Stories as theories: co-building critical and humanizing literacies’ spaces with Adivasi (indigenous) and De-notified tribal (DNT) youth in central India

Situated in central India, this project hoped to understand the processes and experiences involved in co-building with student participants, a critical, humanizing, and decolonizing literacies’ classroom space, where Adivasi and De-notified Tribal (DNT) youths reclaim their spaces for counterstorying, especially in environments where their voices and agencies are overbearingly marginalized. This work involves critical ethnography, humanizing practitioner-research, and sociocultural methods of understanding youth compositions. Through using mentor texts of several authors who have disrupted marginalisation, locally created and relevant literary artifacts, and various critical writing activities, this classroom worked with the youth in exploring their everyday lived experiences, and with them asserting their voices and desires in this world. In building upon the existing work in India, this research hopes to contribute to nuanced and situated narratives about Adivasi and DNT youths’ lives, through a critical celebration of their own voices in counterstorying.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Curriculum and Instruction

Grantor

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2025

Author dc:creator

• Sinha, Shuchi

Contributors dc:contributor

• Willis, Arlette Ingram
• Dyson, Anne Haas
• Prior, Paul A
• McCarthy, Cameron

• Critical Indigenous Pedagogy, Writing Research, Denotified Tribal and Indigenous Youth, Critical and Sociocultural Literacy

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2025 Shuchi Sinha

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/132793

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/132793