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Programme Book

Gita Jayaraj

Indian Institute of Technology Madras, India

Gita Jayaraj is currently a research scholar affiliated with the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences (DoHSS) at the Indian Institute of Technology – Madras (IIT-M) researching a ritual form of worship particular to North Malabar called Teyyam. She has an MPhil degree (1995) from the Centre of Linguistics and English, Jawaharal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi. Her doctoral research investigates the practice and performance of teyyam, a ritual dance performance of North Kerala, as both a religious expression of faith, as well as a specifically located cultural performance. I ask in specific relation to the practice and performance of teyyam as to the kind of bodies involved in the ritual, as also the experience and embodiment possession. Through ethnographic research I attempt to understand the socio-cultural location of otherwise “lowered”-caste male bodies that perform their way into ritual divinity, and its implications for the construction of social difference.

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