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Aesthetic expressions...

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Eurocentric knowledge, which emphasizes objectivist logic and many dichotomies (science/ art) basically delegitimize other ways of knowing. Postmodern, Feminist scholars and more importantly Postcolonial and Subaltern studies scholars have criticized that very approach of knowledge production.
Thus, scholars have questioned dominant methods of data collection, analysis and representation in research process. By doing so, they essentially emphasized the need for considering aesthetic rationally as a way of knowing. Storied, emotive and embodied experience of a subject may legitimate many points of view and may create alternate discursive possibilities. Based on human intuition, imagination (and often experience) an aesthetic expression may initiate and create the possibility of social transformation. Oftentimes the expressions are results/ reflection of suffering, oppressions, inequality of material reality; and at the same time that utter/ convey the hope/dream for changing the scenario or breaking the barriers.
Poetry, story, auto-ethnography, etc. are mainly considered as examples of aesthetic expressions. But it is also needed to consider other non-textual forms of expressions like sketching, dancing, theater, etc. By taking multiple genres into consideration, we may enlarge the domain and may enhance the quality of communication research. This very process fundamentally talks about reflexivity as authors noted, “Aesthetic experiences invite us to stretch our imagination to grasp events befalling another individual and craft previously unimagined possibilities”. Further, Dutta (in press) showed that multiple truths (or points of views) help us to understand different “worldviews that have historically been erased and/or treated as subjects of inquiry to be written over and about”.
Importantly, as the aesthetic expressions are the insights from lived experiences, they are not apolitical. They reflexively address the politico-economical parameters that shape the reality and/ or needs to be changed. Therefore the artists/ authors (of the expression) remain answerable to the community and society as a whole.
While explaining Culture Centered Approach, Dutta, 2008 discussed the role of agency; he mentioned that, “agency… refers to individual and group actions, meanings made of such actions, and how such actions work with and challenge existing structures”. Thus an aesthetic expression made by an agency is essentially an act that challenges present structures and envisions social transformation. Now days in class we are discussing various options of praxis and importance thereof. In my opinion, that is an effective symbolic way to express our thoughts, challenges and visions about contemporary capitalist world and its problems/ crisis.

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