Papers by Tarushikha Sarvesh
Societies
This study explores digital divide issues that influenced online learning activities during the C... more This study explores digital divide issues that influenced online learning activities during the COVID-19 lockdown in five developing countries in South Asia. A multi-layered and interpretive analytical lens guided by three interrelated perspectives—structure, cultural practices, and agency—revealed various nuanced aspects across location-based (i.e., rural vs. urban) and across gendered (i.e., male vs. female) student groups. A key message that emerged from our investigation was the subtle ways in which the digital divide is experienced, specifically by female students and by students from rural backgrounds. Female students face more structural and cultural impositions than male students, which restricts them from fully availing digital learning opportunities. Rich empirical evidence shows these impositions are further exacerbated at times of crisis, leading to a lack of learning (agency) for women. This research has provided a gendered and regional outlook on digital discrimination...
Politics, Groups, and Identities
Economic and Political Weekly, Nov 8, 2013
History is a projection of realities from the historian\u27s lens and parameters. The popularity ... more History is a projection of realities from the historian\u27s lens and parameters. The popularity and acceptance of historical accounts depend much on hegemonic structures and knowledge. The Dalit community was marginalized within the Indian economic, social, and political historiography. Gradually, with the rise of Dalit consciousness, men—the better-positioned gender of the community—tried to express their vulnerabilities from a masculinist perspective. The literature written also projected women only as extensions of male protagonists. Though the traumas Dalit women have faced due to intersectional realities are separate from that of men, they could not find a place in early literature as complete entities, entitled to be acknowledged as such. The trade union movements also sidelined the issues of Dalit women laborers. To date, issues of Dalit women\u27s property rights, longevity, education, and empowerment are largely androcentric, as the state’s schemes and policies are majorly...
Contemporary Voice of Dalit
The article explores the lived realities of socio-political negotiations by marginalized groups a... more The article explores the lived realities of socio-political negotiations by marginalized groups and the inherent rationality of caste-based power negotiations at a micro level. It also explores the possibilities of alternate futures and alternate interpretations of the margins, through the study of caste-based negotiations and subversions in the Khap villages of western Uttar Pradesh. Stuart Hall, British Cultural theorist, draws attention to the perspective that cultural identification need not produce an essence but a positioning subject to the continuous ‘play’ of history, culture and power. B. R. Ambedkar had termed the hierarchical caste system in India as ‘graded inequality’, which resists any transformation in its oppressive framework because it gives a sense of superiority to each caste placed above the other in a descending order. Despite stiff resistance to any transformation, various forms of subversion—denting the rigid caste and cultural frames—exist in the Khap areas o...
2020 IEEE Asia-Pacific Conference on Computer Science and Data Engineering (CSDE), 2020
Digital gender divide refers to the underlying gender-based inequalities prevalent in the growing... more Digital gender divide refers to the underlying gender-based inequalities prevalent in the growing digital economy. In many developing economies, including India (the context of this study), a large section of population has limited access to basic digital services. This paper investigates the learning challenges faced by girls’ during the Covid-19 lockdown wherein educational institutions worldwide abruptly moved to online digital platforms. Questionnaire survey methods have informed on how appropriation of digital devices influenced learner agency, specifically for girls belonging to low family income bracket. Our study showcases many aspects of digital gender divide issues spanning digital access, digital capability and digital outcomes. Learning is a function of the environment and cultural settings in which learners are situated. Our study reveals that girls in particular are much constrained in their learning space. Learning via online platforms from their homes (informal space...
The Journal of International Women’s Studies , 2021
History is a projection of realities from the historian's lens and parameters. The popularity and... more History is a projection of realities from the historian's lens and parameters. The popularity and acceptance of historical accounts depend much on hegemonic structures and knowledge. The Dalit community was marginalized within the Indian economic, social, and political historiography. Gradually, with the rise of Dalit consciousness, men—the better-positioned gender of the community—tried to express their vulnerabilities from a masculinist perspective. The literature written also projected women only as extensions of male protagonists. Though the traumas Dalit women have faced due to intersectional realities are separate from that of men, they could not find a place in early literature as complete entities, entitled to be acknowledged as such. The trade union movements also sidelined the issues of Dalit women laborers. To date, issues of Dalit women's property rights, longevity, education, and empowerment are largely androcentric, as the state’s schemes and policies are majorly heteronormative and male centric. The reason why we need to keep invoking the past and history is to assert that the present condition of Dalit women has its roots in the past and their issues and voices continue to remain on the margins despite the rich social experiences they carry and represent.
of the THESIS Submitted to University of Allahabad for the Award of the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILO... more of the THESIS Submitted to University of Allahabad for the Award of the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
The study is based on an interrogation of numerous actors and stakeholders within the institution... more The study is based on an interrogation of numerous actors and stakeholders within the institution of Khap Panchayats (clan councils) in villages of the western region of a northern state, Uttar Pradesh, in India, with the help of multiple approach design. The paper strives to inflect the debates regarding the concept(s) of the ‘body’ and that of ‘citizenship’ as enmeshed within the legal rights and cultural duties of women in the referred social milieu. The paper strives to flesh out the new and subtler forms and language of patriarchy. It is also an attempt to reach out to the less obvious and the invisible by locating subversions and its ways in the field of research as well as tracing the links regarding the dominant notions of caste and patriarchy through the texts and scriptures of various time periods.
Journal of Asian and African Studies
Kashmir in the popular imagination is seen through the lens of excessively securitized and state-... more Kashmir in the popular imagination is seen through the lens of excessively securitized and state-centric narratives that cast a shadow over the struggles of everyday life in Kashmir. An overriding climate of conflict, natural disasters, untimely snowfall and loss of tourism (one of the mainstays of Kashmir’s economy) have phenomenally shrunk people’s choices. Weak state institutions have induced a feeling of alienation among the Kashmiri people. This qualitative study attempts to look beyond the meta-narratives of conflict and brings out micro narratives of people’s lived experiences in a turmoil zone, radiating both at the inter-generational and intra-generational level, which is eclipsed in Kashmir.
Globalisation, Societies and Education
This article showcases digital inequalities that came to the forefront for online learning during... more This article showcases digital inequalities that came to the forefront for online learning during the COVID-19 lockdown across five developing countries, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Afghanistan. Large sections of population in developing economies have limited access to basic digital services; this, in turn, restricts how digital media are being used in everyday lives. A digital divide framework encompassing three analytical perspectives, structure, cultural practices and agency, has been developed. Each perspective is influenced by five constructs, communities, time, location, social context and sites of practice. Community relates to gendered expectations, time refers to the lockdown period while locations are interleaved online classrooms and home spaces. Societal contexts influence aspects of online learning and how students engage within practice sites. We find structural issues are due to lack of digital media access and supporting services; further that female students are more often placed lower in the digital divide access scale. Cultural practices indicate gendered discriminatory rules, with female students reporting more stress due to added household responsibilities. This impacts learner agency and poses challenges for students in meaningfully maximising their learning outcomes. Our framework can inform policy-makers to plan initiatives for bridging digital divide and set up equitable gendered learning policies.
The region voted for BJP after Muzaffarnagar riots, but it may revert to regional parties. While... more The region voted for BJP after Muzaffarnagar riots, but it may revert to regional parties. While Jata punished RLD in Lok Sabha elections, the party remains a mark of their political identity and they can't risk rendering it completely irrelevant. RLD supported BSP in the legislative council elections and chances are the two parties might form an alliance.
The statement, "Property and society are utterly irreconcilable institutions", stated by Pierre-J... more The statement, "Property and society are utterly irreconcilable institutions", stated by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, comes alive in the face of reality at the crossroads where on the one hand laws are available for the protection of women's rights and on the other hand those very laws bear the allegation of being the motivating factors behind the trivialisation and breakdown of social bounds surrounding a woman. This paper analyses the reality of women's rights and the idea of law in action by juxtaposing the laws available for the protection of women's rights, with the lived reality of the women's lives in contemporary Indian society.
The study is based on an interrogation of numerous actors and stakeholders
within the institutio... more The study is based on an interrogation of numerous actors and stakeholders
within the institution of Khap Panchayats (clan councils) in villages of
the western region of a northern state, Uttar Pradesh, in India, with
the help of multiple approach design. The paper strives to inflect the
debates regarding the concept(s) of the ‘body’ and that of ‘citizenship’
as enmeshed within the legal rights and cultural duties of women in the
referred social milieu. The paper strives to flesh out the new and subtler
forms and language of patriarchy. It is also an attempt to reach out to
the less obvious and the invisible by locating subversions and its ways in
the field of research as well as tracing the links regarding the dominant
notions of caste and patriarchy through the texts and scriptures of various
time periods.
Keywords: Gender, Body, Culture, Subversion, Citizenship, Khap,Violence,
India.
The notion of identity and citizenship in the current intra-state circumstances in India remains ... more The notion of identity and citizenship in the current intra-state circumstances in India remains problematised, even as the state, together with its institutions, struggles to resolve the conflict around identity and its cultural ramifications. This predicament of the Indian state further makes women the hapless victims of exploitation. The struggle of the state which has evolved over a period of time and still remains in a state of flux due to the demands of accommodation, has been complicated by the state's interface which conjoins its institutional with its cultural elements. The aim of the paper is to look into the gender issues in the context of the identity of the state through the lens of conflict as well as points of convergences with specific cultural identities. The notion of citizenship and its justifications within a state, which itself seems like a very fluid concept at this stage, calls for attention. How the two dominant identities viz., the identity of the nation-state and the identity of the cultural groups are rendering invisible the issues of gender. The paper will try to lay bare the complexity involved in the convergence of state institutions and cultural organisations like Khaps. The Khaps of western Uttar Pradesh will be of particular interest. When we see minutely, in this parallel struggle for identity and legitimacy by the state as well as the cultural communities within it, the real sufferers are always missed out and fall off the straight line of vision. These are the groups of people who need to be made visible. The question of how would the women be accounted for within the concepts of the nation-state and citizenship in a representative democracy like India will also be enquired into.
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Papers by Tarushikha Sarvesh
within the institution of Khap Panchayats (clan councils) in villages of
the western region of a northern state, Uttar Pradesh, in India, with
the help of multiple approach design. The paper strives to inflect the
debates regarding the concept(s) of the ‘body’ and that of ‘citizenship’
as enmeshed within the legal rights and cultural duties of women in the
referred social milieu. The paper strives to flesh out the new and subtler
forms and language of patriarchy. It is also an attempt to reach out to
the less obvious and the invisible by locating subversions and its ways in
the field of research as well as tracing the links regarding the dominant
notions of caste and patriarchy through the texts and scriptures of various
time periods.
Keywords: Gender, Body, Culture, Subversion, Citizenship, Khap,Violence,
India.
within the institution of Khap Panchayats (clan councils) in villages of
the western region of a northern state, Uttar Pradesh, in India, with
the help of multiple approach design. The paper strives to inflect the
debates regarding the concept(s) of the ‘body’ and that of ‘citizenship’
as enmeshed within the legal rights and cultural duties of women in the
referred social milieu. The paper strives to flesh out the new and subtler
forms and language of patriarchy. It is also an attempt to reach out to
the less obvious and the invisible by locating subversions and its ways in
the field of research as well as tracing the links regarding the dominant
notions of caste and patriarchy through the texts and scriptures of various
time periods.
Keywords: Gender, Body, Culture, Subversion, Citizenship, Khap,Violence,
India.