Need for Anti-Caste Resistant Epistemology in Engineering/Computing Education

• In Event: Roundtable Group 6
  In Refereed Roundtable Session: Addressing the need for change through educational infrastructure, equity and inclusivity

Proposal

Caste is the oppressive social structure that majority South Asian societies practice and uphold. The Brahministic epistemologies incorporating karma (deeds and rebirths) and dharma (duties and virtues of the right way of living) have transcended into educational/professional spaces to uphold the social hierarchy within the South Asian Diaspora. Various Hindu scriptures such as Ramayana, Mahabharata, Rig Veda, etc., provide a foundation for operationalization of casteism (Ambedkar, 2020; Soundararajan, 2022; Zwick-Maitreyi et al., 2018). As South Asian people migrate, so do the Brahministic epistemologies that uphold caste (Soundararajan, 2022; Zwick-Maitreyi et al., 2018). Caste-based discrimination and violences continue to demoralize and dehumanize lower-caste individuals and communities across the world (Soundararajan, 2022; Zwick-Maitreyi et al., 2018).
Brahministic epistemologies of casteism have also been influencing the trajectory of engineering/computing education within and outside of India (A. Subramanian, 2019). In the history of Indian engineering/computing education, the upper castes collaborated with the colonial masters to make engineering more classroom- and theory-based rather than recognizing Indigenous skills and knowledge (A. Subramanian, 2019). They also made the medium of instruction for engineering/computing education English , restricting access to engineering/computing from lower caste people, who had less access to learn English. Meritocracy within elite engineering/computing educational spaces recreate the cycles of inequity within engineering/computing educational and professional spaces across the globe today (Pathania & Tierney, 2018; A. Subramanian, 2019; B. Subramanian, 2015; Thomas, 2020; Zwick-Maitreyi et al., 2018). Combining the Brahministic epistemologies of karma and dharma with the prevailing meritocracy, the upper caste communities act as gatekeepers of engineering/computing education to lower caste communities.
For as long as the caste system has existed, so have anti-caste movements and resistant epistemologies. Rajamani (2020) highlights the historically significant Burrakatha songs of Budagajangama Community (a Dalit community in South India) as an anti-caste resistant methodology. Understanding these resistant approaches from different lower-caste communities is necessary to shift the paradigm on dominant and discriminating epistemologies within engineering/computing education. In this refereed roundtable session, I, a Brahmin engineering and computing education scholar in the U.S., engage in the following discussion: In what ways can we recognize and translate culturally relevant knowledge and resistant epistemologies of lower-caste communities into fields of engineering/computing?
To critically position caste in research, Natrajan & Greenough (2009) proposed Critical Caste Theory (CCT) as a sociopolitical framework that analyzes the caste system, focusing on power, oppression, and social hierarchies. First, CCT recognizes meritocracy and caste-based privileges while exposing disadvantages faced by the lower-caste individuals and communities. However, in academic research, CCT should promote decastization and decolonizing research methodologies by understanding the anti-caste resistant epistemologies and culturally relevant knowledge from various lower-caste communities. Second, CCT helps us recognize and mitigate the caste-based discrimination and violence within engineering/computing education . However, we need to recognize the existent anti-caste resistant knowledge within the lower caste communities in a formal engineering/computing educational system to challenge casteism. In conclusion, this paper presentation will challenge the epidemic of knowledge erasure and recognize anti-caste resistant epistemology as powerful and relevant within formal engineering/computing educational systems .

Author

• Nivedita Kumar, Florida International University