ABSTRACT
This article reviews South Asian and related ethnographic literature from the 1970s to the present, describing oral performance of narratives of various kinds, mostly by women, in South Asia. It highlights shared themes in this literature such as discussions of how performed narratives reflect upon and also contribute to the construction of social personhood by performers and their audiences, and notes that the works reviewed develop insights on the expression through narrative performances of values and social models (resistive, subversive, dissensus) that oppose or disassemble dominant patriarchal ideas. The article concludes by suggesting topics for further scrutiny in future studies, including delineations of public and private domains of performance, the effects of pervasive social and economic change presently in progress on narrative use, and reconsideration of gendered distribution of patriarchy-resistant or -critical performance. It essentially surveys what has been accomplished in narratological research on South Asia in the past with a focus on gender and suggests what might be done in the future.
