Rethinking ethnographies on Garo Hills

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the production of ethnographic knowledge in relation to the Garo Hills, a geographic area that gained its name as the colonial state expanded from Bengal into the plains of Assam. The borders drawn in the early colonial era contributed to the emergence of a colonial ethnography, defining a Garo ethnic community. These early writings nowadays create a Garo past and, even though biased and partial, create essential insights into the rapid cultural and social transformations that have taken place in the region over the last two centuries. As such, ethnographic records have contributed to the ethnic differentiation that nowadays characterises the region and in its extension to the emergence of ethnic political communities. Ethnographic studies conducted in Garo Hills have resulted in important new insights regarding (matrilineal) relatedness, as well as religious conversion. More recently, ethnographic knowledge produced locally is gaining a stronger voice, creating room for a gradually larger variety of ethnic narratives, accounts, and interpretations, many of which were earlier attributed less prominence.