The Kalimah in the Kaleidophone: Ranges of Multivocality in Bangladeshi Muslim's Discourses JAMES M. WILCE JR. ABSTRACT Bengali Muslims have long debated the place of reli- gion, ideology, literary heritage, ethnicity, and various national- isms in their identity. Contemporary identityferment is exemplified in each of five examples of discourse explored herein. Replaying these voices "kaleidophonically" uncovers the vital, resistant, "fundamentally liberating" character of multivocality in Bengali Muslims' discourse, particularly in codeswitching, reported speech, and pronoun play. Although each of the voices acknowl- edges the kalimah of Islam, their multivocality belies simple for- mulations of identity. The translinguistics of Bakhtin informs the analysis of how linguistic play works to reconstitute what it is to be Bengali and Muslim. C ommunities arise out of the diversity of interacting voices. Yet widely distributed representations of Muslims reduce their diverse voices to a monologue. Drawing on Bakhtin (1981), I approach the theme of multivocality and identity ferment among Muslims in Bangladesh through several re- cent discursive examples, some of which involve switching or mixing codes (Bengali, English, and Arabic as filtered through Persian or Urdu in the so- ciolinguistic history of Bengal) and others, switching styles. The examples are: an interview with a possession medium, a letter to the editor of an Eng- lish newspaper, the controversial writings of physician and author Taslima Nasrin, a lament by a rural woman, and a meeting between a business- man/pir (Sufi preceptor) (Ewing 1990a) and his cosmopolitan friends/disci- ples. My intent in replaying their voices "kaleidophonically" here is to uncover the vital, resistant, "fundamentally liberating" character (Hill and JAMES M. WILCE JR. is an assistant professor of anthropology at Northern Arizona University. Ethos 26(2)229-257. Copyright © 1998, American Anthropological Association.