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What is Oral is Moral and Legal: Navigating the Rakhain Healing Cosmos from Sacred Chants to State Law
Abstract
This study investigates the Rakhain community's healing practices in coastal Bangladesh, focusing on how oral traditions—particularly sacred chants—function as systems of moral and legal authority. Anchored in indigenous gnoseology, the paper engages decolonial legal theory to explore how healing rituals operate not merely as cultural expressions but as juridical performances embedded in ecological and ancestral relations. The research is grounded in reciprocal ethnography and participatory fieldwork, emphasizing ethical co-engagement with healers and community elders. Three key findings are discussed: (1) the performative power of chants as moral judgments and legal acts; (2) the embodied and intergenerational transmission of knowledge; and (3) the bureaucratic disqualification of oral legitimacy by state and NGO systems. The paper concludes with recommendations for policy reform, ethical academic-NGO collaboration, and recognition of indigenous legal orders. It argues that within the Rakhain cosmos, what is oral is not only moral—it is inherently legal.
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