Constructions and contestations of Indigenous girlhoods in residential schools in Central India

ABSTRACT This paper analyses the role of portacabin schools of Bastar, Central India, in historically and politically constructing the gendered subjectivities of Indigenous girls. Hailed as a prime site of development for Indigenous (Adivasi) subjectivities, the newly built residential schools are the governmental response to the decades-long conflict between the state and local Adivasi populations that have struggled against the state oppressions and encroachments. Portacabin schools emerge as a critical site of intervention where multilateral agencies contest each other to ‘empower’ Indigenous girls. In this paper, I analyse constructions of Adivasi girlhoods that are in line with the larger exclusionary framework according to which Adivasi communities have historically been marginalized. However, I also show the ways in which girls subvert and contest the very constructions in their strategic use of voice and silence.