ABSTRACT
In the introduction, I suggested that this book addresses the contentious relationship between culture, development, and dispossession as viewed through the lens of rural political theatre and activism. Given the spirited turn to culture in development thinking and practice, it is particularly important to ask about the limits of ‘culture’ in general, and religion in particular, in development's cultural turn. Studying Jana Sanskriti (JS) work provides a glimpse into how development is constructed and critiqued when we are not looking. That is, as a neglected site for understanding development the lens of theatre allows us to understand alternate constructions and practices of political collectivity, development, and democracy in a place where electoral success has contributed to epistemic closure on the meaning and materialisation of these terms. I have argued that JS engages in cultural work, wages epistemic battles, and fights the structural and normative closure on the very meaning of collectivity, development, and democracy in this state. In this chapter, I argue that although JS is interested in constructing alternate collectivities, livelihoods, and rural futures their work misses a significant existing collectivity as constructed by the snake-goddess Manasa. Again, my aim here is to identify the possibilities already embedded in everyday social relations which shed light on the relationship between capital and culture though they may not readily strike the social scientist as spaces of development.
