Voices from the Periphery: Subalternity and Empowerment in India

Based on extensive fieldwork, this volume offers alternatives perspectives on identity formations of subaltern indigenous and marginalised communities in India. Drawing upon the notions of '¬Ücentre'¬" and '¬Üperiphery'¬", it focuses on their agency in redefining their situation, building their memories, voices and identity, to influence and contest networks of power and hegemony. The book argues that in spite of the impressive developments of the Indian economy, indigenous people and low-caste communities are more marginalized than ever. Exploring the role of narratives, and the agency of religious specialists, the contributors analyze different processes of transformation undergone by subaltern communities, and show how peripheries construct their autonomy to provide alternative models of centrality, reshaping '¬Ütribal identities'¬" which have developed alongside tribal and peasant resistance. The symbolic resistance of indigenous and subaltern groups may be expressed through religious conversion, or by political mobilization, strategies offering alternative ways of empowerment. It questions overarching oppositions such as tradition and modernity, state and community, hierarchy and equalitarian ethos which have formed the conceptual core of previous work in history and anthropology.