Collective Effervescence and Hidden Transcripts: The Musical Resistance of Tea Workers to Institutional Violence in Phulbari Tea Estate, Bangladesh

Abstract

Tea workers of Bangladesh remain till date one of the most institutionally persecuted communities globally with the history of violence dating back to colonial times within the sub-continent. This study investigates how music, hymns, and folklore, as cultural practices, within the Phulbari Tea Estate in Sylhet, Bangladesh, serve as mechanisms of resistance against the oppressive structures within the plantations. Utilizing an ethnographic approach, this paper explores how one of the most systematically and institutionally persecuted communities, plantation labourers, employ collective vocal performance to reinforce their sense of identity, and express dissent against the regimented environment of the tea estate. By integrating Émile Durkheim’s concept of collective effervescence with James C. Scott’s theory of hidden transcripts, this research undertook an ethnographic approach to understanding the nature of dissent within the tea workers’ cultural practices, and portrays how indigenous and labour-based rituals function as a means of subtle protest, and resistance. This paper argues that in the context of the tea plantation, the act of performing music is not merely aesthetic but a sustained, infrapolitical strategy for survival and resistance against the victimization within tea plantations. Findings portray how there is a means of symbolic reassertion of identity, emotional solidarity and the preservation of a generational memory through these means of resistance.

Social Science Review [The Dhaka University Studies, Part-D], Vol. 43, No.1, June 2026, pp. 159-173.