Locating Indigenous Meitei feminist counterspaces in Linthoi Chanu’s Wari: the (fem)animist prefiguration of Feminist Posthumanities

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article explores the animist socio-cultural fabric of the Indigenous Meitei community in Manipur, India, to locate the feminist counterspaces embedded within it through a (con)textual analysis of two short stories from the anthology Wari (2019) by the Meitei author Linthoi Chanu. In this exploration, we conceptualize a distinctive praxis of Indigenous Meitei ‘femanimism’ – intertwining Indigenous Meitei feminism with animist philosophies. Furthermore, our discussion illuminates how the Indigenous Meitei ‘femanimist’ praxis, embodying a non-dualistic and relational genderscape, prefigures the emergent Western Feminist Posthumanist theoretical discourses, particularly hydrofeminist and vital materialist concepts of fluid and entangled human embodiment. Accordingly, the present study endeavours to bridge a synergistic conversation between Indigenous Meitei ‘femanimist’ praxis and the contemporary Western theoretical currents of Feminist Posthumanities, aspiring to forge a decolonized feminist vista that transcends hierarchical binaries of gender (man/woman), humanism (human/non-human), and colonialism (the Indigenous as primitive vis-à-vis the Western as modern).