Migration, Music, and Memory in Diasporic Adivasi Narratives

Migration has always been central to the socio-cultural formation of Adivasi communities across India, but the scale, pressure, and compulsions of contemporary mobility have reconfigured Adivasi identity in unprecedented ways. This article examines the interconnectedness of migration, music, and memory in diasporic Adivasi narratives, with a special emphasis on the role of oral traditions particularly songs, chants, and ritual performances in shaping and preserving collective identity. Drawing on ethnographic scholarship, cultural anthropology, musicology, and emerging Adivasi writings in English, the study argues that music operates as a sonic archive that sustains ecological memory, emotional continuity, and cultural belonging among displaced tribal populations. Songs such as karma geet, jhumur, and sohara, transmitted through communal performances, not only retain fragments of ancestral landscapes but also recount the histories of forced migration, labour exploitation, and displacement. Diasporic narratives reveal how Adivasi migrants actively reconstitute cultural memory through song, enabling them to negotiate identity in unfamiliar geographies. Through textual analysis, theoretical framing, and case studies from Jharkhand, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Assam, and industrial migration corridors, the article demonstrates that music is not merely an expressive art but a political, mnemonic, and epistemic practice. It becomes a space of resistance, survival, and self-articulation that challenges dominant narratives of tribal erasure and documents the lived realities of displacement. Ultimately, the article argues that Adivasi musical traditions provide a powerful framework for understanding the emotional architecture of migration and the imaginative reconstruction of home.