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Betrayed Futures: Uneconomic Schooling in Liberalizing Kerala (India)

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Anthropological Perspectives on Student Futures

Part of the book series: Anthropological Studies of Education ((ASE))

Abstract

This chapter describes the social practices of mothers whose children study at Malayalam-medium schools, arguing that these mothers’ struggles highlight the extent to which Malayalam-medium schooling has become a sign of marginalization and abjection. Further, ethnographic inquiry reveals how, despite experiencing abjection, mothers yet hoped for more just and desirable futures. However, mothers were simultaneously aware of the inadequacies of hope in effecting radical material and social change, and the costs entailed in hoping were exacting. For former slave-caste mothers whose children disproportionately remain at Malayalam-medium schools, schooling was thus entangled in obsessive hope and overwhelming despair.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Leya Mathew

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  1. Leya Mathew
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. UNIVERSITY OF WISCCONSIN MADISON , MADISON, Wisconsin, USA

    Amy Stambach

  2. University of Pennsylvania , Media, Pennsylvania, USA

    Kathleen D. Hall

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Mathew, L. (2017). Betrayed Futures: Uneconomic Schooling in Liberalizing Kerala (India). In: Stambach, A., Hall, K. (eds) Anthropological Perspectives on Student Futures. Anthropological Studies of Education. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-54786-6_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-54786-6_7

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-137-54785-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-137-54786-6

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