Echoes of liminality

Hidden transcripts and subtle resistance in Bhojpuri-speaking women's Kajari folksongs

Bibliographic Data

ID2402903
AuthorsMilan Chauhan (0009-0005-1736-7401, Indian Institute of Technology BHU, corresponding author)
Year2025
Publication date2025-05-26
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEthnography (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1466-1381 • E-ISSN: 1741-2714
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/14661381251346318
OpenAlexW4410733282
LanguageEN
References cited21

In North India, Kajari is both a festival and a folksong, offering a starting point to explore the subversive practices of Mallah caste Bhojpuri-speaking women in ritualised and performative contexts. The study uses ethnographic data, such as rituals and folksong as source material collected between 2021 and 2023. With James Scott's idea of hidden transcripts, Victor Turner's concept of liminality and liminoid provides theoretical lenses to examine rural women's rituals, folksongs, and dramatic performances to subtly challenge patriarchal norms and transgress social and linguistic boundaries offstage. Through the liminal phase of the Kajari festival, women create a space for bold self-expression, humour, and critique, emerging as revitalised social actors. This exploration reveals how liminal spaces, performative acts and hidden transcripts allow for the ritualised subversion of gender roles, transforming women's roles within and sometimes beyond the ritual setting and fostering alternative voices and expressions

Aesthetics · Art · Biology · Ethnography · Liminality · Linguistics · Resistance (ecology · Sociology · Anthropology · Diverse Musicological Studies · Gender Studies · Philosophy · South Asian Cinema and Culture · South Asian Studies and Conflicts

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