centered approach to prevention.

22/02/2026

📢 White Paper Release | Thursday 26 February 2026 | 7:00 PM NZST

We are pleased to announce the release of our new white paper:
"Racist Bullying in New Zealand Schools: A Culture-Centred Approach to Prevention"

Ara Alam-Simmons and Professor Mohan Dutta

Grounded in the Culture-Centred Approach (CCA), this white paper theorises racist bullying in Aotearoa New Zealand schools as systemic structural violence — produced through whiteness-embedded institutions, performative diversity, and complaint processes that erase subaltern voices and sustain communicative inequality for Māori, Pasifika, and minoritised communities.
Foregrounding subaltern agency and community-driven praxis, the paper issues an urgent call for binding policy reform — co-constructed with racialised communities, anchored in Te Tiriti o Waitangi, and committed to the redistribution of institutional power toward genuine racial justice in education.

Join us this Thursday for the live broadcast. Share widely with communities, educators, researchers, and advocates working toward equity in education.

👉 Watch live on this page or on our YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/
🌐 Learn more about CARE: https://carecca.nz/

08/02/2026

Link to Professor Mohan Dutta’s Talk as Visiting Scholar at The Havens Wright Center for Social Justice

https://youtu.be/Q7WdrgWUDyQ?si=MKP0ibzg6FKdtmwA

The Center for Culture-Centered Approach to Research and Evaluation (CARE) is delighted to announce that its Director, Professor Mohan Dutta, served as a Havens Wright Center Visiting Scholar during the 2025-2026 academic year.

The Havens Wright Center is an institute for critical social theory and political analysis, housed in the Sociology Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. It sponsors an array of programs, including a Visiting Scholars Program (VSP) – for more information on the Center, please visit https://lnkd.in/eTxKQVRj.

The VSP brings distinguished scholars and activists from around the world to Madison to give a public lecture on their work, fostering critical intellectual exchange and advancing social justice. On October 16, 2025, Professor Dutta delivered a compelling talk titled "Culturally Centering Organizing for Social Justice: Co-Creating Voice Infrastructures".

Established in 1984 within the Sociology Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the Havens Wright Center for Social Justice is dedicated to promoting rigorous scholarship and progressive social and political engagement. Named in honor of the late Professors A. Eugene Havens and Erik Olin Wright, the Center embodies their legacy of combining scholarly excellence with a commitment to social change.

In his talk, Professor Dutta explored the importance of culturally centered approaches to organizing for social justice, focusing on co-creating voice infrastructures that empower marginalized communities to develop and control their own narratives. Drawing on the Culture-Centered Approach (CCA)—the foundational framework guiding CARE's work—he shared insights from community-led initiatives in Aotearoa New Zealand, West Bengal (India), Singapore, and beyond, addressing issues such as material inequality, resistance to state violence, and building solidarity amid structural challenges. His scholarship and activism align closely with the Center’s mission to bridge academic inquiry with societal impact, while advancing CARE's global commitment to justice-based, participatory communication that transforms social determinants of health and inequality.

You can watch the full recorded lecture here:

CARE is proud of Professor Dutta’s contributions to this prestigious platform and the vibrant dialogue he sparked through the Visiting Scholars Program.

His participation underscores the international reach and impact of culture-centered scholarship in advancing social justice worldwide.

Mohan Dutta discusses the Culture-Centered Approach (CCA) approach to organizing, and its global impact spanning from New Zealand to West Bengal and Singapor...

14/01/2026

Honouring Professor Jan Thomas: A Global Model for Academic Freedom and Justice

The Center for Culture-Centred Approach to Research and Evaluation (CARE) expresses our deepest gratitude to Professor Jan Thomas for her extraordinary leadership and unwavering support of CARE’s mission to advance social justice.

Professor Thomas has stood as a champion of academic freedom, safeguarding this foundational principle at a time when it faces unprecedented challenges globally. Her leadership has not only shaped Massey University but has offered a visionary model for Aotearoa and the world—a model that demonstrates how universities can create anchors and structures that uphold academic freedom amidst growing pressures from far-right movements and geopolitical forces seeking to silence critical voices.

In an era where academic freedom is under attack globally, Professor Thomas’ commitment to protecting spaces for critical inquiry and dissent has been transformative. By embedding the work of the university in the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, she has shown how justice, partnership, and care can serve as guiding values for institutional governance. This approach stands out globally as a beacon of hope, illustrating that universities can lead with courage and integrity in defending the right to think, question, and speak freely.

Under her stewardship, CARE has thrived as a space for community-driven research and advocacy, amplifying voices from the margins and fostering dialogue that challenges dominant structures of power. Her leadership reminds us that academic freedom is not merely an abstract ideal—it is a lived practice that enables transformative scholarship and social change.
We thank you, Professor Thomas, for inspiring us and for setting a global standard for leadership rooted in justice, care, and freedom.

Ngā mihi nui, Professor Thomas.

31/12/2025

Latest reflection from Professor Dutta on the norms of whiteness that establish as normative racist bullying. Racist bullying is violence and schools are core sites for perpetuating this violence. Unless this epidemic is addressed seriously, Aotearoa New Zealand will continue to witness levels of violence that makes it stand out.

https://culture-centered.blogspot.com/2025/12/boys-will-be-boys-ideological-weapon-of.html

"Our children and young people of colour deserve educational institutions where their humanity is not negotiable, where their safety is not conditional, where racism is treated as the urgent crisis it is rather than minimised as boyish play. Our white boys deserve liberation from toxic scripts that stunt their humanity while training them as agents of racial domination. Our collective future requires nothing less than the complete dismantling of ideological weapons like "boys will be boys" that reproduce white supremacy under cover of nature."

Mohan Dutta, Culture-centered approach, CARE, Massey University, Mohan Jyoti Dutta, Prof Mohan Dutta, Mohan J. Dutta, Communication for social change

11/12/2025

Huge congratulations to Professor Mohan Dutta on being ranked in the global Top 10 scholars in Journalism by ScholarGPS!

#4 worldwide (lifetime impact)
#7 worldwide (past 5 years)
#2 globally (lifetime) in Community Participation
#2 globally (past 5 years) in Culture Change
#11 in Global South scholarship
#6 in scholarship on Singapore
#29 in Domestic Worker Rights

Decades of culture-centered, community-led research that centres the voices of the margins is now recognised among the most impactful in the world.

This isn’t just about rankings — it’s proof that scholarship rooted in solidarity and justice can change the global academic landscape.

Ka rawe, Professor! Massey University | CARE | 🎉📢

05/12/2025

CARE is delighted to support the Songs of Solidarity book festival that brings Third World literatures and conversations into Aotearoa. Join us! Tomorrow Professor Mohan Dutta will be in conversation with CARE researcher and community organiser Richa Sharma!