Indigenous Resistance in South Asia

Abstract

This article examines the wide range of practices of Indigenous resistance across South Asia. It conceptualizes the interplays of power and control that shape the expressions of Indigenous agency in precolonial, colonial, and postcolonial contexts, depicting the multiple layers of erasure that shape the historic and ongoing displacement of Indigenous communities from land, cultural resources, knowledge, and ways of livelihood. By looking at the communicative practices of resistance in historic and contemporary contexts, it theorizes the openings for transforming the forces of racial capitalism, settler colonialism, and imperialism. The article concludes by drawing on the key tenets of the culture-centered approach to map the role of voice infrastructures in Indigenous struggles across South Asia, drawing out the centrality of voice in transforming the communicative inequalities that shape the production of colonial-imperial-capitalist knowledge.