Finding a Place as a Woman Alone: Violence, Storytelling, and World-Making in Song

What is it about?

This chapter examines belonging in light of gendered violence, hope, and aspirations, as experienced in the dohori field and performed in dohori songs. As the final ethnographic chapter, this chapter returns to the village dohori songfest as a central site for singers’ performed expression, closing the circle of migration and mobility for a moment in time, as long as the song goes on.

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Why is it important?

Set among professional dohori singers who have toured throughout Nepal and internationally, it is an examination of domestic violence remembered, the difficulties involved in speaking about it, and the performance practices and narrative forms that enable individuals to navigate the intimate politics of family relations at the intersection of public and private, and articulate potential alternatives to norms.

Perspectives