Indigenous Studies today has been gaining much emphasis world-wide since it promotes and initiates cross-disciplinary research and teaching in a wide range of areas of relevance to indigenous peoples. It is therefore imperative to have an understanding of indigenous cultures and histories and ensure that indigenous knowledge, perspectives, and experiences are respected, valued, accessed, and incorporated into all learning environments in the context of an increasingly globalized world. The two volumes edited by Prem Kumari Srivastava and Gitanjali Chawla are significant contributions in the field in relation to the diverse cultures, literatures, and languages of the indigenous. Volume 1 is dedicated to “The Fading Diminishing Line” and Volume 2 is addressed to “The New Centres”—both indicating the necessity of decreasing pedagogic, academic, and discursive gaps between lived indigenous practices and non-indigenous reception of the same, as well as to the growth and development of new ways of understanding the world from the perspective of indigenous discourses. Arranged in three sections broadly titled “Tangible and Intangible,” “Restor(y)ing,” and “The Neglect,” the essays in volume 1 address theoretical, ethnographic, and existential issues in connection with the identity and community formation of the indigenous.
Comprising a total of twelve essays, noted folklorist Jawaharlal Handoo’s “Marginalisation: Folklore and the Discourse of Power, Oppression and Pain” provides a conceptual framework for the dynamic potential of the folktale (with India as a case study) as a complex element of change, subversion, and “indiosyncratic discourses.” Anthropologist Julie Cruickshank’s essay, “The Ongoing Lives of Stories: Persistence of Oral Tradition in Canada’s Far Northwest,” broadens the horizon of the volume through a discussion on the power of stories based on the narrative of a native woman in diverse circumstances and with varied audiences over five decades. “Tangible and Intangible” opens with Anjali Gera Roy’s essay on the journey of Bhangra from agricultural Punjab to a global performative art. Nina Sabnani projects the narrative embroidery and appliqué of the women of Kutch and their narrations of migration and loss. Sutapa Dutta’s essay focuses on the wandering minstrels or Bauls from Bengal. Ragini Bhat in “Museums: Conduit Between Cultures and Classrooms” looks into the problematic space of the museum as a possible threshold of understanding indigenous cultures and views.
In the second section, on “Restor(y)ing,” Ronald Strickland discusses issues of neoliberal postmodern subjectivities through Clint Eastwood movies. And through a narrative on “Inuit Fur Mittens,” Nancy Wahowich traces a seamless trajectory of community, indigeneity, and art practices. Dalit folk music in Odisha and courtyard theatre in Manipur are explored by Samuel Dani and Bidyarani Asem respectively in the final essays in this section.
The exploration of alternative aesthetics and the questioning of caste hegemony are continued in the final section of the volume entitled “The Neglect.” This section foregrounds endangered communities and delves into issues of collective memory and sense of loss, and the processes of identity formation. Ramesha Jayaneththi’s work on the Rodiyas of Sri Lanka, Ruchi Kumar’s discussion of the Bhils of Rajasthan, Ketaki Datta’s focus on the Totos of West Bengal, Adiba Faiyaz’s essay on bedtime storytelling as a lost cultural practice—all initiate an invaluable dialogue on the silences of indigenous community voices within mainstream historiography. Further, through a deep-rooted understanding of “othering” and lack of recognition, the essays develop an interdisciplinary platform for a pluralist perspective on Indigenous Studies.
The marginalized indigenous voice and the reclamation of lived experiences are themes which are further expanded in volume 2. Divided into three sections entitled “Common/Uncommon Registers,” “Pedagogical Meditations,” and “Marginalised Aesthetics,” the volume dismantles hierarchies and provides alternative paradigms for renegotiating the “other.” In the introduction the editors write: “De-territorialising diversities is closely connected to the concept of bringing to the centre the fluid cultural borders and boundaries and ‘closed’ spaces” (21). Rethinking “diversity” within “territory” necessitates the consideration of counter-discourses and new centers of meaning. Malashri Lal’s essay, “Fleeting Words and Imagined Bodies: Oral Narratives and Women,” reinstates the key concerns in the interface between oral narratives, creativity and women’s voices.
The first section of the volume offers a close reading of texts with alternative aesthetics on indigenous concerns for land, language, ecology in the context of bureaucracy, myth, and orality. Raj Kumar’s reading of Gopinath Mohanty’s Paraja highlights the politics of lost identities, and mute historiographies. On the other hand, Pin Chin Feng’s essay on Finding Sayun draws attention to the constructed and deconstructed image of the heroic figure of Sayun from the Atayal community of Taiwan and the associated political agenda of colonial historiographies. “Orality and the Retelling of the Mahabharata in Mahasweta Devi’s After Kurukshetra” by Nandini Sen emphasizes the retelling of the ancient Indian epic from the perspective of the adivasis, the indigenous and the marginalized. African Caribbean immigrant identity in Paule Marshall’s The Chosen Place, The Timeless People along with issues of migrancy and displacement are studied by Ashma Shamail. Usha Ramani shows how the rewriting of Black women’s histories in Gloria Naylor’s Mama Day negotiates fractured identities. Essays in “Pedagogical Meditation” provide a much needed discussion of the gaps between pedagogy, the work place, and indigenous languages and cultures in Ghana, in the Gond community in Harda, Madhya Pradesh, and in the context of a postcolonial India. Reinforcing the relevance of comparative literary theory and challenging the stereotypical representations of indigenous cultural practices and language systems, the section marks paradigmatic shifts within Indigenous Studies.
The final section on “Marginalised Aesthetics” compels an epistemological rethinking of knowledge systems and global transactions through diverse aesthetic representations in Dalit literatures from Ranchi and Tamil Nadu, in folktales from Bengal, and in Ojibway traditions in Canada. The panoramic view of indigenous cultures challenges theoretical presumptions and movse beyond narrow geographical territories. Given the context of a history of discrimination and neglect, the essays in the two volumes explore multi-disciplinary contributions and interventions arising from the field of Indigenous Studies across diverse media.
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[Review length: 986 words • Review posted on October 27, 2015]