Research as knowledge democratization, mobilization and social action: pushing back on casteism in contexts of caste humiliation and social reproduction in schools in India. Issue 1 (1st January 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Kapoor, Dip
• Is Part Of: Educational action research. Volume 27:Issue 1(2019)
• Page Start: 57
• Page End: 74
• Publication Date: 2019-01-01
• Subjects: Caste discrimination -- schools -- education and social reproduction -- knowledge democracy -- social action -- knowledge mobilization; Action research in education -- Periodicals; 370.72
• DOI: 10.1080/09650792.2018.1538894
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0965-0792

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Dalit (the 'downtrodden') students continue to experience caste-based discrimination, humiliation and dehumanization; illegal practices that are being reproduced in the school system in the state of Odisha, India. Based on a research study organized by the Center for Research and Development Solidarity, an adivasi (original dweller/Scheduled Tribe)-dalit (Scheduled Caste) research organization and 401 dalit students in grades 6–10 attending 16 government schools in a 25-village zone, this paper elaborates on this research initiative. It demonstrates how knowledge democratization, both, as research undertaken with and for dalit students as producers of (caste-resistance) knowledge and as knowledge sharing as mobilization, can simultaneously mobilize wider circles of organized collective action with parents, Village Education Committees (VECs) and local dalit NGOs and movements to address casteism and untouchability in state schools. The paper concludes with some brief insights pertaining to academic and funded research as knowledge democracy and mobilization for social action that are emergent from this caste research and related research and social action addressing land-forest-labour assertions in South Odisha.