Dancing to the State: Ethnic Compulsions of the Tangsa in Assam (Hardbound-2017)

Can small indigenous communities survive as distinct cultural entities in northeast India, an area characterized by mind-boggling ethnic, linguistic and cultural diversity? What are the choices that such minority groups have and how do they resist further marginalization? Diversity in northeast India is often celebrated and performed. There has been a spate of ethnic festivals in this region in the recent years, but a question remains: Are these activities of ethnic revival signs of increasing agency or proof of their continued marginalization? Situated around the tiny Tangsa community of Assam, this narrative ethnography looks at ethnic marginality and the compulsions imposed on minority communities by the dominant community, state policies and political borders. In a novel anthropological endeavour, the author portrays the concerns of the Tangsa community through multiple case studies while also reflecting on questions arising from the fact that she belongs to the dominant Assamese community. Unlike a theoretical treatise, the aim in this book is to empower the subjects of study by narrating their life stories and everyday concerns in simple language, thereby addressing a wider audience.

Meenaxi Barkataki-Ruscheweyh is Research Fellow, Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Vrije Universiteit (VU), Amsterdam, the Netherlands.