On breaking with

Abstract

It is through voice that oftentimes individuals find themselves breaking with conventions and systematically ingrained injustices. In the recent literature in the burgeoning field of interdisciplinary voice studies, the phenomenon of voicing has been projected as a powerful process, across cultures, to represent human agency at its most potent, and this article is a critical discussion on this very uniqueness of voicing in relation to social equity, corporeality and cultural value. The author, a female singer-researcher of Karnatik music of South India, unpacks the burdens and privileges of voice in the light of cultural contingency, global mobility and interculturality. Following a discussion encompassing literature and theories on voice, historical ideas of voice and feminist critiques on voice and the voicing female body from a South Indian angle, the author proposes a Pentagonal Entanglement framework for equitable engagement with the voice ‐ across scenarios and cultures, to critically address the socially pressing issues of our time through the medium of voice.