Reimagining the Politics of Belonging Through Counterstorytelling: A Decolonial Praxis of Refusal and Desire

In this article, I trace landscapes of decolonial inquiry centered on two questions: What is the work of decolonial inquiry? What are the imperatives of researchers committed to decolonial work? I engage with these questions from my relationally rooted place in solidarity with communities at the frontline of decolonial struggles in Northeast India. Adopting a multimodal counterstorytelling approach, I narrate two imperatives of decolonial inquiry: rooting and remembrance and theorizing from struggle, driven by an ethos of desire and refusal. Across these endeavors, I strive to reimagine a radical politics of belonging that transgresses colonially configured nation state borders.