Reading to Belong: Exploring the Everyday Social Inclusion and Role of ‘Study Circles’ in Indian University

The emerging theorization of social inclusion in higher education has often been based on institutional measures and diversity norms. Such theorization is inadequate to capture the everyday social inclusion experienced by marginalized caste students in the social spaces of university campuses. The existing framework also limits understanding the role of non-academic groups, like study circles, in everyday social inclusion on university campuses. The visibility of study circles has often been unaccounted for and misrecognized in the broader framing of belonging and inclusion in Indian higher education institutions. The growing numbers of such study circles on university campuses significantly impacted the sense of belonging among marginalized caste students in their everyday social lives. The paper explores the role of study circles with marginalized caste students in Indian universities. It also attempts to map out the nature of inclusion promoted by study circles in the everyday lives of such students and how it helps them to navigate university social spaces. The paper is based on the year-long ethnographic fieldwork at Delhi University and in-depth interviews of selected participants associated with various study circles, such as Ambedkar Reading Circle, Hundred Flowers Marxist Study Group, and Satyashodhak Study Circle.