How to engage with the Voice so that all perspectives are voiced and heard?
What is it about?
Often who speaks becomes more important than what is being said. This article proposes five ways to engage with the voice in a way that checks us and others from getting entangled in hierarchy and privilege. I begin from my position as a singer-researcher from Chennai whose tool and exploratory canvas is the voice. I introduce some of the ingrained assumptions on voice from my culture of Karnatik music, and interrogate them with a critical lens. I then propose the pentagonal framework of engagement as a plausible model that can address inequities in the interlocking contexts of voice, society, and culture/
Why is it important?
A discussion on the materiality and social positioning of the Voice from a decolonised perspective is a rare combination in scholarship. This work is a wonderful companion for those who wish to be heard and listened to on their own terms.