Performing Identities

Performing Identities brings together essays by scholars, artists and activists engaged in understanding and conserving rapidly disappearing local knowledge forms of indigenous communities across continents. It depicts the imaginative transactions evident in the interface of identity and cultural transformation, raising the issue of cultural rights of these otherwise marginalized communities.

G. N. Devy is Founder, Adivasi Academy, Tejgadh, and Founder, Bhasha Research and Publication Centre, Baroda (Vadodara), Gujarat, India.Geoffrey V. Davis is Chairperson, European Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies (EACLALS).K. K. Chakravarty is Chairman, Lalit Kala Akademi, and Chancellor, National University of Education Planning and Administration, New Delhi, India.

Introduction K.K. Chakravarty. 1. The Hyena Wears Darkness: Stories as Teaching Tools Pia Thielmann 2. Reading Folktales Juxtapositionally: Embedded Political Insights and Implied Social Value Systems in Two Traditional (Khoekhoe And Khasi) Narratives Annie Gagiano 3. Kissa - Heer: A Gem of Oral Tradition Charu Chitra 4. Magical Rhythms: Psycho-Sexual and Religious Significance of Tribal Dance Mini John 5. Foregrounding the Margin: Socio-Cultural Gender-Friendly Traditions of the Lepchas of North-East India and the Igbos of South-East Nigeria Shreya Bhattacharji 6. Charting the Multiple Scripts Of Santali: Notes Towards a Visual History of Adivasi Languages and Literatures Nishaant Choksi 7. Translating Identity as Lexicon: P.O. Bodding and A Santal Dictionary Ivy Imogene Hansdak 8. Marginalised Music : A Case Study from Western Orissa/India Lidia Guzy 9. Storying Sovereignty and 'Sustainable Self-Determination' in Alexis Wright's Carpentaria and Warwick Thornton's Samson and Delilah Julie Mullaney 10. The Socio-Political Imperative of Festivals in a Contested Space: The Examples of the Okiroro (Awan-Okere) and Agbassa Idju Festivals of Warri, Nigeria Alero Uwawah and Israel Meriomame Wekpe 11. Ogoni Dances, Masquerades and Worldview Barine Saana Ngaage 12. 'Black Indian' Women and Blood Rules: Gender, Mixed Race and Hyphenated Hybridities on the Margins of America Christine Vogt-William 13. Cultural Celebrations of Life: Rituals of a Hill Tribe Mohan Doss 14. The /Xam Narratives of the Bleek and Lloyd Collection: Are They Mythology and Do They Belong to the Nineteenth Century? Michael Wessels 15. Staging the Indian Reserve: Tomson Highway's The Rez Sisters Cécile Fouache 16. Indigenous Knowledge and Global Translation: Reconstruction of Australia through Aboriginal Imagination in Alexis Wright's Carpentaria Sei Kosugi 17. Contesting the Curative Space: The Politics of Healing in the Narratives of Abanyole Ethnomedical Practitioners Dishon G. Kweya 18. Conquering Adversity through Art: An Evaluation of Moranic Performances by the Maasai People of Kenya Joseph Muleka 19. Women and Indigenous Resistance: In Tess Onwueme's Tell It To Women and What Mama Said Maureen N. Eke 20. Tracing Post-Colonial Questions in Ancient Thought Karlheinz Hülser