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- Convenors:
-
Monica Mottin
(Heidelberg University)
Mara Matta (University of Rome 'La Sapienza')
Markus Schleiter (University of Tübingen)
- Formats:
- Panels
- Stream:
- Bodies
- Location:
- Magdalen Old Law Library
- Start time:
- 18 September, 2018 at
Time zone: Europe/London
- Session slots:
- 1
Short Abstract:
This panel aims to explore the materiality of resistance, in particular how indigenous people challenge dominant paradigms by bringing imagined worlds into existence through their bodies.
Long Abstract:
Indigeneity and ideas of indigenous belonging are increasingly finding a global resonance. Recrafted as ethno-chic by mainstream media and hegemonic discourses, this neo-Orientalist trend has been challenged by aboriginal people and first nations, who see the recasting of indigeneity and the reframing of indigenous bodies as ways to oppose global capitalism, resist cultural imperialism and fight dangerous apologies of colonialism.
Baaz, Lilja and Vinthagen (2018, p.26) describe resistance as 'a subaltern practice that might challenge, negotiate or undermine power'. But resistance can transcend power altogether: embodying aspired visions and values plays a central role in creating alternative social relations, nurturing counter-hegemonic politics of emotions and mapping new trajectories of desire. Working along the assumptions that imagination is essentially spatial and embodied (Merleau-Ponty 2005), and that it is central to the development of creative bodies, this panel looks at the practice and praxis of indigenous imaginations in relation to the semiotic ideologies, performative bodies, embodied emotions, visual aesthetics and mediated imaginations of indigenous populations across the world. In particular, we wish to investigate how the indigenous body reverses marginality and materially produces imagined alterities through social media, art, music, theatre, ritualized expression and how such creations establish and sustain imagined communities of affect that support social change.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Paper short abstract:
Together with artists from the Santal 'indigenous' community in Odisha, India, I participated in the production of a music video album. Focusing on one video from the album, I will show how, through this song, young listeners relive the very ambivalent meaningfulness of a village dance night.
Paper long abstract:
In my contribution, I acknowledge the prominence of popularized markers of Santal 'tradition' such as costumes, tunes, and instruments like the flute in the exemplary Santali hit music video "Injurious to Health". The video's narrative form of a jokey anthem underscores its typified display of 'Santalness'. First and foremost for its primary audience of Santal youth, the video and song offer a mediatized way of reliving the culturally-specific emotions that are shared at village dances, including the forms of romancing associated with such events. While valorizing Santal culture, however, the video celebrates aspects that more conservative Santal viewers might feel less comfortable with. Moreover, artists involved in the video's production told me that they see an importance of reflecting upon and partially criticizing their own culture and even sometimes feel distanced from it. I thus present my narrative of the production process of "Injurious to Health" as evidence that while 'indigenous media' foster a sense of indigenous belonging, indigeneity is not homogenous, and indigenous media professionals critically reflect upon concepts and ideas related to the idea of 'being indigenous' even as they contribute to the re-shaping of Santal culture with their work.
Paper short abstract:
This paper investigates how younger Santali speakers of Jharkhand use honorification as the medium of indigenous identity affirmation and preservation through the linguistic tool of address pronouns, as a result of their exposure to a wider world of co-existing and mutually benefiting identities.
Paper long abstract:
The concept of duality is considered as the honorific feature in the Santal society. This paper explores this concept with regard to stranger and kinship. Young Santals of Jharkhand use second person dual pronoun /aben/ as honorific pronoun to address a stranger whereas elderly speakers use second person singular pronoun /am/ as a marker of social intimacy to address a stranger. Interestingly, the dual pronoun is also used among avoidance relationships to address kin members while the singular pronoun is used in all other family relationships as well as among villagers. In order to understand this linguistic variation in address pronouns used for strangers, it is important to take into account history of migration and resulting marginalization of Santals. This usage of singular pronoun form by elderly Santali speakers for both kin members as well as for strangers is a linguistic effort on their part (?) to be socially included within dominant linguistic communities. Young Santali speakers, on the other hand, are more aware of their tribal identity and acknowledge the distance between themselves and other linguistic communities. As a result, they use the dual pronoun to indicate avoidance and social distance with the stranger. This paper, therefore, shows a clear changing pattern of honorification among younger and elderly Santali speakers where social identities of the stranger and kin members cross-cut the concepts of proximity and belonging in Santal society.
Paper short abstract:
It has been more than twenty years since Bangladesh State has turned Kalpana Chakma into a 'ghost'. However, her presence and her voice have never faded. This paper looks at the creative strategies employed by indigenous artists and filmmakers for 'resurrecting' her body and reclaiming justice.
Paper long abstract:
During the last few decades, Bangladesh has witnessed an increase number of forced disappearances and human rights abuses against the indigenous people of the Chittagong Hill Tracts. Starting from the powerful notes left by Kalpana Chakma in her Diary before being forcefully disappeared on 12 June 1996, the indigenous women of Bangladesh have continuously raised their voices against disenfranchisement, induced poverty and progressive annihilation of political and cultural rights. Deploying their life stories to contradict and talk back to History, indigenous women have committed themselves to the fulfillment of dreams of justice and have employed cultural practices as powerful tools of dissent. However, when they are subjected to silence through torture, rape and death, voicing "silence" and marking "absence" may become important strategies to perform defiance and to fight against politics of (in)visibility. In this fearful scenario, Kalpana's words and her never retrieved body have become a powerful manifesto for the rights and struggles of the Jumma people of Bangladesh.
This paper looks at the creative strategies employed by indigenous artists and filmmakers in Bangladesh for resurrecting hope, often by recasting the invisible (but never absent) body of Kalpana Chakma into a haunting presence. It has been more than twenty years since the Army and the State of Bangladesh have turned Kalpana into a 'ghost'. However, her body and her voice have never faded and her words and legacy have become the rebellious call for justice of the indigenous people of Bangladesh.
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines how cultural art mediates past oppression and present emancipatory action in Nepal.
Paper long abstract:
Ethnic identity politics emerged powerfully in Nepal since the 1990s, dominating the political scene with the establishment of a democratic republic in 2008. Cultural activists use the term kala sanskriti (cultural art) to indicate a wide range of elements that express indigenous identities such as traditional songs, dances, musical instruments, dresses, and ornaments. They explain that cultural art carries their histories. Cultural art is also perceived as a privileged way of communicating with audiences during social and political campaigns, touching their hearts in immediate and profound ways. Performed in national programmes, local festivals, tourist venues, social and political events, indigenous dances turns ethnic difference into a visible and tangible presence.
This paper aims at examining media representations of indigenous performance, Tharu in particular, and understanding different platforms in which cultural art mediates images of ancestral dynamic connections, often associated with oppression and marginalization, while at the same time carrying promises of future liberation.