ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the representation of the Gaddi people in music VCDs from Himachal Pradesh. The images they present of the Gaddi draw on notions of indigeneity, and at first glance invite an essentialist reading of this indigeneity. However, closer examination of definitions of indigenous and “tribal” reveal that categorising the Gaddi as such is not as straightforward as those seemingly stable labels might suggest. Representations of Gaddi in VCDs testify to the ambivalence and complexity inherent to the mediatisation of indigeneity. I look at media practices connected to the VCDs to ask, first, how the Gaddi identity presented can be read differently, to reach a more fluid and flexible understanding than an essentialist reading can provide. Second, drawing on Vincanne Adams, I show how the “virtual identity” presented in VCDs allows for multiple identifications. Moreover, representations of Gaddi in Himachali music videos can be seen as a double indigenisation, since Himachal Pradesh itself is already presented as the local – or rather as rural – and thereby at least implicitly distinct from an urbanity associated with larger North Indian cities. Introducing this notion of double indigenisation, I argue that the VCDs reveal expressions of belonging that create a wider Himachali indigeneity rather than a merely Gaddi one.
