Constructing Indigenous Childhoods

Abstract

Through interrogating our prevailing understanding of childhoods of the poor in the Third World as `traditional', this article attempts to make apparent the significant break that colonialism signified in these lives. It does so through locating a Calcutta street child's vocational education experiences within a historical understanding of the workings of colonial education policies. The effort in the article is to highlight the effects of these policies on the street child's cultural narratives as well show how these narratives are imbricated in the creation of the national modern.