← New Books Network
New Books Network
Leah Lowthorp, "Deep Cosmopolitanism: Kutiyattam, Dynamic Tradition, and Globalizing Heritage in Kerala, India" (Indiana UP, 2025)
00:57:15
Loading summary
Transcript31 lines
- [00:00]
A
Hello, everybody.
- [00:01]
B
This is Marshall Po. I'm the founder and editor of the New Books Network. And if you're listening to this, you know that the NBN is the largest academic podcast network in the world. We reach a worldwide audience of 2 million people. You may have a podcast or you may be thinking about starting a podcast. As you probably know, there are challenges basically of two kinds. One is technical. There are things you have to know in order to get your podcast produced and distributed. And the second is, and this is the biggest problem, you need to get an audience. Building an audience in podcasting is the hardest thing to do today. With this in mind, we at the NBM have started a service called NBN Productions. What we do is help you create a podcast, produce your podcast, distribute your podcast, and we host your podcast. Most importantly, what we do is we distribute your podcast to the NBN audience. We've done this many times with many academic podcasts, and we would like to help you. If you would be interested in talking to us about how we can help you with your podcast, please contact us. Just go to the front page of the New Books Network and you will see a link to NBN Productions. Click that, fill out the form, and we can talk. Welcome to the New Books Network.
- [01:07]
C
Hello, everybody, and welcome to the Folklore Channel of the New Books Network. I'm your host, Yadong Lee, a PhD candidate in sociocultural anthropology at Tulane University. In today's episode, we will talk about a remarkable new book that weaves together performance, heritage, politics, long histories of cosmopolitan connection in Keller, India. This new book offers an ethnography of extraordinary temporal death, challenging and broadening existing approaches to theatre, cosmopolitanism and cultural heritage. So by questioning Eurocentric genealogies and assumptions about what it means to be cosmopolitan, to be traditional and modern in the world today. I'm very excited to have this chance to talk with the new book's author, Professor Leah Lothrop. So, Professor Lothrop, welcome to the new book in folklore.
- [01:56]
A
Thank you.
- [01:58]
C
Thank you. It's my pleasure to have this opportunity. The new book today is Deep Cosmopolitanism, Dynamic Tradition and Globalizing Heritage in Kerala, India, published by Indiana University Press in 2025. So, Leah Lothrop is a cultural anthropologist and folklorist. She's assistant professor of Anthropology and Folklore at the University of Oregon. Her research focuses on art and social change, critical heritage studies, cosmopolitanism, postcolonial theory, and the online circulation of biopolitical narratives. And to start off, Professor Lothrop, may I invite you to introduce yourself to our listeners? How did you first come to folklore studies and anthropology, and what drew you to South Asia and to Kerala in particular?
- [02:43]
A
Yes, thank you. And I'm so happy to be here. Thank you for this opportunity. So I actually came originally to folklore through anthropology. I was an anthropology undergraduate at UC Berkeley, and there folklore courses are taught under the Anthropology department, although it also has a separate folklorema program. But so taking an Intro to Folklore class for my anthropology undergraduate is how I first discovered folklore. It was with the famous folklorist Alan Dundees, who's incredibly charismatic, and he really was a big force in the 20th century for recruiting young Berkeley students to do their PhDs in folklore across the US. So I was one of those. And in terms of coming to South Asia, my best friend when I was little and still one of my best friends today, but my first best friend, let's say, when I was three years old, her name was Mira, and her family was originally from Gujarat in India and had made the long migration to East Africa, then London, and then to California, where we met. I really grew up at her house all the time steeped in particularly Indian food and music and culture and hearing them speak Gujarati. And so when I was thinking of a field site for my work, I was just initially naturally drawn to India, wanting to learn more about it. And finally, Kerala, specifically, a southwestern state along the Arabian Sea coast in India. I initially came to Kerala because of Kuriatam, because of my interest in UNESCO, and we'll talk about that in a little bit. But also, my mother's older sister has lived in Kerala since the year 2000. And so I thought, hey, if I go there, I'll have an aunt, just a few hours, train right away if fieldwork gets tough. And I want to go to my aunt's house and recover during a weekend, she'll be there. And at the time, also there was a folklore MA student at the University of Pennsylvania, where I was doing my PhD from Kerala. And so she really talked up Kerala, said it was an amazing place, and that she mentioned that Kerala was matriarchal, which very much piqued my interest. I later found out that it's not matriarchal. It is still patriarchal, but a lot of groups in Kerala were historically matrilineal. So you would inherit your family name, your cast name, as well as land from the mother's line. And so it just. It really piqued my interest.
- [05:14]
C
It's such a wonderful story. I think it's always wonderful to know the origin story of folklorist. It's the most interesting part, like how your friend led you to Gujilad and how other friends guided you to a so called matriarchal Kerala. And now I love to tend to the origin story of this particular project. So what is the backstory behind deep cosmopolitanism? How do you first encounter Kuliaten like you mentioned before, and also at what point did you realize this art form and this particular community of artists, institutions and audiences would become the archer of all this fascinating folklore studies and ethnography? Were there any specific moments during the fieldwork when you saw there's a bigger story here about tradition and cosmopolitanism that needs to be told?
- [06:01]
A
Yeah. Thank you. So I originally came to Kuriatom specifically through the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage program, which had started not too many years before I began my PhD and I had always been very interested in global organizations like the United nations, to which UNESCO belongs, global ideas of heritage culture. And since it was fairly near the beginning of the program, its first inscription list of intangible cultural heritage was in 2001. And here's me choosing around 2005 or so a topic I wanted to do a case study because no case studies of how this global inscription impacts communities on the ground had yet been done at that point. And so being attracted to doing a case study of UNESCO ich and also being attracted to India, then I looked at which items had been inscribed in India. And Kuriatam in Kerala was India's first UNESCO masterpiece of the oral and intangible heritage of humanity in 2001. And so that's how I really came to Kuriatom in the first place. I was really fascinated by its time, depth. It's been around and practiced for over a thousand years continuously. Women have been in the art historically as well, which fascinated me. So Kuriatam artists also belong to a matrilineal community. And that's an aspect that fascinated me. And as a musician myself since I was a child, I had always been interested in theater, but I had never really explored it in depth. Though I considered this a wonderful chance to explore an amazing theater form in depth. And so I really, you know, my first time coming to Kerala and meeting the artists, and especially that first summer I met my future teacher, Margie Usha. We had such a wonderful connection that really from the beginning I knew that this was going to be the topic of my dissertation. It was such an amazing art form and so, so rich in such an interesting area of the country with wonderfully talented, amazing people that I just felt very lucky to have encountered it and had the chance to later live there for two years alongside the artists during my main period of fieldwork.
- [08:28]
C
Yeah, exactly. I think we talk a little bit about Kuliatan and our listener must be very interesting about it. So let's focus more directly on this art form itself which sets at the heart of your, you know, analyze this and also your book. So for listeners who may not be very familiar with, you know, South Asian background and also this theatrical art form, how would you briefly describe the word of Kuriatan, what it is, who is involved and where and how it is performed? And within this word, what are the core questions that organize your study in the present book?
- [09:02]
A
Yeah, so Kuriatam, Sanskrit theater, as I mentioned, it's the oldest continuously performed theater in the world. It's been performed since approximately the 10th century CE and it's a traditionally matrilineal upper caste Hindu temple art that's been performed by men and women. Yeah. For approximately a thousand years continuously. So we have actors, actresses and drummers together performing Sanskrit plays which were themselves authored between zero and a thousand ce and they narrate stories from the epics, the Ramayana and Mahabharata and highly emotive and vibrantly colored facial expressions as well as stylized movements and a bit of dance. And so something that's very special about Kuriatam is the art really focuses on the elaboration and extension of each moment and each detail on stage. And so this means that a single play is never performed in its entirety. Instead they only ever perform one act of a play at a time. And it generally takes between five to 10 days to perform one act. But in some performances or some pieces it can last even up to 41 days. So it's incredibly detailed and rich. And Kuriatam, until 1965 it was performed exclusively by a small hereditary group of artists as a caste occupation. And this is an occupation, them being matrilineal, that was inherited from their mother's family. But these days it's performed by a larger diverse group of hereditary and non hereditary artists, not only in temple stages, but on public stages as well. And as I mentioned, Kuriatam was inscribed as India's first UNESCO ICH in 2001. And moving on to the questions that really that frame my book, the main question, as you've mentioned so far, but the main question of the book is asking how Kuriatam has engaged with multiple cosmopolitanisms over its thousand year history as a way to help us think differently about what it means to be cosmopolitan, modern and traditional in the world today. And since cosmopolitanism can be defined in many different ways, I use the definition put forth by Breckenridge Paba Palakan Chakrabarti as multiple ways of thinking and acting beyond the local. And so the the cosmopolitan forms with which Kuriatam has engaged with over during its history that I consider here are the Sanskrit cosmopolis, cross border circulation and performance in the medieval period, colonialism, communism, Indian nationalism, and then finally UNESCO intangible cultural heritage. A few additional related questions. Key questions that I ask are how do contemporary artists create meaning out of their deep past through everyday narratives and reflections? How has this elite matrilineal temple art been impacted by changing power centers over time? And how have artists negotiated these changes? What are the caste and gender dynamics of Kuriatam's various cosmopolitanisms through the present day? How does Kuriatam as a theater performed in multiple languages? This is something I hadn't mentioned yet. In Sanskrit, Prakrit Mani Pravalam, Malayalam and a mudra hand gesture language. How does it embody a cosmopolitan epic in performance? And finally, how has Kuriatam's inscription as UNESCO ich impacted artists lives, their art and their visions for the future?
- [12:52]
C
Excellent. Thank you for sharing all this very insightful question. And from this question we can see this book can be both helpful for folklorists, but also for scholars in, you know, South Asian study, Indian studies and so on. And I also really recommend our listener to watch a video of Kulia Cham themselves, maybe on YouTube or you know, elsewhere. It's amazing to see how this, you know, hand gesture and also body languages and also this real, you know, its length is really impressive. So before we move deeper in your argument and you know, analysis, it will be very helpful to have a bit more context. As you mentioned, it's very complex, you know, it involves, you know, communism. It involves more local history, also the UNESCO. So what kinds of background do your, you know, readers need in order to follow this book's argument? Whether about Kerala as a region, coup d' Artam as a ritual and theatrical tradition, the caste and gendered histories that structure this performance word all the working of UNESCO's regimes and programs? I think of course we cannot cover everything here, but could you sketch the key contextual elements that you see as the most important for situation your book?
- [14:06]
A
Thank you. Yeah, this is a really important question. I'll start with Kerala. So Kerala is a really special state with a very unique history. It was a historically cosmopolitan region. It was the halfway point between East Asian and Middle Eastern trade routes. And so I mentioned it's on the coast along the Arabian Sea, right? And so all ships going between these points needed to stop in Kerala to refresh their provisions. And so let's say medieval Kerala was an incredibly particularly the ports were incredibly cosmopolitan. You saw people from all over the world. And even today they still have what they call Chinese fishing nets in some of the ports Today. Kerala is known as a result of this historically cosmopolitan world that it was part of. It's known today still for its religious diversity. So there's members of Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Hinduism within the state. And it's also known for its general religious tolerance relative to other Indian states. European colonization in Kerala began with the Portuguese in the 16th century and subsequently came the Dutch, the French and the British. But even during the time of the British, only about one third of Kerala was directly ruled by the British. Two thirds of it remained princely states that were not directly ruled. So royal families and occasionally even queens retained some semblance of power through the 20th century. And finally, Kerala also has the first large scale democratically elected communist government in the world since the 1950s. And though governments have switched between communism and socialism since, communism has remained a very important force in the state through the present day, with the communist government currently in power. And next I'll move on to a little bit a few extra details about Kuriatam as a Sanskrit theater tradition. So despite Malayalam being the local language of Kerala, Kuriatam performs Sanskrit plays and recites Sanskrit dialogue on stage. Although as I mentioned, Malayalam and Mudra hand gestures are also major stage languages. And so as part of this, I argue that Kuriatam began as a cosmopolitan art form, part of what Sheldon Pollock has called the Sanskrit Cosmopolis that was happening the first millennium ce and he's formulated there was a large circulation of Sanskrit poetry across south, south and Southeast Asia, to which plays would also belong. Right. And within this model, poets and by association, playwrights consciously penned works in Sanskrit rather than their local vernacular languages, knowing that a much wider audience would be able to read their works if they wrote in Sanskrit. And so Khudiatam being rooted in Kerala where the language was, Malayalam being a Sanskrit play tradition, was part of this wider, larger world of the Sanskrit Cosmopolis that spanned south and Southeast Asia at that time. And just another small detail I mentioned, it's an upper caste art, so it's performed by Cakyar actors, which themselves are considered half Brahmin. And then the subcast just below them are the Nambyyars or the male drummers and the nangyars, which are the female actresses and cymbal players. And so, as I mentioned, the majority of artists today, though, are non hereditary. And interestingly enough, women's performances, in contrast to the past, often dominate the stage through the female solo performance known as Nangyar Kuthu, which is part of Huriatun performance. And then the very last contextual information UNESCO ICH that you mentioned, it's important to acknowledge that the UNESCO ICH program, it really emerged as a critique of the UNESCO World Heritage Program, which many more people are familiar with. Right. That recognizes built heritage and natural heritage around the world, although the majority of sites historically were recognized in Western Europe. And so it emerged as a critique by members of the Global south of the Eurocentric nature of the World Heritage Program, both in who was getting their heritage recognized as well as the concepts behind what heritage is. And so they're really focusing on the material heritage. And so people around the world that weren't getting their heritage recognized were saying, we also have valuable culture. We would like our culture recognized on a global scale. It's not always built heritage, it's oftentimes folklore and performance traditions. And so that really sparked the creation of the ICH program. An important role was that folklorists and anthropologists played in the development of the program, particularly in things like getting rid of terminology and value systems centered around authenticity. So explicitly acknowledging that expressive culture changes over time to suit communities needs, and also, as I mentioned, to recognize forms of culture that have been historically marginalized on an international scale. So it's been a very important, significant program in terms of international heritage.
- [19:21]
C
Perfect. And following this discussion, one of the key contributions of this book is your insistence that Kuriatan as a tradition has always been dynamic and outward looking, rather than a fragile, static relic of the past. And this fact, like you mentioned before, is further rooted in Kerala's very cosmopolitan local history. So based on this case study, how does attending to the deep history of Kudiatum unsettle some of the assumptions that often accompany terms like tradition, cosmopolitanism and heritage and even culture when they are framed from a Euro American perspective?
- [20:00]
A
Yeah. Thank you. This focus on dynamism by the artists themselves is very important. They would often say, we are not a museum piece. Right. This is a living tradition that changes over time. And so they really asserted that art changes. It has to change with the changing times because the audience tastes change over time. And you need to change the art to suit the changing audience tastes in order to stay relevant. Right. And something I Didn't mention earlier, but that is quite fascinating, is that part of Kuriatam performance involves the Vidushaka figure. And this is a figure from actually classic Sanskrit theater, the Natya Shastra, for those familiar with that. But it's a figure in Kerala specifically who speaks the local language, Malayalam. And so on stage, this character will translate the hero's Sanskrit dialogue for the audience into the local language. And not only that, he'll do it in a humorous way, often relating what's happening on stage to contemporary events at the time as a form of critique and as especially humorous critique. So Kuriatam artists especially credit this particular figure and performances with the Vidushaka for continued change in interest from artists and audiences over time, and thus the survival of the art over such a long time period that the Vidushaka figure really helped the art adapt continuously to new changing circumstances in a way that continued to interest the audience. And so in terms of deep history and multiple cosmopolitan engagements over time, and how this helps us rethink tradition. So the assertion that these artists are making that tradition is always modern, right? It's always practiced by modern individuals for contemporary audiences. And this assertion really, I argue, shakes the foundations of colonial modernity, right? Which has always conceived of tradition as the opposite of the modern right. It conceives of tradition as pre modern and unable to adapt to modernity that which is dying out and perpetually endangered, right? And it's generally physically located in the ICH program, as well as more generally in the global south, which is then often characterized. The people of those regions are often characterized as these same things, pre modern, right? And so this particular part of my work, I position it among the work of folklorists like and anthropologists Charles Briggs, Richard Bauman and Satya Naidani, who have really problematized the tradition modernity, binary as Eurocentric. And then moving on to thinking about cosmopolitanism or rethinking cosmopolitanism, we see how Kuriatam is an art form from the global south whose history spans both the pre modern and the modern period, and how it's participated in multiple cosmopolitan engagements over time. And oftentimes, when we think about the term cosmopolitanism these days in the world, it's often rooted in Kantian definitions of it, which is related to conceptions of the nation and modernity. And it's generally people think of kind of the circulation of elite individuals from the west, right? And so looking at how these artists from the global south that span the pre modern and the modern periods were fully cosmopolitan in multiple ways over their history. It really causes us to question these dominant notions of how we think about the term and the phenomenon today. The anthropologist Arjuna Potterai famously called for the study of cosmopolitan cultural forms of the contemporary world, as he said, without logically or chronologically presupposing either the authority of the Western experience or the models derived from that experience. And so this work is also responding to his call. And as far as I know, it's the first ethnography to span the pre modern and modern periods in this looking at forms of cosmopolitanism from the global South.
- [24:17]
C
Excellent. Thank you for tracing this academic thread and also how your ethnography engage participate in this ongoing and very important academic conversations, dialogues and to talk about how the case of Kudiatam challenges our understanding of modern pre modern and also all these important issues in folklore studies and anthropology. But I think, you know, we can be more specific and more practical to let our audience know why this case is very important not only for the academia, not only for academia, but also for, you know, practitioners like in shaping the lives of Kudiatan and understanding of heritage and tradition in the world today. I think UNESCO, like we mentioned before, is one of the most significant actors and it was precisely UNESCO's program leading you to this study. And another key thread in your book is your contrast between Kudiatam's deep Cosmopolitanism is the book's title and what you describe as UNESCO's endangered local to safeguarded global trajectory, which many listeners will recognize it as a kind of heritage salvage paradigm. So how does the Kudiatum case and your concept of deep cosmopolitanism complicate, challenge or even subvert UNESCO's temporal and spatial assumptions about who is modern, who is traditional and what it means to be global.
- [25:42]
A
Yes, thank you for the question. Yeah, it's a very central one within my book. And so by the term deep cosmopolitanism, just to clarify what I mean in terms of deep this time depth as well as diversity. So as I'd mentioned, Kuriatam's multiple ways of thinking or acting beyond the local over the art's thousand year history. And as you mentioned, I argue that UNESCO's trajectory specifically in this ICH program is that of the endangered local to safeguarded global. And you're very right in saying that it's very much a salvage paradigm. So as part of its ICH discourse, UNESCO often characterizes ICH forms as localized forms that are endangered specifically by globalization and they thus need saving through the intervention of a global organization like UNESCO that then comes and swoops in to safeguard them. Right. And so, yes, it's part of a salvage paradigm and in a way also repurposing this colonialist savior narrative. Right. And so the discourse of endangerment that UNESCO applies to these ICH forms, I argue that, however unintentionally still serves to characterize these forms and importantly the people associated with them, people who practice them as pre modern themselves and unable to adapt to modernity, which of course is highly problematic. Right. Especially since the majority of UNESCO ICH forms are from the global South. And so we see this really directly echoing colonialist paradigms of non Western peoples as backward and pre modern and in need of saving through modernization, AKA violent colonialist exploitation and domination. Right. These earlier narratives. And that persists very much in the present day. And importantly, the decolonial theorist Walter Mignolo argues that this colonial paradigm is fundamentally racist and part of a larger paradigm of white supremacy that persists into the present day as part of what he terms the modern colonial world, because we can't conceive of modernity without considering colonialism as part of it, and whereby we see non Western people still characterized as not fully modern today. And so this is, you know, this is part of the UNESCO ICH program that I think is most likely unintentional, but is part of this kind of foundational conceptualization that it hasn't yet moved beyond. And so within this particular paradigm, it's therefore not surprising then that there haven't been two many Western forms inscribed as UNESCO ich. And this is an observation that folklorist Barbara Kirschenvach Gimlet has observed. She argued that it creates a distinction between the west and the rest through the program. However, as I mentioned unintentionally.
- [28:44]
C
Thank you, thank you for this elaboration. And also I want to particularly discuss the methodology of this ethnography, because you study a theatrical form by engaging deeply in it, and your field work in this book is strikingly collaborative and embodied. You trained as a performer, you work closely with artists such as Maggie Usha, and you navigated institutional spaces like cultural organizations and heritage bodies. So how do this combination of apprenticeship, long term formal and informal relations, and what we might call institutional ethnography shaped the kind of question you could ask and the kind of story you were able to tell in the book. Were there particular moments in training or performance that challenged or changed your understanding of Kuriatam and the meaning of heritage?
- [29:38]
A
Yes, thank you. I consider my experience training in Kuriatam really as a fundamental part of my research. I went into the field actually just Originally wanting to learn a little bit of it. And when I went to study with my teacher, Margi Usha, she then said, no, actually, you can train and do your whole arangetam, which is an inaugural performance on stage. So it turned into a wonderful experience that very much of physical and mental molding of my body into the kuriatam frame, which really helped me. This happened at the beginning of my research. It really helped me to then understand the artist's experience much better moving forward into my research. And this really comes initially from a paradigm of sklar. She has a term called kinesthetic empathy, that if you're studying people and their forms, that in order to try to understand them, you have to put your own body on the line to move with them. Right? And so this was my attempt to put my own body on the line to try to understand kuriatam. But it was also a way of demonstrating my dedication to the topic and to the art through this act. Because previously to that, I had just been there for a couple of summers, and when I talked to a few artists, they said, oh, are you an actress? And when I said, no, I'm actually a musician, they thought, then why? They said, why are you studying this? So in putting my body on the line, it really demonstrated my dedication to getting into this art form physically as well as mentally, because it's an incredibly difficult art form, but wonderful at the same time. So, yeah, this really helped form my relationship with my teacher. And also that really close relationship between guru and student is a fundamental part of all Indian arts. So I feel like it gave me a really wonderful and necessary perspective in studying this art form as well. Let's see. And the other aspect of your question was, how did it shape the questions you ask and the kind of folklore heritage story you were able to tell? I really. I was really hoping. And my goal through this ethnography was to really try to get into the worldview of the artists themselves, to get as close to that as I could. Of course, I'm not born and raised as a kuriatim artist, so I can only really touch the surface as an outsider, but trying my best to try to understand on their terms as much as I could. And I think that that this experience, and working closely with them, always asking them, what does this mean to you? Some of the fundamental questions of ethnography really made the work and helped me try to accomplish my goal as much as possible of trying to represent their perspective. And actually, I have to say, initially, my dissertation work was really primarily focused on the 20th century and UNESCO's impact on the art. And in the many years that have since passed, I thought, you know, I don't want to just focus on UNESCO because artists were interested in it, but it wasn't the pinnacle of their, of their interests. You know, they didn't consider it the pinnacle of Kuriatam. There were so many other questions and aspects about the history and performance that they were interested in and the art's deep history. And so I wanted to try to create something that helped to reflect or that was able to more closely reflect how artists themselves conceptualize the art. And that's why I expanded the time scope from a hundred year period to a thousand year period, which is quite a lot of work, but was really, really rewarding. And I'm personally fascinated with history. And so I loved digging into those, the earlier histories of Kuriatum and also talking to artists with follow up interviews about how they conceptualize and relate to that history.
- [33:56]
C
Thank you very much for sharing your trajectory in shifting the focus of your research. Personally speaking, I think it's very helpful for the qualitative researcher in studying folklore, in studying performance, and also for me, like younger anthropologists, thank you very much for sharing all this very valuable experience. And another very fascinating thread in this deep cosmopolitanism is the relationship between coup d', etam, communist politics in Kerala, and also the making of a regional heritage and identity. Something you also spoke about at the 2024American Folklore Society annual meeting which I attended. And it was really amazing. So how did communist movement, cultural politics, you know, cultural policy and formal institutions reshape coup d' etam and help reposition it as part of a specifically Malayali heritage? What kinds of negotiations, tensions or alliances emerged in this process between artists, party actors and cultural institutions?
- [35:00]
A
Yeah, thank you for that question. It's a really fascinating history, right, because you would think, well, as we know, of course, communism was adapted to every local instance in which it applied, in which it was implemented. And so how it was implemented specifically in Kerala is quite a fascinating case. You know, the Indian Communist Party was actually founded in the Soviet Union, right, and then brought back to India. And a lot of Kerala individuals were really interested in it. The main leader, political, who became the future political leader, and Kerala was named Ems Nambudripad. And the interesting thing is that whereas communism is a discourse of the people, of the everyday, local folk and people, and oftentimes communist entities then lift up folk art specifically and they reject any type of elite forms of culture. So Khuriatam as I mentioned, it's a temple art and it's an upper caste temple art and it's Sanskrit. Right. So Sanskrit is really was the epitome of elitist culture, elite culture now and in that period specifically. And so you would think that a new communist government would then completely reject these type of upper caste elite forms like Kuriatam. Kadakali is another one that's actually quite famous coming out of Kerala and other types of temple forms. So not only rejecting elite forms, but rejecting religious forms. Right, because communism usually rejects organized religion as well. But that is not what happened in the case of Kerala and Kuriatam. So interestingly enough, most of the leaders of communism in Kerala state were Brahmans themselves, Right? So the elite, top high caste that were, you know, religious leaders within Hinduism. And so interestingly enough, they kind of adapted communist narratives for their own purposes. Important to note is that there was also at the time like a secessionist movement for South India to secede from the rest of India. Within this particular, it's called the Dravidian nationalist movement. Within that movement, Brahmins were seen as invaders from North India who came to the south and put themselves at the top of the cultural and societal hierarchies and in control. And so part of this movement that was centered in the neighboring state of Tamil Nadu was to kick all of the Brahmans back out to North India. And mind you, Brahmans had, you know, came to the south in about 800. So they're talking about kicking people out who had been there for 1200 years or so. You know, so but kicking all of the Brahmans out of the region and forming a separate nation of the five South Indian speaking states. And they wanted Kerala to form part of that. But as the Kerala Communist party was led by Brahmins, if they formed part of the Dravidian nationalist movement, then they would be essentially kicking themselves out of the state because they were of the group that the movement wanted to kick out. And so they did something different. They reformulated Kerala as that the period of feudalism and Kerala history was a necessary step along the historical trajectory towards communism. And therefore Brahmans and Brahminical culture became kind of neutered. They divested them of their power, conceptualizing them as a necessary step along the way of the evolution to the present day. And therefore the we're able to embrace that. It's okay to embrace these things. And so a lot of people were very much interested in the art form Kathakali that I mentioned, which is more popular on a wider scale. And so there's a famous quote by Ems Nimbudipad that you are able to be a communist and love Kathakali. Right. Joined Brahminic culture with conceptions of Kerala regional heritage and identity. And so as I mentioned, ironically, actually elite high culture then became the predominant heritage of the state rather than local folk forms. That's a very interesting case study and very much the opposite of what you would expect.
- [39:32]
B
It's okay not to be perfect with finances. Experian is your big financial friend and here to help. Did you know you can get matched with credit cards on the app? Some cards are labeled no ding decline, which means if you're not approved, they won't hurt your credit scores. Download the Experian app for free today. Applying for no ding decline cards won't hurt your credit scores. If you aren't initially approved. Initial approval will result in a hard inquiry which may impact your credit scores.
- [40:02]
C
It's truly amazing to see. NASDAQ definitely is a case study to show how Ku Diatum is so dynamic to negotiate with different regimes, also different politics, in different period of time. And also it's very insightful to see how this case study is combined with your effort of tracing the temporal death of Kudiatam, which is a very impressive characteristic of your ethnography. And over the course of the book, you trace Kudiatam's movement from the Sanskrit cosmopolitanism through the temple based and regional circles and to its negotiations with communism and to its contemporary life as the NESCO recognized form of intangible cultural heritage. So what does following this long durate trajectory allow you to see about shifting scales and centers of authority like royal, religious, regional, political and international in defining what comes as valuable culture, valuable heritage?
- [41:05]
A
Yeah, thank you. And I'm sorry, in that last question, I didn't mention specifically Kuriatam then, as part of these upper caste elite arts, became a symbol of Kerala heritage at this state institution, Kerala Kalamatullam specifically. But yeah, in terms of a long jury approach, it's very rare that we get to have a long jury approach. Right. There's not too many things that we have. Doctors, documented history and knowledge within a community that has persisted through such a long period of time, I would say, I mean, of course there's plenty of other examples in the world, but it's such a unique. Khuriatan presented such a wonderfully unique opportunity, I thought, to really trace these different forms and to see how things change over time. But again, how one particular art is flexible Enough to persist. Meanings around it can change, and yet it persists over time through all of these different power structures and changing circumstances, which I think is the beautiful part about Kuriatam. But, yeah, in terms of various power structures and authority, we see how Kuriatam originated as part of the Sanskrit cosmopolis. And in its early days, it was very much integrated into the temple power structure. So temples were very powerful institutions across Kerala, as well as royal power structures. So the art form was supported financially both by the temples and by kings, local kings as well as larger kings, high kings, let's say. And we see that change over time to even the periods of invasion. I have one legend that artists still tell today about the invasion of Tipu Sultan, who was a Muslim sultan from a neighboring kingdom, which now would be a country. Right. And he invades and kind of destroys a lot of the Hindu temples. So we see how the artists persisted through that by performing very quietly. They still perform despite great danger to themselves. And then we see through colonial era periods. There's one. I look at one legend that still told today that makes fun of a British colonialist. I was so excited to find that example when I first found it. And artists today still find it hilarious that this Qurietam artist in the 19th century made fun of this, of a British colonialist in front of the king. And then we see, and keep in mind, in these earlier periods, right before, let's say, before the beginning of the Indian state and Kerala state, when we talk about culture, culture was part of everyday life. So there wasn't a distinction of these things necessarily as culture. These were just parts of people's everyday lives. They weren't part of necessarily larger identity structures, institutional identity structures, necessarily, that you reflected on separately. And so then we come into the mid 20th century and the development of Kerala state and India state, Indian state. And then suddenly culture and heritage become kind of politicized phenomenon that then help build these larger institutional identities. Right. You know, I'm a member of Kerala state. I'm a member of the Indian nation. Even though you'll never be able to meet all Indians, let's say it's really an imagined community along the lines of Benedict Anderson that needs to conceptualize of art and heritage as ways to form these identities. And so we see a very different shift when it comes to institutional power and authority in the mid 20th century with Kuriatam, and how very different the Kerala government is as a communist government from the Indian national government. And then finally this UNESCO as an intergovernmental agency on a global scale. And it's fascinating to see how Kuriatam can shift and engage with all of these various and varying authority and power structures and as I mentioned, just ride through it and remain fluid and changeable. And it's still here today and it's as amazing as ever. So it's really a fascinating example, if I should say so myself.
- [45:48]
C
I totally agree with you. And I think this case study shows how this particular cultural form can be really dynamic and really energetic from the past to the present and also negotiate with different actors in different contexts. And also, I think you also know that many people who listen to this podcast and also many readers who read your book will come from quite different backgrounds from folklore, ethnomusicology, performance studies, anthropology, maybe sociology, and also practice based fields like heritage conservation and cultural politics, cultural policy. So for these different groups of audience, what do you hope the world take away from this book, like your hope as the author? And are there particular lessons about method, ethics or conceptual framing that you think travel well beyond the specific case of Kudiatam in Kerala?
- [46:41]
A
Yeah, exactly. So let's see. I wanted to just point out in the terms of kind of part of the book is questioning this binary between the traditional and modern. Right that trying to equate them as not distinct, but they can be both at the same time. And in my epilogue I draw on the I mentioned Walter Mignolo earlier, his roadmap for decolonizing modernity. And he argues that in order to decolonize modernity, we need to engage in the practice of conceptually decoupling or separating tradition from modernity and acknowledging that tradition is not the precursor of the modern, but fully modern itself. Right. And in the way in which individuals make meaning in the world over time. So essentially exactly what we're seeing Kuriatum artists argue right on the ground. And so really this decoupling of the tradition and modern, this questioning of what these terms and concepts mean and how we approach them is one of the main takeaways that I would like people to take from the book as well as particularly like heritage workers and those engaged in heritage and particularly UNESCO work. Also, the idea that I'd like them to take away is that the work of decolonization, meaning the challenging and dismantling of colonial systems, ideas and cultural influences, is still unfinished at UNESCO. And I just, I want to make clear that, you know, this is part of the book's framing is a, is a critique of the UNESCO ICH program, but it's been a Very important program as part of the process of decolonizing international heritage. So I don't want to make it sound as if I'm devaluing the program. It's been a very important program over time. But my main point is that this work is not finished and is ongoing. And so in continuing to conceptualize certain forms as endangered or dying out, which is still very much wrapped up with notions of authenticity that UNESCO is supposedly discarded. Right. UNESCO continues to perpetuate these colonial era hierarchies that were ultimately rooted in white supremacy, which I don't believe is its intention. And so it really, it requires ongoing, conscious work to move this decolonizing work forward. And I believe that that is the type of work that at its heart, UNESCO has as its goal. And so I would like to send this message out to those that at UNESCO as well, and those who are anthropologists and folklorists who work with the organization to try to get this moved forward a little bit and step back and question some of these foundational ideas surrounding the program that continue through the present day that are problematic.
- [49:40]
C
Thank you. I think it's indeed a duty for social scientists and intellectuals to remind people of the unfinishedness of the word. And I hope our listener will benefit from your suggestions and your advice. Thank you for this contribution. So, as we move towards the end of our conversation, I'd like to ask about what comes next. So could you share a bit about your current and planned projects?
- [50:04]
A
Yes. Thank you. So my, my second project is. Is very, very different than this. However, there is, there is a connection. So even though it's seemingly very unrelated, the connecting thread is that in 1997, UNESCO declared the human genome a heritage of humanity in its Universal Declaration on the Human Genome and Human Rights. You think, my goodness, what is our second project? So my second project looks at online folklore, online narratives and performances related to human genetic and assisted reproductive technologies. And you may ask, where did this come from? So before I got this particular position now at the University of Oregon, I spent two years as a Mellon ACLS Public Fellow at a social justice nonprofit called the center for Genetics and Society. And they're located in Berkeley, California. CGS. And essentially CGS's work was taking a social justice and public interest approach to emerging human genetic technologies and assisted reproductive technologies. I spent those two years really tracing the technologies, assessing policy especially, and brainstorming interventions that we could do. We have a lot of activists, academics, who are part of that work as well. And so when I finished my work there, I thought, how Can I apply folklore to this new realm of knowledge that I've gained? And so my new project is really applying the folklore lens to these topics. And it really shows that looking at folklore, expressive culture, performance, you can find, you can apply it to literally any topic. Right. Even CRISPR gene editing. Right. So I'm really looking at how the wider public is grappling with complex scientific developments through how they're engaging with these new technologies online. Everything from looking at how on what previously was Twitter on X, how, how they're engaging with overblown claims for the CRISPR gene editing tool in a humorous way, there was a hashtag called CRISPR Facts to looking at how on YouTube how people are engaging with their ancestry genetic test results through these reveal videos. And I'm specifically looking at how when the results of the test conflict with family narratives, what, what source are the performers choosing as the truth? And I noticed an interesting generational divide there. It's often younger people in their 20s and 30s creating these videos. And some of them, when the results conflict with their family stories, they call their parents and they say, you lied to me. Whereas the parents say, no, the test must be wrong. Grandma told me this story. And so you see a generational divide. It's quite interesting. So I'd like to continue to apply this approach to every anything from non invasive prenatal genetic screening performances on YouTube and also hopefully looking at an egg donor support group on Facebook as well. And in each of these case studies, I am looking at the performance and narrative aspects online of them, while also going in depth about the technologies themselves as well as the public interest in social justice implications of these technologies. So that will be my second book.
- [53:49]
C
It's such a wonderful project and I have so many questions to ask, but I will leave them to our interview of your second book. And I'm really looking forward to learning more about it in the future. So, Professor Lothrop, thank you so much for sharing your work insight and all your future projects with us today. It has been really pleasant talking with you about the tension and fractions around Coup d' Artem and the politics of heritage in Kerala and beyond. Thank you very much.
- [54:15]
A
Thank you so much. I really enjoyed it.
- [54:17]
C
Thank you. So in today's episode, I've been talking with Dr. Leah Lothrop about her book, Deep Cosmopolitanism, Dynamic Tradition and Globalizing Heritage in Kerala, India, published by Indiana University Press. For listeners interested in South Asian folklore, theatrical arts, heritage studies and debates about cosmopolitanism and tradition in a global frame, this book offers a rich and carefully rounded ethnography. Hi, I'm Yadong Li, and you've been listening to the Folklore Channel of the New Books Network. We hope to see you next time.
- [55:03]
A
This time of year, everyone talks about going dry, but at Athletic Brewing Co. We're skipping that because we prefer going Athletic, which isn't dry at all. From crisp goldens to hoppy IPAs and limited releases in between, you'll find something that fits your style. Every single non alcoholic brew is packed with flavor and the same craft experience you love. So yeah, you could call it dry, but there's really nothing dry about it. Find your new favorite near beer@athleticalbrewing.com Athletic Brewing Co. Fit for All Times.