Negotiating Structural Absences: Voices of Indigenous Subalterns of Eastern India

Abstract

Historically, indigenous people have been struggling with the issues of material and communicative absences and their voices systematically erased from discursive spaces. Critical-cultural frameworks such as the culture-centered approach (CCA) argue that reflexive engagements with subaltern communities by listening to their narratives are instrumental in interrogating structural absences. By mindfully attending to the emerging contextual narratives, this CCA study examines how indigenous villagers of eastern-India negotiate and exert agency with situated structural absences in their day-to-day existence. This research seeks to explore as well as extend our understanding of structural marginalization and its negotiations in the realm of subaltern agency.