Paper Short Abstract:

This paper evaluates how challenges in collaborative fieldwork and ethnographic writing on menstruation, such as failures or 'leakages', co-produce narratives on gendered experiences in Sankhu, Nepal.

Paper Abstract:

Ethnographic writing on menstruation, as a hidden subject, materialises through mistakes, absence and ambiguities. Fragmented ethnographic encounters with menstruation must be balanced with narratives from fieldwork participants who co-produce this knowledge. This paper reflects on the tensions, ambiguities and possibilities of engaging and articulating a hidden, gendered topic and its implications for ethnographic writing.

From January 2023 to 2024, I undertook ethnographic fieldwork on menstruation in Sankhu, an ancient Newar town in the Kathmandu Valley. Early collaboration with a research assistant from Kathmandu exposed differences in positionality, expectations and priorities with family obligations affecting her involvement. Our differing experiences as women undertaking fieldwork in Sankhu created insights into female propriety, authority and how women's voices are interpreted in ethnographic research. Fieldwork participants became active co-producers of knowledge, narrating as translators, interlocutors and knowledge disseminators while uncomfortable moments at collaborative workshops illustrated disconnects. My positionality, alongside how menstruation physically drew me into the field through pain, absence and 'leaks', generated findings of menstruation as shared responsibility.

This paper considers how challenges and obstacles in fieldwork and writing are generative moments in the co-production of knowledge. Where can failure, or 'leakages', in collaborative fieldwork and ethnographic writing be mobilised? How can a research subject like menstruation, intrinsically connected to experiences of women, be accurately represented while maintaining ethical imperatives of anonymity? Indirect writing techniques recounting sanitary waste disposal, awkwardness and absence offer creative ways to co-articulate daily life for women in Sankhu, with possibilities for co-producing narratives on hidden subjects in Nepal.