Folksongs as an Epistemic Resource: Understanding Bhojpuri Women’s Articulations of Migration

Abstract

Since centuries, women in Bhojpuri-speaking peasant society of western Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh have been experiencing out-migration of their men. The process of labour out-migration, in Bhojpuri peasant society, marks a creative peak in the history of oral cultural productions (especially folksongs).1 Bhojpuri society is so deeply characterised by migration that it has become a frame of reference for all its cultural formulations. It has produced creative subjects. In Bhojpuri folksongs, the ‘migrant’ and his ‘left-behind wife’ are significant examples of such creative subjects. The latter being the protagonist in most of the Bhojpuri folksongs sung by women and men.