Bordering Ritual, Environment, and Belonging

Abstract In the contemporary globalized world, the concept of borders has ceased to indicate mere geopolitical markers; these are actively shaped through the everyday meaning-making process that are in tune with cultural, ecological, and ritualistic interactions, among other elements. By focusing on theyyam, a performative spiritual tradition of the North Malabar region in Kerala, India, this article attempts to understand ritual as a space where borders are continuously and actively shaped and reshaped through performance, lived spaces, and indigenous cosmologies. Rather than conceptualizing theyyam as an archaic remnant or symbolic gesture of indigeneity this article approaches theyyam performances as a living archive where a dynamic negotiation of indigeneity, belonging, and social order occurs. This research argues that theyyam sustains and redefines a vernacular and endemic system of bordering that operates outside institutional and religious frameworks and contemporary territorial logic. Even as the socio-political and environmental realms of the performative space of theyyam evolve on an everyday basis, its ritual sphere continues to generate its own logic of space, belonging, and order. This article attempts to foreground a culturally situated theorization of borders by recognizing their layered, liminal, and performative character. By rethinking boundaries as processes that shape how communities remember histories and frame the everyday through the lens of theyyam, the article offers a method to read indigenous rituals as evolving frameworks that continue to generate meaning and belonging.