Formal Schooling and Community Rights: Engaging with Indigenous Knowledge in the South Indian Context

Indigenous communities across the globe own rich resources of traditional knowledge which have evolved from their everyday cultural practices and livelihood mechanisms developed in constant engagement with nature. These knowledge mechanisms are synonymous with their identities, representing their traditions, values, and claims of indignity. However, if we engage with the position of indigenous knowledge in academia, it is argued that these knowledge systems are oppressed by a culture of epistemological hegemony that divides certain forms of knowledge into valid and legitimate and others as inferior and illegitimate. This contention is not very recent in academia but rather positioned as a pertinent concern among Indigenous populations, i.e., the “fourth world” as a matter of their pride and cultural autonomy (Manojan, 2017). Significantly, in the realm of education—whether in the elementary stages of schooling or at a higher academic level of research—it is argued that formal learning systems of colonial legacies have not adequately acknowledged the aspirations of Indigenous communities regarding knowledge and its representation. In the context signified above, the present inquiry engages with the Paniya Adivasi community in Kerala and their formal schooling engagement. The arguments of this study are situated within a rationale of the righteousness of Adivasi communities in their educational contexts, where ambiguity of knowledge compatibility perhaps exists. The study ponders the significance of the knowledge practices of Adivasi communities in their everyday lives and asks to what extent formal education systems mediate with the aspirations of Adivasi communities in India.