"Notes from the Field" was
originally published on the University of Kentucky Political Ecology
Working Group's website in July 2012. The original web-page does not exist
anymore. So, I just decided to publish it as a blog post.
How is my research going? Well, it’s a question one needs
to ask occasionally in the field, to be conscious about what’s happening around
them. However, if one dwells on this
question too much in the field one might become tired of questioning oneself,
which might lead to a lack of motivation in the field. Instead of trying to control every situation,
trying to turn it in one’s favor it is better to let those go! This “letting
go” type of attitude is very necessary in the beginning, when someone starts
fieldwork in an unknown setting, when one is not so sure how to begin with and
whom to talk to. The first few weeks
could be tiring and there could be little or no progress in terms of academic
productivity. At least that is what
happened to me.
I arrived in Kolkata in the Middle of March, 2011. It was not until April 16 that I could visit
my primary study site: Gosaba. Those days were simply spent on settling in my
ancestral house in Kolkata. I had no
internet connection in my house and things had changed since I left Kolkata in
2009. Wireless internet connection was now
available in the city and I applied for one in which you simply carry a data
card with you wherever you go. However,
in my field there is no electricity so carrying a laptop means one would just
increase the weight of their luggage. So,
my initial days in Kolkata were very frustrating in terms of “doing things in
the field” and I was not very poised and calm.
Often I felt I was stuck and controlled by situations on which I had
hardly any control. During this initial
phase of my fieldwork I met the secretary of the Tagore Society for Rural
Development (TSRD), an NGO working in the Sundarban region since 1970s, to
arrange my accommodation in Gosaba.
On April 16, I was immensely delighted because I
visited Pramila’s house in Satjelia, Gosaba and talked to her about my
staying. I was accompanied by my friend
Debarati Mukherjee on this first visit.
I was extremely excited to spend my days in a village something that I had
never done in the past. In my mind I was
worried too because this was the first time I was going to live in a mud walled
straw thatched house without electricity, without a proper toilet, and without a
private space to take bath. Entering my
study site was not difficult for me because I was introduced to Pramila in 2009
during my preliminary fieldwork. At that
time Pramila was working at a primary health sub-center in Luxbagan,
Gosaba. She was an active health worker
of the Tagore society for Rural Development (TSRD). After arranging accommodation I spent few days in Kolkata busy in networking. During
this time I met an official from the Forest Department and talked about my
possibility of venturing deep into the forest to watch fishing and crab
collection. What I needed from the department was to get permission to enter
the protected area (STR), but I was discouraged by that officer. He was worried about my safety in the forest,
accompanied only by some fishermen in a boat (which means entering the forest
in a fisherman’s boat without the protection of any forest guards). He was also hesitant to send me with some
forest guards in a boat provided by the Forest Department. The safety issue with regard to sexual overture
was his main concern! And if that happened to a female researcher the
department’s reputation would be at stake!
After the meeting with the officer I was very depressed thinking of women’s position in the
Indian society. At that moment I realized that every researcher needs some sort
of mental support from their close friends or family members when they are
working in the field and this might be much needed for those who work in
somewhat unfamiliar environment, far away from their homes. Interestingly, the same officer helped me in obtaining
some reports and documents of the Forest Department without which my research
wouldn’t have taken a good shape. So, I
personally have no grudge against him and I think it is the patriarchal
mentality embedded in our society which tends to think of women as lesser
beings than men. The reflection of the same
mentality was embedded in my interviewees’ queries, both among men and women of
the fishing communities of Gosaba. They were surprised to know that I have no
brother and my mother only has two daughters! In the beginning I used to get
annoyed and used to try hard to be calm in front of them, but as my fieldwork
progressed slowly in the fishing community I secretly started taking pride in
declaring that I have no brother! The
women of the community were also interested to know my age and marital
status. Some men also suggested that I
should get married with a fisherman and live the rest of my life in the
village. In that way I would be able to
consume fish and crabs every day. They commented that in Kolkata people don’t
get a chance to eat fresh fish. The
other reason they provided was that a rural, less educated man will listen to
an educated urban woman and will be under her control forever! Even we, the
researchers, might differ from our subjects in terms of personal opinions we
should try to be patient while interacting with them. I think it is necessary to be open enough to
listen to their opinions (not related to the fieldwork always) and try to
understand those underlying factors which have shaped their world view over the
years.
Before ending this field note I would also like to
point to the issue of positionality, which my fellow researchers, who are right
now working in a rural setting in a non-Western world, like me, might experience.
It’s, we the researchers, are the
intruders in the lives of our interviewees and that is why my whereabouts were
being constantly observed. One day, when
I was returning from the schoolpara (the area where a high school is
located) in the afternoon I was asked by a man whether I went to the ferry-ghat in the
morning. I was surprised because I had
gone to the ferry-ghat that morning
to see one of my friends off who had visited the village just for a day. By this time people knew me well and I
thought that I wasn’t observed anymore, but I was wrong! I realized I was observed by the
local residents because I was considered an outsider in the community who
encroached on their space. In terms of positionality
I was considered both an insider and outsider simultaneously. I could speak their language, Bengali,
fluently but my Bengali was sophisticated and urbane. On the other hand I did not know some of the
local expressions. The residents of the
fishing communities largely arrived from several districts of present day Bangladesh before the partition of India in
1947. So, their Bengali dialect is
somewhat different from the Bengali dialect of those who live in West Bengal,
India. Nevertheless, I shared the same
ethnicity with my interviewees, local residents considered me an urban elite of
Kolkata, who had no knowledge of the tides, rivers, forests and animals. Speaking the same language provided me an immediate
access to people’s lives, their culture and religion. I already had information related to rituals
like worshipping the goddess Banabibi
(the goddess of the forest) before entering the forest for catching fish and
crabs and collecting honey. But this
information probably restricted me from making further, detailed observations. It blocked my thinking process on the role of Banabibi in fishers’ lives. So,
maintaining naivety was harder in my situation and because of this I might have
missed some additional information in the field.
Author: Priyanka Ghosh, University of Kentucky
