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Paper short abstract

Based on phenomenological research with Kashmiri youth studying in Delhi and Kashmir Valley, this paper examines higher education as a contested space shaping identity, belonging, agency and future imaginaries amid conflict and uncertainty.

Paper long abstract

This paper examines higher education as a contested site of identity formation, belonging and youth agency in Kashmir, a region shaped by prolonged conflict. Drawing on phenomenological, empirical research with Kashmiri youth enrolled in higher educational institutions in Delhi and the Kashmir Valley, the study adopts a comparative spatial lens to analyze how educational experiences are mediated by location, power and regimes of belonging. The study explores how educational spaces are shaped by structural and symbolic forms of violence, including surveillance, regulations, curricular exclusion, and contested belonging. While higher education is often framed with development discourse as a pathway to mobility and stability, the lived experiences of Kashmiri students reveal a more complex reality in which education simultaneously produces aspiration, discipline, alienation and uncertainty. The paper foregrounds youth agency by analyzing how students negotiate identity, navigate institutional constraints and articulate alternative futures under conditions of political precarity. By centring everyday educational experiences, the study contributes to the debate on children and youth in conflict contexts, demonstrating how future-making emerges not only through overt resistance but also through subtle acts of negotiations, endurance and re-imagining. The finding reveals that higher education functions simultaneously as a space of aspiration, discipline, and disillusionment, complicating linear narratives of development. It reimagines development beyond measurable outcomes, highlighting education as a process deeply embedded in questions of power, identity and future making in an uncertain world.