Author: Dr. Rajesh N. Sonkusare
DOI Link: https://doi.org/10.70798/Bijmrd/04021010
Abstract: Reclaiming Voices: Literature and Resistance from the Margins explores how writers from historically marginalized communities employ literature as a transformative tool of resistance, identity formation, and cultural preservation. Situated within postcolonial, feminist, subaltern, and critical race theoretical frameworks, the study examines how narrative practices challenge dominant discourses that have silenced or misrepresented oppressed groups. By foregrounding lived experiences, oral traditions, memory, and alternative epistemologies, marginalized authors disrupt canonical hierarchies and contest hegemonic constructions of history, race, gender, class, and sexuality.
Through critical analysis of selected texts, this paper demonstrates how storytelling becomes an act of political defiance and self-representation. Literature emerging from the margins does not merely seek inclusion within established literary traditions; rather, it interrogates the very structures that define legitimacy, authority, and knowledge. These works reimagine identity beyond imposed stereotypes and reclaim cultural space within national and global narratives.
Ultimately, the paper argues that reclaiming narrative voice is both an aesthetic and political intervention. By transforming silence into speech and exclusion into expression, marginalized literature reshapes collective memory and fosters social consciousness, contributing to broader struggles for justice, recognition, and equality.
Keywords: Literature of Resistance, Marginalized Voices, Postcolonial Studies, Subaltern Narratives, Feminist Writing, Indigenous Literature, Critical Race Theory, Cultural Identity, Counter-Narratives, Decolonization.
Page No: 48-53