The Role of Folklore in Decolonizing Knowledge Production Around Disasters: An Ethnographic Enquiry Among Three Indigenous Communities of Assam, India.

For indigenous communities, folklores constitute a cultural heritage that provide continuity and a sense of connectedness to the past and the present. From a colonial and modernist perspective, these are often considered as myths, baseless and illogical and tales constructed by “primitive” human imagination and interpretation. However, it has often been observed that folklores have their roots in human observation, real world experiences and past events and patterns. They have an underlined meaning, including a suggestion of caution or warning against potential risks. Folklores are known to hold records of unique events such as disasters and of how humans have coped with these events. For a given community, folklores are also a way of teaching lessons to the younger generations from the experiences of the old. They provide a sense of place and self, often communicate a sense of safety and convey the meaning of resilience. Thus, indigenous knowledge often found in folklores of communities provide pointers to how the community evolved, creating a shared sense of history over generations.

From these perspectives, the present study, using an ethnographic approach explores and systematically documents oral traditions of three indigenous communities of the district of Dhemaji of the North-East Indian state of Assam, namely, the Mishings, the Tai-Ahoms, and the Sonowal Kacharis. The paper maps the role of folklore in shaping disaster perceptions of these three communities and their adaptation and resilience as riverine communities experiencing periodic flood disasters. Using a decolonial lens, the paper argues that attention to indigenous knowledge, requires using a cohesive, interwoven, interdisciplinary methodology, where local community must be seen as agentic, adapting to the changes in the environment, and responding to disasters. Policy makers engaged in prevention, mitigation and post-disaster efforts, would find valuable insights in these folklores that embody experiences and perceptions of the community.