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Abstract

This article conducts a critical study of poems selected from recent social movements in India. Placing the texts within the frame of resistance literature as defined by Barbara Harlow, it identifies the ways in which these poems utilize the archival power of collective political memory. I posit that the sites of resistance are crucial in the formulation and maintenance of this archive. The incorporation of the site as a literary motif performs the functions of historicizing a struggle and situating it within a larger legacy of protest, establishing the site as a place for building community and solidarity, as well as signifying the value of a site and its occupants as a social and political threat to an oppressive regime.

Keywords

archive Indian literature non-traditional texts poetry public protest resistance literature sites of protest

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Resistance poetry as peoples’ archive — Examining the importance of the site of protest

Abstract

Keywords

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