Description
Book SynopsisThis book analyzes the folk songs from the Bhojpuri-speaking regions of North India to explore how ideas of gender, caste, and class are socially constructed, transmitted, questioned, and reaffirmed through their performance.
Trade Review“
Unearthing Gender is a welcome addition to literature on South Asian gender and folklore. Jassal writes with compassion and with technical rigor—with an eye for poetry and an appreciation for the power of performance. She is clearly moved by the creativity and artistry of the performers with whom she worked, and she conveys this sentiment well.” -- Ian Woolford * Journal of Anthropological Research *
“Erudite and original, this book makes a signal contribution to scholarship on gender, class, caste, sexualities, identities, and labor by bringing attention to the lives and practices of low-caste peasants in the rural North Indian countryside. Engaging and expertly written – Jassal’s prose enacts a most pleasing poetics to this reader’s ear – the genius behind
Unearthing Gender lies in its use of women’s folk song genres.” -- Antoinette DeNapoli * Anthropos *
“Jassal’s project breaks new ground for ethnomusicologists to take up the challenge of combining research on the labor of music making in the context of rural agrarian political economies. . . . An engaging combination of detailed ethnography and insightful interpretation of song texts and their social significance. . . .” -- Rehanna Kheshgi * Ethnomusicology Review *
“Ultimately, this beautifully written and highly readable (and teachable) ethnography offers important insights into gender, caste, and kinship. Its most immediate impact is the richness of the worlds it explores and the possibilities it raises for thinking about the place of expression in the crafting of culture. What comes through most vividly, aside from the poetry of the songs themselves, is the vibrancy and warmth of the lives of those who sing them. Jassal’s portrait of women’s expressive lives is one of deep humanity and, at its core, is about possibilities for action, intimacy, and selfhood.” -- Sarah Pinto * Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute *
"A particularly cogent example of how much is to be gained by attending simultaneously to the structural and expressive aspects of culture and to the subtle and complex ways subversion and reinforcement can harmonize and create dissonance in the very same tune." -- Coralynn V. Davis * Asian Ethnology *
"Recalling Smita Tiwari Jassal’s own ancestral roots in this rural region, I see this lovingly researched book as embodying one such way of remembering, reframing, and transmitting songs into the future." -- Kirin Narayan * Journal of Folklore Research *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments xi
Note on Transliteration and Pronunciation xvii
Introduction. The Unsung Sing 1
1. The Daily Grind 33
2. Singing Bargains 71
3. Biyah/Biraha: Emotions in a Rite of Passage 115
4. Sita's Trials 155
5. When War is Marriage 189
6. Taking Liberties 219
Conclusion. Taking Liberties 219
Notes 261
Glossary 271
Bibliography 277
Index 289
