In this paper, I focus my analysis on a research project initiated by a group of Koya youths in rural Telangana, titled ‘The Indigenous Knowledge of the Koiturs of Kamaram’ (IKK project). Instead of characterising the project as salvage ethnography, I argue that the IKK project is a form of decolonising endeavour. I choose ‘endeavour’ to reflect the incipient efforts of the Koyas of Kamaram in exercising their sovereignty on what constitutes Koya Indigenous knowledge and the potentialities that can emerge from their efforts. According to Sium, Desai and Ritskes (2012, iii), a decolonising project is one that ‘seeks to reimagine and rearticulate power, change, and knowledge through a multiplicity of epistemologies, ontologies and axiologies’. This refers to how power, change and knowledge can emerge from multiple sources. It calls for us to recognise and appreciate diverse forms of knowledge, beings, and values. The IKK project aligns closely with this definition for it captures the efforts by the Koyas of Kamaram to articulate their own ways of knowing and living in the world. Also, the IKK project represents a form of agency and refusal. The agency is manifested in the intent of the Koyas to reclaim what constitutes their knowledge and to foreground their own perspectives and narratives. As for refusal, the IKK project allows the Koyas to refuse static notions of tribal identity imposed by the state and to forge their own narratives. Hence, it is a decolonising endeavour that facilitates a generative approach towards Koya identity and an expression of the agential power of the Koyas.
