Rural youth identities in India: Exploring intersections of nation, gender and technology in areas of civil unrest

I aim to build on my PhD research and policy work on education, identities and rights of marginalised groups (Wadhwa et al., 2010; NCPCR, 2011, 2012b, 2013; Wadhwa, 2019). I aim to critically engage with this work in the Global South and more specifically in post-colonial India. I will engage more deeply with rural and indigenous communities in India and the processes of state and citizenship formation in my writing for journal publications, new working papers and conference presentations.

For my post-doctoral work, I aim to study how national identities are formed, sustained and resisted through digital media and use of technology and have a bearing on youth and gender identities in India. I plan to do this by initially carrying out a limited literature review, co-editing a special issue and organising a symposium on the topic, establishing contact with local NGOs and community gatekeepers for community meetings and impact activities, and eventually applying for new funding for future research.

In my PhD, I combined three theoretical frameworks, poststructuralist, postcolonial and feminist, to argue against modern, liberal and Western understandings of concepts, thereby provoking a different way of theorising social world to bring about social justice. I aim to ground myself more firmly in this theoretical approach, develop and disseminate it through further academic rigour in the form of international publications, literature review, conference presentations, reading group, new funding proposals, academic, policy and community engagement.

My aim in this Fellowship is to methodically encourage a new intersectional approach for the study of education and identities. This approach will provide space to explore the strategies of resistance and subversion by minority groups. Particularly, the co-edited special issue and the 1-day symposium at Brunel will highlight diverse international perspectives on the above topic.

The post-doctoral work will combine multiple disciplines and involve local community groups, government bodies, academic and NGO partners in India working on education, with the long-term aim of convening a collective for wider academic and societal impact.

At Brunel, I aim to initiate a theoretical reading group on youth, gender and identities, while firmly locating myself in the Education, Identities and Society research group. I will work with Prof Maria Tsouroufli as my mentor to co-author a new paper and co-edit a special issue for a journal. I will work collaboratively with other colleagues within the Education, Identities and Society research group to produce new research and group working papers.

I also aim to work with the Global Lives research centre and collaborate with the Institute of Environment, Health and Societies to develop new research ideas and apply for funding. I will contribute to the social and cultural life at Brunel, along with building its academic reputation globally, by initiating a public lecture series to strengthen the three research groups at the Education Department.

I will help strengthen the EdD programme by diversifying curricula and making the programme globally relevant.

My strong groundings in feminist, poststructural, postcolonial and decolonial theories will enable diversification of perspectives in research and teaching at Brunel. I aim to be in the academic field of research, more specifically in international development and education. My work has implications for policy and practice in the global South in terms of social justice, equality, social relations and inclusion.

These concerns are significant for future research calls arising out of UKRI, ESRC, GCRF and Leverhulme Trust to which I intend to respond through funding proposals. By staying in an internationally inclined research group, my contribution will be to challenge the assumptions made in development discourses about social life, especially in policy, and highlight its implications for decolonisation.