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Paper short abstract:

Retracing the debates on reflexivity to examine the researcher's positionality enables the researcher to reflect on the challenges in the field, paving the way to understand and illustrate fieldwork practices and incorporate the embodied experiences of a researcher in ethnographic writing.

Paper long abstract:

The sugarcane cutters of the Marathwada region constitute the interest of the ethnographic study that I am undertaking currently as part of my Ph.D. dissertation work. Every year lakhs of sugarcane cutters migrate from the Marathwada region to Western Maharashtra and Karnataka for four to six months. The sugarcane cutters migrate with their entire family to different factory and farm sites starting from the month of October-November and the cane-cutting process lasts till March-April. Hailing from marginalized caste communities, the sugarcane laborers are subjected to precarious working and living conditions. As a researcher who is not from within the Marathi-speaking community, the researcher's positionality poses multiple challenges in the field, in the form of (lost in) translation, gender, and social identity. The gender identity acts as the factor to access spaces in terms of sites that are accessible to researchers and it transcends to what sort of information researchers have access to. In this abstract, I argue how the positionality of the researcher and taking a multi-point entry approach in the field unravel the complexities of the field, helping the researcher to negotiate the field and, providing a gaze and voice to the researcher to bring the nuances of the field in ethnographic writing.

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Paper short abstract:

The paper ethnographically explores the subject of doing anthropology with the people close-to/in "home" and the shared reservation, reciprocation, and resistance from the researcher and the researched; and how that enables or hinders the composition, comprehension and even compromise of the study.

Paper long abstract:

Fieldwork in Anthropological has been its hallmark and has had the chief role in shaping the discipline. While fieldwork is known to be the method to assess "the other", it has been an effective tool to (un)learn about one's own self. In this paper, I present the ethical and emotional dilemma of disagreeing or saying a "no" in the field. While negotiating disagreements in itself is difficult, what happens when the field is one's homeland and the people are seemingly close? Working in Indo-Bangladesh border of the Sundarbans with members of the Rashriya Sevika Samiti (Samiti henceforth) a right-wing-nationalist-women's organisation in India, I was caught between the polarities of us-them, right-wrong, BJP-TMC, Hindu-Muslim among others, and on occasions, the position of the research, researcher and the researched can no longer be neutral. In highly sensitive moments, how does one continue to (un)do anthropological fieldwork and negotiate means and ways to disagree with key research participants to whom we are undeniably grateful but are hesitant to contradict or correct as the case maybe? Not only on account of the successful completion of the research but also to respect cultural constructs, these conversations are as much challenging as they are critical. In addressing issues of i) fieldwork methodology, positionality, ethics, and power dynamics and ii) the journey from conceptualisation to actualisation of fieldwork, this paper shares personal empirical reflections and emotions experienced during ethnography with/at/close-to home that critically informs and shapes the research and personhood of Early Career Anthropologists.

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Paper short abstract:

In this paper, placing my identity at the forefront, I argue that the field's portrayal by privileged anthropologists differs significantly from the experiences of underprivileged researchers. Individual identity remains pivotal at every juncture, particularly in diverse settings and societies.

Paper long abstract:

In his work, Jayaseelan Raj (2022, pg XV) underscores the challenges of being Dalit and emphasizes the pivotal role identity plays throughout his fieldwork at tea plantation sites along the Kerala-Tamil Nadu borders in India. Comparing himself with other privileged Brahmin anthropologists and sociologists like R.S. Khare and G.S. Ghurye, who focused on caste-related food practices (Ghurye 1969; Khare 1992), Raj wonders how their experiences would have been different had they been Dalits in similar field settings. Raj expresses that his Dalit identity has made his fieldwork experiences troublesome. Building on this discussion, I pose the following questions: How does a marginalized identity impact researchers' strategies? How fluid is positionality, and how does it shape relations with interlocutors? Furthermore, how might this complicate prevailing notions of ethics and the ethical obligations of researchers during fieldwork?

Based on a seven-month-long ethnography involving in-depth interviews, discussions, and participant observation in Tendukhada, Damoh district, Madhya Pradesh, Central India, I propose the need to reimagine fieldwork. This entails revisiting prevailing notions regarding ethics, positionalities, immersion, and integration.

In this paper, I navigate the intricacies of identity, particularly within the context of my Dalit caste, shedding light on how the field takes shape, especially when the identity is not privileged. Placing my identity at the forefront, I argue that the field's portrayal by privileged anthropologists differs significantly from the experiences of underprivileged researchers. Individual identity remains pivotal at every juncture, particularly in diverse settings and societies.

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Paper short abstract:

By drawing on the difficulties of translating my intentions, as an anthropologist, to the epistemological universe of my interlocutors I ruminate on what the co-production of knowledge in anthropology might mean when we do not partake of the same epistemological grounds as our interlocutors.

Paper long abstract:

‘…social scientists talk in paragraphs, pure scientists talk in values, and doctors are somewhere in the middle’ Dr Z ventures as he nods and smiles in response to my somewhat nervously offered explanation of what an anthropologist of (bio-)science and medicine does. This humorous and perhaps facile sounding remark, however, evinces not only the different epistemological universes that we occupy but also indexes the perceived hierarchy between our disciplines. In this paper, I think through the disciplinary (mis)translations that animated— challenging, impeding and at other times furthering—my 14-months long stint of ethnographic fieldwork with Infectious Diseases (ID) doctors in a large corporate tertiary care hospital in Southern India, in varied and surprising ways. I take the opportunity here to ruminate over how, during the course of my engagement as an anthropologist, maintaining—and not just gaining—access to the field always stood on somewhat shaky grounds coloured by our distinct, if not always discordant, epistemological universes. 
Further, and in ways tangential to the intentions of this panel, I will use this opportunity to problematise what the ethnographic co-production of knowledge with our interlocutors might mean when we do not partake of overlapping epistemological grounds and the emotional labour such negotiation involves. 



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Paper short abstract:

Following the discussion on the poetics and politics of ethnography, our reflection exposes interrogation against the researcher's authority to favor a polyphonic composition in which the space of the encounter is and a precise sentimental education to give shape to research.

Paper long abstract:

These are reflections born on a sailing boat and developed during our respective doctoral researches. While sailing, we realized how much being at sea and wavering calls into question epistemological certainties, what emerged is the relationship between bodies, the boat, the salt and the water. Sailing the Mediterranean in September, sponsored by the university, also revealed a privilege perhaps comparable to that in which we found ourselves in our research sites. After that brief experience we left our homes and moved to different islands: Kerkennah and Sicily.

Pushing ourselves out, onto a scary threshold, we try to stay and make space for what we don't know yet, listening to the sounds of different languages, standing out as white women, researchers, among human and non-human bodies different in color, shapes and ways of thinking and acting. It is urgent for us that the production of knowledge welcomes in its interrogation the effort, the micro metamorphoses and the respect of those who welcomed us into their place. How can we write about what we have seen and experienced, about what was born from the power of encounters? We are aware of being part of a network of relationships from which we cannot escape, made up of powers and privileges: we aim to depict these entanglements. We want to reflect on how much the field and the method of its construction should be directed towards a space in between, a polyphony and cacophony of voices that make up a space of questioning.

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Paper short abstract:

This paper aims to shed light on the complexities of doing fieldwork for Black researchers conducting research among predominantly Black communities. It explores how Black researchers navigate their positionality as both outsiders and insiders.

Paper long abstract:

The growing share of early-career researchers from diverse backgrounds poses a new set of challenges for anthropological fieldwork, especially considering that the scholarship on anthropological fieldwork has traditionally considered the researcher as a neutral subject. While there is a school of thought which values researchers who aren’t from the community they study because they are seen as neutral, detached observers (Kerstetter, 2012), one can argue that outsider researchers will never truly understand a culture or a situation they have never experienced and thus cannot relate to. On the other hand, insider researchers i.e. researchers who share an identity with the group they are studying, can better understand their experiences but it could also be harder for them to separate their personal experiences from those of their research participants. This paper aims to shed light on the complexities of doing fieldwork for Black researchers conducting research among predominantly Black communities. It explores how Black researchers navigate their positionality as both outsiders given their social status being part of academia and insiders due to their shared identity with their research participants. The paper will illustrate how this positionality is much more complex than a simple insider/outsider dichotomy. It argues that with the right tools and support, Black researchers’ complex positionality can help us reimagine anthropological fieldwork at a time when it is being contested.

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Paper short abstract:

This paper considers how interlocuters make sense of the ethnographer. Through an ethnographic detailing of the different terms used by interlocuters to address the ethnographer, this paper shows how there exists not one, but multiple power relationships between the ethnographer and the field.

Paper long abstract:

A lot has been said in anthropology about how ethnographers ‘make sense’ of the field(s); however, how do interlocuters make sense of the ethnographer? In this paper, based on ongoing fieldwork at a family planning clinic in northwest India, I explore this question by analysing how my often confusing, puzzling, unusual and yet persistent presence at a clinic is perceived, understood and made sense of by different interlocuters: staff members, doctors, health workers, and the women and families visiting the clinic.

In particular, I will share through ethnographic vignettes the four terms used at the clinic to address me: “madam;” “didi” (sister in Hindi); “sister” (nursing staff); “chhori” (daughter/young girl in Hindi). Within this, I will primarily explore how the usage of these terms varies across different interlocuters based on their on their own social locations, status and position at the clinic, and how that in turn mediates their relationship with me. Alongside, I will also reflect upon how I myself address the different interlocuters.

Through an exploration of these different forms of addresses, this paper aims to show how there exists not one, but multiple power relationships between the ethnographer and the field. The ethnographer, by immersing herself in the field, invariably becomes a part of the existing power dynamics within the field and amongst the interlocuters. This means that the ethnographer finds herself managing and navigating a range of varying, overlapping, contradicting and changing social relationships, all closely linked to how the interlocuters make sense of her presence.

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Paper short abstract:

Departing from studies on embodied reactions to war, queer futurism and harm-related moments in fieldwork, we explore care as a political endeavour that re-orients anthropological times and spaces towards the sustaining of radical interdependence and safety between researchers and communities.

Paper long abstract:

The accelerating world intensifies affects and emotions. These corporeal responses impact the ways we do anthropology, putting our intersectional backgrounds into play when we research, sometimes without being too explicit. We can feel it, while often lacking specific tools to make that critical awareness a place of care and safety in how we produce knowledge. This discussion is a twofold reflection: how we unveil the dynamics of ethics in our fieldwork and how we can recognise them in others. The first part is based on our recent individual work in Russia on corporeal reactions to violence and, in Berlin, the political-affective impact of queer nightlife spaces on the body. The second part is on our current job as guest editors of an issue of a dance research journal dedicated to ethics, risk, and safety in the field. We have invited researchers to contribute their encounters with harm and care strategies shaped by different temporal and spatial locations throughout different layers of power. We outline the poignant points of witnessing the institutional lack of these discussions and recognising these topics as an urgent political endeavour for re-doing anthropology. Guest-editing this journal was a strategy of care, as we could open a conversation between gendered, sexualised, racialised, reduced and categorised embodied voices. This is how we re-do our practice as researchers: we bring our and the author’s testimonies presenting different ways to re-orientate the anthropological gaze in research practices adaptable to time-space-specific affective events unfolding before, during, and after fieldwork.

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Paper short abstract:

Through a feminist reflection of my experiences with sexual harassment in the field, I investigate the ways in which methodological and epistemological innovations and inquiries happen in spaces where vulnerable observers conduct their research and perform their academic work.

Paper long abstract:

In this paper, I reflect on my experience of sexual harassment in the field, following feminist interventions which state that starting with our own subjectivities in the context of our fields of study presents an important epistemic maneuver and adds to a more responsible knowledge production (Murphy 2015). The illusio (Bourdieu 1990) of the anthropological profession and ethnographic fieldwork has been reproducing the old model of white supremacist capitalist patriarchal research practices. Establishing rapport and friendships with our interlocutors after-hours and in private spaces has been the gold standard for, as Renato Rosaldo (1994) called it, “deep hanging out”. Such practices are not just commonly unavailable for women, disabled academics, BIPOC researchers, and queer individuals, they are also often dangerous, putting them/us at risk of bodily harm, including sexual assault. A consequence of this is that our methodological and epistemological training becomes in part unusable and untenable for researchers who are not white cis heterosexual men. I investigate the ways in which methodological innovations and inquiries happen in spaces where vulnerable observers conduct their research and perform their academic work.