1st Edition

Media, Indigeneity and Nation in South Asia

Edited By Markus Schleiter, Erik de Maaker Copyright 2020
    298 Pages
    by Routledge

    298 Pages
    by Routledge

    How do videos, movies and documentaries dedicated to indigenous communities transform the media landscape of South Asia? Based on extensive original research, this book examines how in South Asia popular music videos, activist political clips, movies and documentaries about, by and for indigenous communities take on radically new significances. Media, Indigeneity and Nation in South Asia shows how in the portrayal of indigenous groups by both ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’ imaginations of indigeneity and nation become increasingly interlinked. Indigenous groups, typically marginal to the nation, are at the same time part of mainstream polities and cultures. Drawing on perspectives from media studies and visual anthropology, this book compares and contrasts the situation in South Asia with indigeneity globally.

    List of figures



    Notes on contributors



    Acknowledgements



    1 Introduction: screening indigeneity and nation



    ERIK DE MAAKER AND MARKUS SCHLEITER



    PART I



    Vernacular popular culture: movies and music videos



    2 Himachali indigeneity: Gaddi music VCDs and expressions of belonging



    ANJA WAGNER



    3 ‘Manbhum’ videos and their many contours: contexts, contents, and the comic mode as a subversive form



    MADHUJA MUKHERJEE



    4 Films, flirts, and no dances: a village video night and the circulation of popular Santali VCDs among Birhor people in India



    MARKUS SCHLEITER



    5 The diffused substance of Bhojpuri indigeneity



    AKSHAYA KUMAR



    PART II



    Politicising indigeneity: video clips and movies



    6 Primitive accumulation and "primitive" subjects in postcolonial India: tracing the myriad real and virtual lives of mediatised indigeneity activism



    UDAY CHANDRA



    7 Giving voice? Experiences of collaboration on indigenous video-making projects



    RADHIKA BORDE



    8 From clanships to cyber communities: India’s Northeast in the digital age



    DAISY HASAN



    9 Projecting and rejecting indigeneity: ‘From Bangladesh with Love’



    CARMEN BRANDT



    PART III



    Documenting and fictionalising indigeneity



    10 Made in India: ethnographic films beyond visual anthropology



    GIULIA BATTAGLIA



    11 Critiquing stereotypes? Documentary as dialogue with the Garo



    ERIK DE MAAKER



    12 YouTube and the rising trend of indigenous folk dance: the case of the sakela dance of the Rai in Nepal and their diaspora



    MARION WETTSTEIN



    13 Identity, indigeneity, and cultural props: portraying the Tai-Ahoms in two Assamese films based on the legend of Joymati



    ARZUMAN ARA



    14 Polyandry, sexuality and the (mis)representation of indigenous women on Indian screens. The film Sonam: The Fortunate One



    MARA MATTA



    15 Afterword: meditations on media in digital times



    ROBIN JEFFREY



    Index

    Biography

    Markus Schleiter is Lecturer in the Institute of Ethnology at Münster University, Germany.



    Erik de Maaker is Assistant Professor in the Department of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology at Leiden University, The Netherlands.