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Critical Childhood Studies Centre Virtual Visiting Research Fellow, January - June 2025
Rashmi Kumari has a PhD in Childhood Studies from Rutgers University. Her doctoral dissertation is based on 13 months of immersive multimodal ethnographic fieldwork and four months of digital ethnography. In her dissertation, Rashmi examines how development and violence mark the lives of Indigenous children and youth in India. She contrasts discourses and experiences of development—State-led and community-initiated, policy-induced and based on local ancestral traditions— and Development as envisioned by the State and the one desired by communities. She does this by analysing the role of analogue and digital media in Indigenous youths’ political and cultural movements. Examining the everyday digital cultures among Indigenous youths, her research complicates the discussion around the categories of age, indigeneity, and gender.
She is currently working on her book manuscript based on this research. Her latest under-review chapter, WhatsApp ‘Status’: Indigenous Storytelling Through Digital Mediums, is on everyday digital cultures among Indigenous youths, where she argues that digital culture among Adivasi youth emboldens traditional storytelling practices. Rashmi published widely in popular media channels like Behenbox and coordinated with Ekalavya to get Adivasi children's stories and artwork published in children's Hindi magazine Chakmak. These works can be found on her website - rashmish.xyz.
Project summary
Rashmi’s research focuses on the intersection of development and violence, emphasizing climate impact at the intersection of age, gender, indigeneity, and childhood. As a fellow at CCSC, Rashmi is organizing activities focusing on Indigenous epistemologies, youth, and digital media. This will include a panel series, and a workshop on methods and ethics of research with children and young people. The online panel series will bring together scholars, Indigenous youth, practitioners, and activists to discuss/present issues around digital activism, digital surveillance, Indigenous knowledge, languages, and stories for and by children. The methods workshop will be on using Indigenous languages and stories for/by children. Along with the issues around using indigenous knowledge/language/stories, the workshop can also address the ethics of research, especially digital methods, with young people.
