Paper Short Abstract:

Fieldwork in India with a four-month-old baby opens up different perspectives of research regarding the alleged pressure of exposing oneself to the field, the family's reflective self, and different modes of encounters. This paper is about balancing decisions on doing and not-doing in the field.

Paper Abstract:

Doing anthropological fieldwork in India with a four-month-old baby and a partner opens up different perspectives and challenges. Negotiating the balance between possibilities of going ‘deeper’ into the field, taking opportunities for important events and contacts, or deciding not to participate, instead going back to your comfort zones and family is a process that is radically different while doing fieldwork alone, and which is not much described in ethnographies or anthropological work.

Letting pass the image of the lonely hero of classical anthropological research, who is not talking about security matters, hygiene standards, the need for quiet zones, and exhaustion, the paper instead zooms in on the alleged pressure of exposing oneself for the immersive experience during fieldwork. What happens to the reflective self who is not one person anymore but three? How does fieldwork with a baby necessarily changes the mode of encounters with people?

My decisions are predominantly determined by restrictions like not being able to take every spontaneous occasion or hanging out with interlocutors due to baby care, breastfeeding and resting periods. But much more important, they are based on what is good for my family and thus our well-being as only a happy researcher can do good fieldwork. Also, a family and baby also constitute a range of possibilities like intimate access to other families or the attention the baby attracts.

This paper contributes to the decision-making process of balancing the doing and not-doing in conducting anthropological fieldwork in India with a baby.