PROPOSAL FOR A SPECIAL ISSUE OF ARCHIV ORIENTALNI 2024 PROPOSED TITLE: ‘Exploring indigeneity in South Asia: contested representations and identities’ GUEST EDITOR: Sanjukta Das Gupta FOCUS OF THE ISSUE: The proposed Special Issue is dedicated to representations of the subjectivities of ‘indigenous’ or ‘tribal’ populations in South Asia who have been perceived for long as cultural exceptions but have attained a new articulated visibility and an amplified political resonance today. British colonial state policies had placed them among the most vulnerable and marginalized groups in the subcontinent and perceived them through a variety of lenses, ranging from ‘noble savage’ to ‘born criminals’, all of which continue to influence contemporary imaginings of ‘tribal’ populations. For both colonial and post-colonial states, the ‘indigenous’ ways of life were an aberration, which marred the (apparently) smooth fabric of sedentary, agrarian/urban, attunedto-private ownership, mainstream society. In recent decades, the conflict has been particularly sharp between an indigenous way of life with its close ties to nature and the demand of the neoliberal, globalized world economy for unlimited access to natural resources. It is their very ‘indigeneity’ which is believed to mark them off as an irksome obstacle to national ‘development’. How indigeneity has been represented was, and is, instrumental in its construction/constitution. The aim of this Special Issue is to interrogate the diverse objectives, processes and facets of such representations. While representations of indigeneity by state power and mainstream society have limited the agency of various indigenous communities, the latter is now increasingly taking upon itself the task of self-representation. Mainly articulated around expressions of moral and political discontent, such forms of self-representation are, at the same time, making demands for artistic recognition. Today, indigenous/tribal voices resonate across novel and diverse modes of articulation where their perspectives from the margins challenge the centrality of hegemonic knowledge practices and generate new narratives. All of this, furthermore, constitutes a fluid, contested space where the notion of indigeneity is constantly being ‘made’ and ‘unmade’. The Special Issue proposes to interrogate this space to understand better its many dimensions. Adopting an inter-disciplinary approach, the proposed Special Issue brings together historians, anthropologists, scholars of literature and culture studies who study diverse representations of indigeneity across several registers, cultural and political, in colonial and contemporary South Asia. The articles interrogate various forms of representations ranging from colonial and post-colonial, literary to cinematic and digital narrations, from historical case studies to contemporary performative forms of agency. SIGNIFICANCE AND RELEVANCE OF THE THEME: By engaging with the evolution of indigenous rights, cultural rootedness, and geographical locatedness, the proposed Special Issue provides a critical understanding of indigenous people’s confrontation with modernity in the subcontinent. Given the contemporary importance of the concept of indigeneity both in South Asia, and in the global context, the theme is extremely relevant for ArOr. In keeping with ArOr’s stated ideals, the volume is multi-disciplinary in approach. The problematic of indigeneity is a relatively recent and growing field of research, and the Special Issue will necessarily initiate a conversation about the nature of indigeneity and the assertion of citizen rights across different regions of Asia through exploring and encompassing the different facets of its representation.
