Folk Traditions and Cultural Identity of Western Odisha

Western Odisha, marked by a rich and diverse assemblage of music, dance, oral narratives, and ritual practices, constitutes one of India’s most significant reservoirs of folk traditions. Sustained through voice, rhythm, movement, and collective memory, these traditions form the core of the region’s cultural identity. They function not merely as aesthetic expressions but as carriers of shared history, spiritual belief systems, and social consciousness. Despite their cultural depth and continuing vitality, the folk traditions of Western Odisha have largely remained on the periphery of academic inquiry, often under-documented and insufficiently theorized within mainstream cultural studies. This volume seeks to address this gap by bringing the living folk traditions of Western Odisha into sharper scholarly focus. It establishes a critical platform for the documentation, interpretation, and re-evaluation of these living traditions within contemporary academic discourse. It explores the multifaceted landscape of the region’s folk culture through an interdisciplinary framework that draws on literature, history, anthropology, musicology, and performance studies. The essays collected here examine folk traditions as dynamic and evolving practices that respond to social change, operating as forms of creative expression, social critique, and cultural resilience in an era shaped by globalization and expanding media ecologies.