Beyond deaths in school: education, knowledge production, and the Adivasi experience
ISSN: 1443-9883
Article publication date: 7 March 2018
Issue publication date: 10 May 2018
Abstract
Purpose
Submergence, dislocation, rehabilitation and reform are the terms that crowd out most discussions on Adivasi/indigenous communities. They also fit in aptly with the Adivasi experiences of education and their relationship with knowledge construction, for them but not necessarily with them. Over the course of the last century, the Adivasi story has been composed and reoriented by a confluence of hegemonic regimes, institutions and epistemic traditions. The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
Tracing the shifts over last few decades and paying attention to the larger politics of indigeneity, schooling and knowledge production, this paper advances a critical reading of the relationship between the marginalised and formal systems of schooling.
Findings
Employing Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s (1989) “Can the Subaltern Speak?”, the paper identifies the discourses that have contributed to the construction of Adivasi communities and their relationship with the Indian state.
Originality/value
As schooling continues to occupy a significant place among the communities in India and it gets associated with a number of contradictory logics, the present paper highlights the historicity of the project by which marginalised communities have been defined and their schooling needs have been framed and justified.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Antonia Darder as this paper would not have been possible without Antonia. The author would also like to thank Amar Mali and Rajaratna Kosambi.
Citation
Tukdeo, S. (2018), "Beyond deaths in school: education, knowledge production, and the Adivasi experience", Qualitative Research Journal, Vol. 18 No. 2, pp. 180-189. https://doi.org/10.1108/QRJ-D-17-00054
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2018, Emerald Publishing Limited