Echoes of liminality: Hidden transcripts and subtle resistance in Bhojpuri-speaking women’s Kajari folksongs

Abstract

In North India, Kajari is both a festival and a folksong, offering a starting point to explore the subversive practices of Mallah caste Bhojpuri-speaking women in ritualised and performative contexts. The study uses ethnographic data, such as rituals and folksong as source material collected between 2021 and 2023. With James Scott’s idea of hidden transcripts, Victor Turner’s concept of liminality and liminoid provides theoretical lenses to examine rural women’s rituals, folksongs, and dramatic performances to subtly challenge patriarchal norms and transgress social and linguistic boundaries offstage. Through the liminal phase of the Kajari festival, women create a space for bold self-expression, humour, and critique, emerging as revitalised social actors. This exploration reveals how liminal spaces, performative acts and hidden transcripts allow for the ritualised subversion of gender roles, transforming women’s roles within and sometimes beyond the ritual setting and fostering alternative voices and expressions.