Recasting the Tribal Warrior: The Politics of Paratexts in Mayilamma: The Life of a Tribal Eco-warrior

Abstract

This article attempts to read the paratextual elements in Mayilamma: The Life of a Tribal Eco-warrior (2018), the translated autobiography of Mayilamma, a tribal activist from Kerala, India, who led the protest against a Coca-Cola plant in their village. This study also attempts to analyse how translations work to shape and control marginalized life narratives, within an academic framework that caters to predominantly Western imaginings of the marginal exotic. It further questions how a marginalized life narrative is conceived and processed within the larger academia, as well as by the publishing industry. It provides a detailed discourse analysis of the paratextual elements in Mayilamma: The Life of a Tribal Eco-warrior to bring out its market politics and the process of exoticizing the marginalized. This article argues that through paratexts, there is an attempt to formulate a subject–object out of Mayilamma, within the academic imaginings of a marginal exotic rebel tribeswoman.