Paper Short Abstract:

My paper reflects on queer indigeneity and how the indigenous is made queer within the dominant Hindu state of Nepal by tracing historical shifts within the gender-crossing jhumra dance. It centers indigenous activism in Nepal to offer a critical rethinking of queer activism in South Asia.

Paper Abstract:

This paper explores heritage-making practices of indigenous and queer activists in Nepal with a particular focus on the incorporation of vernacular queer subjectivities under what has come to be a South Asian legal category of the third gender. I inquire into queer indigeneity and simultaneously reflect on how the indigenous is made queer within the dominant Hindu state of Nepal. My study draws primarily from observations of and interviews with one group of elderly Tharu male dancers who have traditionally cross-dressed to perform the jhumra nach (dance), and one group of young Tharu women who have started dancing the jhumra in recent years. I show what is lost in cosmopolitan articulations of what it means to be queer by taking a closer look at the two groups. At the same time, drawing from the archives of Tharu cultural and political resurgence as well as the genealogy of the ‘third gender’ since the 1990s, I show how the indigenous queer continues to navigate simultaneous processes of inclusion and exclusion vis-a-vis the Nepali state, indigenous activism and queer activism. Speaking from the margins of South Asia, this paper centers ethnic activism within Nepal to offer a critical rethinking of queer activism in the subcontinent.