Preparing in Libraries: Educational Change, Joblessness, and Youth Practice in North India
type: CreativeWork
description: Drawing on twelve months of ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Meerut, western Uttar Pradesh, the thesis examines educated unemployed young people’s engagement with educational change in north India. Engaging with wider debates on educational privatisation and youth agency, the thesis argues that young people are responding to the crisis of unemployment through everyday preparation for recruitment in government jobs within emerging private, commodified study-spaces that they term libraries. In relation to educational privatisation, the thesis examines to what extent an expansive market of shadow educational services is exploiting the aspirations of educated unemployed young people and their hopes for government jobs in the district. Within such markets, the thesis points to the rise of idiosyncratic, commodified study-spaces that cater to young people’s non-formal educational needs such as a space for uninterrupted study and access to internet services. The educational entrepreneurs running such libraries not only position the effectiveness of their facilities in comparison to the decaying formal academic spaces but also use a language of aspiration and service to attract potential customers. While benefiting commercially from the needs of unemployed young people, such private institutional forms are reproducing neoliberal ethics of self-responsibilisation. In relation to youth agency, the thesis argues that libraries are giving way to varied forms of educational, social, and political action in contemporary Meerut. In this context, the thesis demonstrates how libraries influence the practices of a section of young people and interrogates how such spaces are re-envisioned in their pursuit of secure employment. A set of locally dominant, intermediate caste young men are engaging in sustained preparation within commercial libraries to highlight forms of educational distinction and generate value for themselves. Several young people from marginalised Dalit and Muslim …
abstract: Drawing on twelve months of ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Meerut, western Uttar Pradesh, the thesis examines educated unemployed young people’s engagement with educational change in north India. Engaging with wider debates on educational privatisation and youth agency, the thesis argues that young people are responding to the crisis of unemployment through everyday preparation for recruitment in government jobs within emerging private, commodified study-spaces that they term libraries. In relation to educational privatisation, the thesis examines to what extent an expansive market of shadow educational services is exploiting the aspirations of educated unemployed young people and their hopes for government jobs in the district. Within such markets, the thesis points to the rise of idiosyncratic, commodified study-spaces that cater to young people’s non-formal educational needs such as a space for uninterrupted study and access to internet services. The educational entrepreneurs running such libraries not only position the effectiveness of their facilities in comparison to the decaying formal academic spaces but also use a language of aspiration and service to attract potential customers. While benefiting commercially from the needs of unemployed young people, such private institutional forms are reproducing neoliberal ethics of self-responsibilisation. In relation to youth agency, the thesis argues that libraries are giving way to varied forms of educational, social, and political action in contemporary Meerut. In this context, the thesis demonstrates how libraries influence the practices of a section of young people and interrogates how such spaces are re-envisioned in their pursuit of secure employment. A set of locally dominant, intermediate caste young men are engaging in sustained preparation within commercial libraries to highlight forms of educational distinction and generate value for themselves. Several young people from marginalised Dalit and Muslim …
author: Jha, Avishek
keywords: Youth, Unemployment, Educational Privatisation, Libraries, Agency, India
date published: 2025
date modified: 2026-07-27T20:18:41Z
provider: University of Melbourne
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Melbourne

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: https://hdl.handle.net/11343/357195