Paper short abstract:

The paper explores the compulsions that accompany the attempt to facilitate subaltern voices in the University Classroom. The context is the recent recognition of Tribes by the State in post colonial Goa

Paper long abstract:

With the expansion and democratisation of higher education over the last two decades subaltern students have joined the University in Goa. Those who were once the subject of anthropological research now sit opposite the teacher in the Class room.

In the context of learning practices, what does inclusion and diversity mean and how do these students experience it. How do such students speak and how are they heard?

This paper is a conversation between a teacher and a student. Does the subaltern find a voice within the classroom? The discussion reflects on and explores ambivalent, contradictory and fluid experiences and consequences of resistance, stigma, pride, shame, silence and marginality. The conversation also explores how concepts such as identity, strategic essentialism and intersectional identities might play out. What are the compulsions, possibilities and inhibitions that accompany the attempt to welcome the subaltern 'voice' within the University framework?

The context is inscribed by Goa's experience: Tribes have been officially recognised only as recently as 2003. What does this recent official declaration of tribal status mean? How was community and its imagination negotiated with the colonial State and how does post colonial experience refract the past.

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