Authorial Journeys of Adivasi (Indigenous) and Denotified Tribal Youth in India: Re-Centering Narratives Made Invisible From School Spaces

This study hopes to contribute to a process of storying, listening, and sharing counter-narratives of Adivasi and Denotified Tribal authors at Muskaan in Bhopal, India. Further on, it hopes to highlight the creative and resilient ways in which the authors engage in the process of composing to assert, imagine, and reconstruct their sense of selves in the world. A hegemonic representation marked by narratives of disparagement, hopelessness, and trauma leaves out what composes the complex personhood and wholesomeness of lives led by Adivasi and Denotified Tribal youth in India. However, in my collaborations with the youth, this study provides a witness to the creative and resilient ways in which the youth engage in the process of composing to assert, imagine, and reconstruct their sense of selves in the world. I draw upon sociocultural literacies, critical literacies, and Critical Indigenous Research Methodologies to assert that it is our political commitment as literacies researchers/educators to pursue nuanced narratives of the complex lives of Adivasi and Denotified Tribal youth, narratives which are unfortunately often silenced in school spaces.