Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-767nl Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-09T02:31:23.303Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Arrival of the Devis’ Spirit

Filming Voice and Agentive Entanglement

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2024

Rajat Nayyar Open the ORCID record for Rajat Nayyar [Opens in a new window]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Aaji, an aging, lower-caste storyteller, singer, spirit medium, and rice farmer from a village in northern India, uses her distinctive voice and vocal traditions to engage with the spirit of the seven Devis (goddesses). The careful cultivation of human, more-than-human, and ethnographic relationships over time reveals what multimodal anthropology might entail when collaborating with more-than-human spirits.

Type
Article
Information
TDR , Volume 68 , Issue 2 , June 2024 , pp. 79 - 92
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press for Tisch School of the Arts/NYU

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References

Culhane, Dara , and Elliott, Denielle, eds. 2016. A Different Kind of Ethnography: Imaginative Practices and Creative Methodologies. University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
De Line, Sebastian, and Manning, Dolleen Tisawii’ashii. 2020. “The Murmuration of Birds: An Anishinaabe Ontology of Mnidoo-Worlding.” Talking Uncertainty, podcast, season 1, episode 2, Emergent Futures CoLab, 30 September. www.urgentemergent.org/talking-uncertainty/mnidoo-worlding Google Scholar
Eidsheim, Nina Sun. 2008. “Voice as a Technology of Selfhood: Towards an Analysis of Racialized Timbre and Vocal Performance.” PhD diss., University of California, San Diego.Google Scholar
Eidsheim, Nina Sun. 2012. “Voice as Action: Towards a Model for Analyzing the Dynamic Construction of Racialized Voice.” Current Musicology 93:9–32. doi.org/10.7916/cm.v0i93.5218 Google Scholar
Erndl, Kathleen M. 2007. “The Play of the Mother: Possession and Power in Hindu Women’s Goddess Rituals.” In Women’s Lives, Women’s Rituals in the Hindu Tradition, ed. Tracy Pintchman, 151–57. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Guay, Hervé, Larrue, Jean-Marc, and Nolette, Nicole. 2022. “Theatre and New Materialisms: A Presentation.” Theatre Research in Canada 43, 1:10–16. doi.org/10.3138/tric.43.1.02.en Google Scholar
Hancock, Mary Elizabeth. 1999. Womanhood in the Making: Domestic Ritual and Public Culture in Urban South India. Westview Press.Google Scholar
Hauser, Beatrix. 2012. Promising Rituals: Gender and Performativity in Eastern India. Routledge India.Google Scholar
Kazubowski-Houston, Magdalena , and Auslander, Mark, eds. 2021. In Search of Lost Futures: Anthropological Explorations in Multimodality, Deep Interdisciplinarity, and Autoethnography. Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Keller, Mary. 2002. The Hammer and the Flute: Women, Power, and Spirit Possession. Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Kim, Jonggab. 2020. “The Problem of Nonhuman Agency and Bodily Intentionality in the Anthropocene.” Neohelicon 47, 1:9–16. doi.org/10.1007/s11059-020-00534-1 Google Scholar
Lewis, I.M. 1966. “Spirit Possession and Deprivation Cults.” Man 1, 3:307–29. doi.org/10.2307/2796794 Google Scholar
Magnat, Virginie. 2022. “(K)new Materialisms: Honouring Indigenous Perspectives.” Theatre Research in Canada 43, 1:24–37. doi.org/10.3138/tric.43.1.a01 Google Scholar
Manning, Dolleen Tisawii’ashii. 2017. “Mnidoo-Worlding: Merleau-Ponty and Anishinaabe Philosophical Translations.” PhD diss., University of Western Ontario.Google Scholar
Nayyar, Rajat. 2022. “Granular Activisms: Women’s Vocality and Multimodality in Rural North India.” Visual Anthropology Review 38, 2:256–78. doi.org/10.1111/var.12277 Google Scholar
Pintchman, Tracy, ed. 2007. Women’s Lives, Women’s Rituals in the Hindu Tradition. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Rouch, Jean. 2003. “The Camera and Man.” In Ciné-Ethnography, ed. and trans. Steven Feld, 29–46. University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Salazar, Juan Francisco, Pink, Sarah, Irving, Andrew, and Sjöberg, Johannes. 2017. Anthropologies and Futures: Researching Emerging and Uncertain Worlds. Routledge.Google Scholar
Schäuble, Michaela. 2019. “Ecstasy, Choreography and Re-Enactment: Aesthetic and Political Dimensions of Filming States of Trance and Spirit Possession in Postwar Southern Italy.” Visual Anthropology 32, 1:33–55. doi.org/10.1080/08949468.2019.1568112 Google Scholar
Schlichter, Annette, and Sun Eidsheim, Nina. 2014. “Introduction: Voice Matters.” Postmodern Culture 24, 3:1–4. doi.org/10.1353/pmc.2014.0012 Google Scholar
Sered, Susan Starr. 1996. Priestess, Mother, Sacred Sister: Religions Dominated by Women. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Tiwari, Ram Narayan. 2015. Personal conversation with author.Google Scholar
Van de Port, Mattijs. 2017. “The Possibility of Spirits.” Journal of Anthropological Films 1, 1:e1316. doi.org/10.15845/jaf.v1i1.1316 Google Scholar

TDReadings

Katyal, Anjum. 2001. “Performing the Goddess: Sacred Ritual into Professional Performance.” TDR 45, 1 (T169):96–117. doi.org/10.1162/105420401300079077 Google Scholar
Sarfati, Liora. 2020. “Healing through Gender Inversion in Korean Possession Trance Rituals.” TDR 64, 3 (247):16–32. doi.org/10.1162/dram_a_00940 Google Scholar

Nayyar supplementary material

Nayyar supplementary material

Download Nayyar supplementary material(Video)
Video 30 MB