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Accepted Paper:
Doing ethnography in a familiar space: some reflections
Thonbamliu K
(Indian Institute of Technology Bombay)
The paper provides fieldwork reflections of the author as a native researcher in rural Manipur, India. It discusses challenges and strategies employed to obtain relevant information. It contributes to doing ethnography at home debate.
Paper Abstract:
The paper is about the author's reflections on doing anthropological research on a familiar site and culture to study the livelihood of Liangmai in Manipur. As a native and tribal anthropologist, doing fieldwork at home has undeniable perks like effortless rapport building, shared mental images in communication and no requirement to learn a language or need for a research assistant from the field. However, gaining access to locals’ interpretation of reality is much like an outsider fieldworker. Extracting relevant information and nuances of practices/views from the people whom you know comes with its own share of difficulty. A phrase like “you already know it” can be a real problem for gathering in-depth empirical data. At times, the native researcher’s queries are not considered worthy of explanation. In dealing with a familiar space, a researcher must be sensitive to their context and complex situations so as not to hurt community feelings in the fieldwork process and to maintain a long-term friendly relationship. This piece on ethnographic reflections contributes to contemporary debates on doing at-home ethnography. It discusses strategies deployed to overcome challenges.