Abstract
The body has emerged as a significant discursive concept, the subject and medium of artistic inquiry in the past few decades. It remains a fundamental site for the politics of identity, representation and resistance. In contemporary performance practices the body signifies a critical site for ideological expression, aesthetic and formalistic experiments and social and political comment. This paper will provide an insight into the methodologies used by a selection of performance artists in India who have utilized their bodies to share narratives regarding the nation, gender and citizenship. Focusing on the artists’ work and voices, the paper would explore their personal and political trajectories that tie up with historical and contemporary views of the body in the context of its democratic and citizenship rights. This would be foregrounded within the present debate in India regarding the concept of ‘nationalism’, the legal framework of ‘sedition’ and the right to free speech.
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Sahai, S. (2017). Mapping the Nation: Performance Art in India and Narratives of Nationalism and Citizenship. In: Dutt, B., Reinelt, J., Sahai, S. (eds) Gendered Citizenship. Contemporary Performance InterActions. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-59093-6_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-59093-6_6
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