Journalism, Participation and Moral Multiplicity in Odisha, India By
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Marginal Freedoms: Journalism, Participation and Moral Multiplicity in Odisha, India by Katherine B. Martineau A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Anthropology) in the University of Michigan 2014 Doctoral Committee: Professor Webb Keane, Chair Professor Emeritus Thomas Trautmann Associate Professor Matthew Hull Associate Professor Aswin Punathambekar © Katherine B. Martineau 2014 Dedication This dissertation is dedicated to my parents, Deb and Steve Martineau, and to the memory of my grandmother, Gladys Martineau. ii Acknowledgements At the end of a long and fascinating interview with a prominent journalist in Bhubaneswar, he stood up and asked me, in his elegant English, “but tell me seriously: you can’t possibly have learned anything in your study of Odisha’s journalists. Has this been worth the effort at all? Isn’t this just a waste of your time?” This question has stuck with me, resonating in different ways throughout the writing of this dissertation. What does anthropological research need to do in order to be worthwhile? How do we judge its value? Under the influence of this question, this dissertation has turned to consider some of the many ways we humans evaluate the worth of our own and others’ actions. Though I will not name him here, I thank this journalist for asking a question that I might not have asked otherwise. The clearest worth of this dissertation to me has been the selfish pleasure of interacting with so many people I admire and respect throughout its production. Due to an Institutional Review Board [IRB] approved research protocol designed to protect research participants, I am unable to thank by name most of the journalists and media producers who hosted me, talked to me, tolerated me, welcomed me, ferried me around, and sometimes befriended me in Bhubaneswar, Cuttack, Berhampur, and Delhi. The journalist whom I call Prakash was obviously iii a major influence on my research, and I value his friendship as much as I do his intellectual and pragmatic contributions. I especially thank the management and staff at the Sambad, Dharitri, Samaja, Odisha Bhaskar, Telegraph, New Indian Express, and Samadrusti for their hospitality. Soumya Ranjan Patnaik, Tathagata Satpathy, and Sudhir Pattnaik granted me informational interviews about their publications that did not include personal information, and I am grateful to be able to thank them directly for their help. There is a long list of others to whom I am grateful that is inscribed on the inside of my head. It is my hope that, if they ever were to read it, these people—who have been more interlocutors than informants—would recognize themselves in the text that follows without feeling that others would also recognize them. Because Odisha’s media world is so small and densely networked, in order to achieve the IRB-required anonymity, in addition to changing participants’ names, I have obscured identities by altering personal details and descriptions and by substituting biographical events when I could do so without effectively changing the resulting sociological context. My goal has been to write in ways that would do no harm to any of the people I write about, while also representing accurately their perspectives as best I understood them. This project follows on nearly 20 years of being fascinated with Odisha. For introducing me to Odishan culture in the first place, I thank Odissi dancer and Hindustani vocalist Smt. Sangeeta Kar of Midland, Michigan, and her family. These days I am remembering with great fondness Sangeeta’s mother, the Odia novelist Bina Mohapatra of Cuttack, who died recently. I will always remember her contagious laugh as well as her generosity and kindness during my first stay in Odisha; surely it was one of the reasons I returned. The dissertation research would iv not have been sited in Odisha if not for the support of my former dance teacher in Bhubaneswar, Smt. Sujata Mohapatra, and her husband, Guru Ratikanta Mohapatra. During my dance studies with them and the late Padmavibhusan Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra in 1999-2000, they patiently instructed me how to move, dress, eat, and speak like a student of Odissi dance, and that knowledge undergirds this study. Despite those good natured efforts, I am grateful to Sujata-apa for noticing, early on in my dance training, that that all signs pointed to me preferring a life of reading and writing to drilling dance steps. Many non-journalists served as resources, guides, and supports during my research. Dr. Nivedita Mohanty and Mr. Srikant Mohapatra helped me get started. Without Dr. and Mrs. G.N. Dash I would have been lost; they showed me the path to being the kind of scholar I hope to become. Sarojini Panda’s assistance indexing the newspaper archive was invaluable. Without the help of Aurobindo Rout and his family, I would not have been able to read any of those indexed newspapers in the US. Furthermore, though I have not written of them here directly, Aurobindo shared vital observations of male homosociality in Bhubaneswar. Mr. Prakash Panigrahi assured me I would always have a home in Bhubaneswar, and often that home was a refuge. My research trips for this project were frequently interrupted by health and bureaucratic troubles, and while I am grateful to everyone I worked with for their patience during those times, I am especially grateful to those on whom I depended during those challenges, especially the Panigrahi and Pradhan families. I have special gratitude to the universe for my friendship with Daitrari, Bani, Linu, Chinu—and Sonu, whom I haven’t seen since she was a babe in arms. Linu and Chinu were merciless Odia teachers but forgiving communicators, and I will always treasure v the afternoons spent pretending we were elephants. I look forward to the day that the girls read this themselves and tell me, again, how very wrong I am. For a project this long in the making, the general list of influential people grows too long to do it justice. A few people stand out nonetheless, and top among them is my advisor, Webb Keane. My gratitude to him is greater than words, both for his support and for his scholarly example. Thomas Trautmann exudes the rare scholarly combination of friendliness and perspicuity, and working with him is always a joy. Matthew Hull offered redirection that I did not want but needed, as well as patience, good humor, and insight. Aswin Punathambekar, who came to this project too late for my liking, has already helped me see its future directions with new eyes. I thank my dissertation committee for their patience and encouragement. While living in Michigan I had the pleasure of learning from a remarkable set of scholars, both faculty and students. The influences of Gillian Feeley-Harnik and Judith Irvine cannot be overstated. This text has also been significantly influenced by suggestions from Gayle Rubin, David Akin, Danilyn Rutherford, Don Brenneis, Thomas Blom Hansen, Chaise LaDousa, and Nancy Munn. For their intellectual friendship and feedback during years of research and writing, I thank Elana Buch, Celina Callahan-Kapoor, Christie Davis, Nishita Trisal, Katy Overstreet, John Marlovits, Gretchen Bakke, Jake Culbertson, Mara Greene, Barbara Curda and her family, Kimbra Smith, and Bregje Van Eekelen. I am grateful to all of the caregivers who supported this work, including Cindy Lauren and my mother-in-law, Melanie Wolf. A heartfelt thanks to my OWL writing group: Cyrus, J, HM, Sajji, Stef, Tamar, Janelle, EZ, VW, WK and AK. vi This research was supported by a generous grant from the Wenner-Gren Foundation and by the Department of Anthropology and the Institute for Research on Women and Gender at the University of Michigan. Finally, I thank my family. My parents, Deb and Steve Martineau supported me and this project for years, often in the hardest way—by pretending it didn’t exist. That the daughter of speech pathologist and a lawyer would study the intersection of language and law makes their influence plain. My paternal grandmother, Gladys Martineau, did not live to see this project finished, but she would have been proud. I dedicate these efforts to them. I thank my sister, Jane, for always helping me better approximate what I actually want to say. None of this project would exist without the profound support of Matthew Wolf-Meyer, who took over childcare, household chores, and popular culture updates while I wrote and rewrote, essentially putting his own writing on hold for over two years. He also discussed every idea with me, often several times, even when he wanted to sleep. For making it all worth the effort, I thank him and our son, Felix. vii Table of Contents Dedication ii Acknowledgements iii List of Figures xii List of Abbreviations and Acronyms xiii Note on Language and Pronunciation xiv Introduction 1 Framing the Study of Journalists’ Ethics in Bhubaneswar, Odisha 11 Moral Multiplicity and Participation Ethics 20 Autonomy and Embeddedness in Comparative Journalism Ethics 33 On this Research: Studying Sideways Among Journalists in Bhubaneswar 36 The Organization of this Dissertation 46 Chapter I. Ethical Journalism in Bhubaneswar 48 Contextualizing the Social World of Newspapers 53 A Brief Account of Recent Politics in Odisha 61 The Ethical Frame of Sebā and the Newspaper Samaja 68 viii The Ethical Frame of Linguistic Belonging and the Newspaper Sambad 75 The Ethical Frame of Business Growth and the Newspaper Dharitri 82 Corrupting Interests and the Threat of Social Relations 88 Resisting Corruption through Ethical Publication 93 Conclusion 100 Chapter II. The Object of Writing 102 The Press Council and the Institution of Professional Ethics 109 Income Tax Laws Structuring Newspaper Organizations 114 Commercial Growth in Odisha 120 Placing the Professional Newsroom in the City 123 Divisions of Writing Labor 132 The Ethics of Fast Production and the Copy 138 Interpreting The Ethics of Reported Speech 145 Conclusion 153 Chapter III.