Welsh and Khasi Cultural Dialogues: An Interdisciplinary Arts and Performance Project

This interdisciplinary project in creative arts investigates the shared cultural history of the people of Wales and the Khasi people of Northeast India that is rooted in the history of the Calvinistic Methodist Mission to the Khasi Hills between 1841 and 1969. The project uses creative arts practice to construct a ‘cultural dialogue’ between Welsh and Indian scholar-practitioners, one that investigates and responds to our historical relationship.

The aim of the project is to investigate how shared cultural histories have shaped identities in the modern world.

The expression of the Welsh-Khasi intercultural relationship was channeled through particular avenues and media, such as religious belief and practices, female experience and expression, literary and visual traditions and oral histories. The research follows closely the questions raised by these avenues and media, e.g. by looking at the way in which cultural exchange has been filtered through religious beliefs and practices or women’s cultural expression. The project also examines the peripheral situation of both Welsh and Khasi peoples (in relation to broader categories such as the British Empire and the Indian nation) and the way this has affected the nature of intercultural exchange.

As well as a range of performance and film works to be shown at the end of 2019, outcomes include conference papers and scholarly publications in a range of journals.