Orality, Identity, and the Sense of the Past in the India-Burma Borderlands: A Review of Recent Studies

Abstract

Orality remains a powerful idiom, a point of reference and meaning in the politics of ethnicity in the India-Burma borderlands. In a recent body of works on the area, the continued significance and meaning-bearing capacity of orality has been studied through departures from earlier colonial anthropological frameworks. For example, what constitutes the relation between oral form and social relations? Or is orality ideologically embedded? Or what would be some of the methods to read and understand orality beyond their popular representations in the societies? While highlighting the importance of these questions, this essay critically engages with this recent body of work on the above topics. At the same time, the essay also points to some of the limitations in the approaches applied, and indicates possible aspects that could be considered in this regard. The essay also argues that the relationship between orality, identity and the sense of the past needs to be studied beyond the framework of there being a necessary correspondence between form and context. In this regard, identifying the discontinuities in the relationship could provide further insights into the nature of the oral field.