Paper short abstract:

This paper discusses how young women from marginalized communities with strong migration cultures engage with postsecondary education to construct mobile identities in the rural space.

Paper long abstract:

This paper draws on anthropological work on education and development to probe the importance of education in a context where migration is the main pathway to mobility. It is based on an eleven-month-long ethnographic study that involved residing in and spending extended time in the homes of young Dalit women from upwardly mobile families. These young women reside in Chaheru, a predominantly Dalit village in the Doaba region of Punjab with a strong culture of migration. In Chaheru, young women pursue a college education to access international migration and government employment. However, young women's chances of attaining these mobility outcomes and moving away from the village space are severely limited. I argue that in the absence of mobility outcomes young women while remaining in the village space use college education to construct middle-class identities. The middle-class ethos is defined as one that facilitates movement outside the village, enhances status, and is distinctive from the backward lower classes. How young women use education to construct their middle-class identity is shaped by their family's social and economic position.