Troubling 'Reclamation': An Autoethnographic Encounter with Indian Womanhood
Nandini Manjunath




Of course reclamation implies a claiming back. Here I speak of my desire to reclaim and write "my body", an "Indian feminine body". Perhaps it doesn't feel like it is mine. After all, I have been told, since I was old enough to understand the meaning of "my body", that my body belongs to another: a father, a husband, a community or even my country. Could I "reclaim" my voice and body in speaking into it? Could I reclaim "my" voice when the act of reclaiming itself threatens the ontological security of my bodily self? This multimedia/movement explores and problematises some of these struggles, of "writing", "reclaiming" and "speaking into" a voice and from a body that has been oppressed, objectified and subjected. Through this voicing, I hope to delve into the aliveness of the themes of claiming and reclaiming and sometimes inevitably failing to as experienced in the process of conceptualising an Autoethnographic/ Creative-Relational Doctoral Research project about Indian female bodies materialised in power and patriarchy in Post-colonial India.

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» Nandini Manjunath is a Registered Dance Movement Psychotherapist, Trauma therapist and a Choreographer pursuing her Professional Doctorate in Psychotherapy and Counselling at the University of Edinburgh. With an educational background in psychology and choreography from her undergraduate years, Nandini is passionate about bringing the creative into the academic and brings all of her dancer, psychotherapist, social activist and researcher selves into the different spaces she resides and works in. Aligning with her strong allegiance towards the Feminist, Post-structural, Post-qualitative and critical deconstruction based research interests, her doctoral research project is in process and becoming an Embodied, Collective Biographic, Post-qualitative rendition of Bodies materialised in power and patriarchy, rooted in the context of Indian women's experiences of their bodies. As a dancer, dance educator, choreographer, Nandini has worked in various performance and educational contexts in Edinburgh and Scotland and has been involved in multiple Edinburgh festival fringe projects and Arts-based research explorations creating and producing mixed media presentations and varied community bases outreach activities.