Historiography
The historiography of ‘folk performance’ discusses the existing studies on the subject from the colonial period to the present and points out the discrepancies leading to methodological problems. Scholars have discussed the politics of cultural practice in the context of the colonial and nationalist politics, neo-colonial state’s cultural policies, and in the context of bourgeois morality and sexual politics. These criticisms have exposed the inherent class and gender biases of the colonialists, the nationalist and the middle class that lead to the disavowal of such performances. Nevertheless, these criticisms have remained primarily confined to the level of theatre historiography and counter-discourses. The work is an attempt to go beyond theatre the historiography and counter-discourse modes. It aims to take account of the mode of articulation coming from the alternative sources. Broadly, it discusses the legacies of marginalization that have become part of this performance tradition.