Paper Short Abstract:

This paper analyses adivasi arts programming as decolonising practices at the intersection of cultural politics, performance, and anthropology. Self-produced dance videos document, educate, and entertain, problematising distinctions between empirical and theoretical interventions.

Paper Abstract:

This paper analyses the circulation of self-produced adivasi dance videos in Andhra Pradesh, within a wider movement of arts programming that I argue constitutes a form of decolonising salvage ethnography at the intersection of cultural politics, community performance, and applied anthropology research. Adivasi cultural heritage research incorporates small-scale, self-curated ethnological exhibitions, dance performances, public showcases of rituals, alongside ambitious, though often underfunded, projects of language revival. In the context of community identities represented as polarised cultural groups, and widespread state and religious intervention in the exhibition of adivasi life, this paper explores low-budget, self-produced dance videos as a medium that transcends the challenges of the nationalist-imperialist binary in decolonisation theory. Equally, these productions defy a sharp distinction between exoticised representations of indigeneity, and mass consumption of popular culture. Through the medium of mobile phones, Koya adivasi dance is constructed as a both a mode of participation in identity-making for young people, and as ethnographic documentation for cultural activists. While noting the context of heightened nationalism, ethno-religious discourse, and the stratification of adivasi communities, the paper foregrounds the role of local convenors and producers who conceptualise their work explicitly as an anthropological practice. Reflecting on the challenges of labelling, external analysis, and collaboration, the paper argues that while Koya adivasi dance videos are part of a wider trend of cultural revivalism or “re-tribalization”, they can be considered as decolonising forms of salvage anthropology, as they re-appropriate and transcend state-ethnographic and popular modes of representation, yet remain open to spontaneous youth participation.