Youth-Led Coalitions and Playful Political Expression in Urban Delhi; Youth Perspectives and Understandings of their Spaces

• In Event: Coalition Building, Activism and Education in South Asia

Proposal

Purpose and Context
While discourse around children/ youth use of digital media in India often oscillates between technopanics (Marwick, 2008), and more recently, around the digital divide in India and the education inequality during the COVID-19 lockdown in India (e.g., UNICEF; World Economic Forum); there is literature, though still sparse, on youth in India and their digital media engagement that looks at various ways youth use these spaces– ranging from meaning making, self-presentation, activism, developing political and civic consciousness, to creative and playful political expression (Sarwatay et. al 2023). Studies that center Indian youth’s perspective on digitally mediated spaces or position them as agentic users are however few and far in-between. This study foregrounds youth perspectives to understand how the array of online and offline spaces, local and global (wider) networks that youth engage with, shape youth digital cultures and practices. In this study, I look ethnographically at youth-led coalitions in Delhi, India that are set outside of adult run educational organizations to understand i) how and why they come together, ii) what are their practices and how do these develop over time and in relation to other (digital and physical) spaces that youth participate in, and iii) the locally and globally networked discourses, ideas, and literacy practices emerge and circulate in and across these youth-led coalitions. I met the members of a youth-led coalition through my long-term work at a community library in their neighborhood in Delhi. These youth(14 to 19 years) are a part of a youth-led coalition involved in hip hop and other creative making practices. Their discourses on social media often center caste, inequity, and power, something they attribute to the critical library community and their neighborhood in Delhi, a hub for hip hop practices in Delhi that is also a unique microcosm of a transnational world with internal migrants, immigrants, and a refugee population. These demographics and practices have also meant that the community is subject to more surveillance and policing. The hyper local place (the neighborhood and the library), spaces (NGO’s, cyphers), local art-based practices, the intergenerational community of hip hop artists together form an important backdrop to these youth-led groups (and other local hip hop groups in the neighborhood) practice, art, & performance.

Methods and Data Sources
Ethnographic research, with its commitment to studying what is already happening in the field (Street & Heath, 2005) centers what youth are already doing across an array of online and offline spaces. This study draws from traditions of critical ethnography (Madison, 2005) that entails engaging with individuals and communities with reflexivity and reciprocity and understanding research as a collaborative endeavor. Given the complexity of conducting research that looks at digital and physical spaces, digital methods and in-person ethnographic research methods were combined and adapted to collect data. The data collection method in this study aligns with the goals of this study and focus intentionally on centering youth perspective. While participant observation and interviews are a big part of this ethnographic study, this study employs data collection methods that let participants take charge of / guide the ethnographic inquiry to allow for the centering of their perspectives. I categorize data collection for this study under two broad headings: (I) Participant Observation in the Digital World: Since these youth-led coalitions use the digital platforms and networks to share their work and engage with audiences and have a substantial digital presence on various platforms like Instagram, YouTube, I used methods like screen capture recording and media go along that allowed for tracing of youths’ online discourses, connections, and networks. While the two methods above focus on the here and now, the scroll back method (Robards & Lincoln, 2017) attends to the digital traces in the past and reflects on the longitudinal nature of digital traces on social media. Using this method allowed me to learn about some of the youth’s work from the earlier years and hear from them about what they made and why and how they came to it and (II) In-person Participant Observation and Interviews: This included an initial intake survey, semi structured interview, focus groups, and participant observations.

Significance
This research looks at the kinds of knowledge youth bring in their spaces and how they position themselves as knowers in/of their context. This study pays attention to circulating practices, the historical, social, and political context within which youth practices are situated and offers powerful insights from the youth to educators, researchers, and policy makers into the discourses and practices youth engage with. While the youths’ hip hop practices and discourses look ‘globally familiar’ through the embodied practices and hip-hop rituals (Dattatreyan, 2020), these are locally situated (Sarwatay, 2020; Subramanian, 2021) and the youth adopt a critical stance in these digital spaces that is unique to their political and social contexts (e.g., sharing anti-caste assertions in playful political ways). By looking at the collective literacy practices of youth and tracing their networked discourses, ideas, and practices, this study provides youth insights on the cultural and media landscape. These perspectives from youth, particularly those who experience multiple marginalization by virtue of their identities and social locations, are imperative as we live through fast paced technological changes just as a global era of political divisiveness, discriminatory treatment of minoritized groups and changes in schooling and everyday practices due to the COVID-19 pandemic across the globe has collectively shaped the youth today. A perspective from youth helps recognize the disconnect between adult assumptions around youth practices and what youth are engaging with and/or already doing. For educators, practitioners, and researchers who are interested in creating, designing, or offering support to youth and youth-led coalitions, I hope this study offers insights on how we can reimagine our role as adults when we see youth as knowers already.

Author

• RABANI GARG, University of Pennsylvania