Dance, music and cultures of decolonisation in the Indian Diaspora: towards a pluralist reading.

Decolonisation is a creative process, as well as a historical and political one. This article outlines key issues in researching the creative processes of decolonisation with reference to dance and music in the Indian Diaspora. It begins with Gandhi's 'experiments with truth', which first developed a political reach in the context of Indian indenture within the British Empire but left a fractured legacy in the decolonising era. Their conceptual import frames a discussion on participatory research, dialogic pedagogies and intellectual responsibility. The notion of dialogue contextualises examples of musical collaborations, as well as intellectual exchanges between Gandhi and two of his interlocutors: Ambedkar and Tolstoy. These shift discussion from an oppositional narrative of decolonisation towards more complex views of cultural and intellectual interactions in decolonising processes. The final section introduces the volume's case studies, which collectively encourage a pluralist reading of dance and music in the cultures of decolonisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]