Gender, Caste, and South Asian Performance in the Decolonial Turn

ABSTRACT In the last 70 years, research on caste, gender, and performance in South Asia has evolved into a rich field of study. In the humanities and social sciences, scholars and practitioners of music, dance, theater, and film in India, the U.K., Australia, and the United States, positioned in sociology, anthropology, dance, theater and performance studies, religious studies, and ethnomusicology have examined how performance cultures uniquely animate the braided legacies of European colonialism, postcolonial nationalism, and caste apartheid in social life. In this article, the author provides a feminist critique of the Euro‐American entanglements that have shaped studies of performance cultures in India, tracing a historical trajectory from Dutch and British colonization and Cold War U.S. academic funding structures to contemporary critical caste and feminist movements.