Knowing Differently

The Challenge of the Indigenous

G. N. Devy, Geoffrey V. Davis, K. K. Chakravarty

• Publisher: Routledge India
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9781317325680
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

This book offers a bold and illuminating account of the worldviews nurtured and sustained by indigenous communities from across continents, through their distinctive understanding of concepts such as space, time, joy, pain, life, and death. It demonstrates how this different mode of 'knowing' has brought the indigenous into a cultural conflict with communities that claim to be modern and scientific. Bringing together scholars, artists and activists engaged in understanding and conserving local knowledge that continues to be in the shadow of cultural extinction, the book attempts to interpret repercussions on identity and cultural transformation and points to the tragic fate of knowing the world differently.

The volume inaugurates a new thematic area in post-colonial studies and cultural anthropology by highlighting the perspectives of marginalized indigenous communities, often burdened with being viewed as 'primitive'. It will be useful to scholars and students of anthropology, sociology, cultural studies, history, linguistics, literature, and tribal studies.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of Plates
• List of Tables, Figures and Maps
• List of Abbreviations
• Glossary
• Introduction
• 1. Being ‘Primitive’ in a Modern World: The Andaman Islanders
• 2. Co-Existence of Multiple Timeframes: Narratives of Myths and Cosmogony in India
• 3. Pimatisiwin Indigenous Knowledge Systems, North and South Priscilla Settee
• 4. Metaphors of Fertility, Phallic Anxieties and Expiation of Grief in the Babukusu Funeral Oratory
• 5. The (Re-)imag(in)ing of the Oba of Benin in Nigerian Dramatic Literature and its Implications in Indigenous Studies
• 6. ‘Kasapa’ Mobile Telephony and Changing Healthcare Communication in Ghana
• 7. Discourse of Resistance and Protest in Meitei Folklore
• 8. Sovereign Ontologies in Australia and Aotearoa– New Zealand: Indigenous Responses to Asylum Seekers, Refugees and Overstayers
• 9. Indigenous Worldviews and Environmental Footprints: The Case of Prometheus vs Hermes
• 10. Folk Heritage and Classical Lore: The Grand Narratives from the Aegean Archipelago and Derek Walcott’s Caribbean Creole Readings
• 11. Conceptualizing Space and Indigenous Knowledge: Articulations and Considerations for Natural Resource Management in the Himalayas
• 12. Breaking the Power of Patriarchy: Unity Dow’s Novel The Screaming of the Innocent
• 13. The National, the Indian, and Empowering Performance: Festive Practices in the Highlands (Bolivia)
• 14. Contemporary Maori Painting: Pictorial Representation of Land and Landscape
• 15. Art, Landscape, and Identity in She Plays with the Darkness, The Madonna of Excelsior and Cion
• 16. Indigenous Languages in the Post-Colonial Era
• 17. The Struggle for Survival: Globalization and its Impact on Tribal Women in Kerala
• 18. Eco-Fraternity of Kurum(b)a Tribes in Wayanad, Kerala
• About the Editors
• Notes on Contributors
• Index