THE CHANGING CULTURAL SPACES IN A THARU VILLAGE OF SEHARI

Abstract

The traditional indigenous socio-cultural spaces are changing in the contemporary contexts, mostly owing to the globalized phenomenon of modernization. In this pretext, the cultural spaces and constructs associated with them are transformed, adulterated and misinterpreted which have impended threats on the cultural values, systems, knowledge and identities peculiar to the thriving indigenous ethnic communities. This work seeks to study the sociocultural aspects in the traditional indigenous spaces and reciprocally the influences of spaces on the sociocultural aspects of life. The study attempts to understand how both of them are changing with the progressing times. Literatures on significances of culture and traditions, influences on cultures, cultural shifts, anthropological concepts of spaces and embodied spaces with reference to culture are studied to set the base for the research. A Tharu community in the village of Sehari was studied using ethnographic methodology. The research shows that the changes in both the spaces and the traditional socio-cultural aspects of living are pertinent. Such changes are influenced by the pushing factors within the internal complexities of the culture and spaces that the community thrives in and by the pulling factors which are supported by the external factors in the global spaces. The study signifies that the understanding of interrelationship between culture and spaces in a progressing community is crucially important to value and promote the embedded indigenous knowledge and identity of the community for sustainable development.