Swargajyoti Gohain with Grandma Ayu during her field visit to Kitpi village, Tawang, in March 2010

Before starting my long-term fieldwork in Arunachal Pradesh in 2009, I had asked faculty advisers in my university if they had any parting advice. One of them had said, “Just go and hang out in the market-place and talk to people”. The thought of how oddly conspicuous I would look – a young, single woman then – hanging around the shops doing nothing but trying to chat up people, gave me cold feet. The same advice would have sounded sage to a man, for the public spaces of any field site would probably be where one would go to understand the everyday flow of life in a small town. Not having this taken-for-granted easy access to public spaces is just one of the many challenges that a woman doing fieldwork faces.

Fieldwork is a qualitative method of study in anthropology and related disciplines. Researchers live in the chosen field site for long periods of time. They converse in the language spoken by local communities and join their activities, thereby observing and understanding everyday behaviour, ideas, and opinions. Conventionally, the written account or ethnography is regarded as the product and fieldwork is seen as the process.

Traditionally, anthropology was dominated by male ethnographers who tended to favour the male informant’s perspective. This presented a one-sided view of cultures. From the 1960s, feminist anthropologists such as Michelle Rosaldo, Henrietta Moore, and Marylin Strathern attempted to redress this asymmetry by drawing attention to the lives, thoughts, and activities of women. Later, in books like Women in the Field: Anthropological Experiences (1986) and Women Writing Culture (1995), women anthropologists recounted their unique experiences of doing fieldwork.

I carried out extended fieldwork in Tawang and West Kameng – two Tibetan-Buddhist mountain districts in Arunachal Pradesh – between 2008 and 2013. My identity as a woman determined to a large extent where I chose to stay, how I behaved, and with whom I developed friendships during this time. Both these districts are heavily militarised, but I made a conscious decision not to visit any of the army camps while doing fieldwork.

Venturing into the hyper-masculine military environment can be especially intimidating for women, unless they have connections in the army.

In the last decade, several women have shared their travails of being a lone woman researcher doing fieldwork. Men, both young and old, not only want to help and be friends but also in some cases, make unwanted propositions. There are several reports of gender-based violence experienced by women fieldworkers in different parts of the world. At times, the situation may become life-threatening. A friend doing fieldwork in Manipur told me how she once had to truncate her field stay because a local drug lord was being uncomfortably attentive. In my case, the most that I had to deal with were the unsolicited, untimely phone calls from the brother of a local MLA.

The other gendered challenge lay in breaking past the barrier of male authority and male bonding during interviews. Men here, as in many parts of the world, are not used to sharing important details of their social and professional life with a woman. In some ways, my position as a research scholar affiliated with a foreign university did help navigate these networks, as did having a male research guide. Yet, I always voiced a preference for a female field companion who could accompany me on my out-of-town trips, for it is easier to communicate personal problems to another woman.

Once an old lady I was visiting in Kitpi village, Tawang, brought out a jugful of frothing chhang, the local millet beer. The taste of the cool drink after the uphill trudge was refreshing. But locally made liquor is strong, and within minutes, I felt the effect – the sensation of lethargy, and slight dulling of the brain. I did not feel like putting too many questions, and wished to leave the glass and go out. But as an anthropologist, I feared that would seem unappreciative of grandma Ayu’s hospitality. Tashi, the young woman with me that day, understood the situation, and when the old lady insisted on pouring more beer for me, she intervened on my behalf. I was thankful for the presence of a woman around me. Gender, along with identities of caste, class, religion, and political ideology, thus plays an important role in shaping fieldwork choices and experiences.

Swargajyoti Gohain is Professor of Sociology and Anthropology. Her research interests include borders and states, cross-border movements, and Tibetan-Buddhist communities.