ABSTRACT
In India, indigenous cultural identities have been misrepresented as primitive, stagnant and outdated by the dominant forces since the colonial period. Empirical positivist methodology still continues to reinforce the marginalization of indigenous communities, whose ideologies are recognized as separate from the Western paradigms. One prominent example is in the media of mass communication and specifically by the absence of local cultural representations in the animation that is produced in India.
The popular entertainment medium of animation can also be used as a tool for indigenous young people in India to re-engage with their own heritage and to reinvigorate their traditional narratives for future generations. This chapter establishes a postcolonial framework, critical theory and methodologies adopted from feminist research as the way forward to recognize and critique the marginalization of indigenous identities and to devise approaches that encourage self-representation from these societies and acceptance on their own terms.
This chapter also discusses how a feminist research approach assists a person who does not belong to the community, to foster self-reflexivity and sensitive interaction with members for collaborative projects. The workshop model is also established as an appropriate method to introduce collaborative research practice between animators and indigenous artists in five case studies to adapt of a sample collection of indigenous folktales from Northeast and Central India for the medium of animation.
