Embodied spatial practices in the field: critical ethnographies in village studies from India

ABSTRACT

Postmodern anthropology has used the claims of reflexivity, inter-subjectivity and recognition of differences in individual experiences in its attempt to unsettle the authority of traditional anthropology. This has led anthropologists to assert that ethnography is a cultural construct, whereby ‘fieldwork’ is conceptualised as ‘embodied spatial practice’. Drawing on village studies from India, this paper argues that the recognition of different embodied practices of ethnographers from diverse social locations has not necessarily led to the democratisation of the discipline. Conversely, insufficient engagement with hierarchical, overlapping power relations within the ethnographic field, as well as within the disciplinary establishment, has led to the standardisation of disciplinary articulations of research ethics, the terms of which privilege hegemonic groups within the discipline. The articulation of the concerns of scholars from marginalised social groups often remains difficult within such disciplinary frameworks. This paper argues that establishing a critical tradition in ethnography in the true sense requires the postmodern sensibility of recognition of the differences in experiences, supplemented with feminist and subaltern critical interrogations of power and knowledge.

KEYWORDS:

• Caste
• embodiment
• field
• gender
• space

Acknowledgements

My deep gratitude to N. Purendra Prasad, Shiju Sam Varughese, Reshma Radhakrishnan, Navaneetha Mokkil, Mary Ann Chacko for reading the manuscript with much care and providing valuable feedback. Many thanks to Deepa Sreenivas and Bheem Reddy for their suggestions. I am also indebted to the two anonymous referees for their insightful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 A Pre-school child care centre run by the government of India as a part of Integrated Child Development Services.

2 The prefix ‘Dalit’ is not used as an attempt to socially bracket the caste background of the researcher. Rather, it needs to be seen in the context of the claim of caste identity by the researcher himself.

3 We know from Choragudi’s narration that his father was a highly placed Government of India official. Further, the fact that Choragudi was a recipient of the University Grants Commission fellowship, information that he had shared in the field, made the village leaders look upon him as a central government employee.

4 Though the Mala Caste comes under the broader category of the Scheduled Caste, it is considered to be superior in caste hierarchy than the Madiga caste in Andhra Pradesh.

5 The landlady belonged to the Raju community, considered as a caste of Kshatriya Varna.

6 A caste considered to be of Shudra Varna.

7 Recognising the potential of researchers as active agents of domination led critical thinkers in anthropology to press for evolving ethical standards in the discipline during the late 1960s and the early 1970s. A Code of Ethics was first adopted by the American Anthropological Association as a result of protests by leading anthropologists against the deployment of anthropological research in counter insurgency programmes of the US government in Project Camelot in Latin Amrica, Project AGILE in Thailand and the Himalayan Border Countries Project in India. Further, the potential for the deployment of anthropology for the corporate interests of profit was also recognised by anthropologists. The recognition of power relations between the researcher and researched was crucial in pushing for ethical standards. But once the standardisation of ethical codes took place within the discipline, power relations came to be depicted in a monolithic way, giving rise to hegemonic mainstreaming tendencies within the discipline. Though initially such an ethical framework provided much scope for social anthropologists in various parts of the world, as well as in India, to identify with people who they felt were oppressed and carry out research among them, the anthropologist’s authority remained unquestioned; the anthropologist seemed to be disembodied. Since such a framework also approached power in simplistic binary terms such as powerful and powerless, scholars expressed concerns over the limitations of such a codified framework of ethics (See for example Nader 1972; Bourgois 2012). With the emergence of postmodern scholarship, the scientific knowledge claim of anthropology as well as the authority of the anthropologist came under critical interrogation, which required the anthropologist to be self-conscious, and reflexive. Responding to the shifting disciplinary articulations, the prominent anthropological bodies, like the American Anthropological Association and the Association of Social Anthropology, revised their ethical guidelines in the late 1990s. Though both the documents recognise the complex relations of power between the researcher and the researched, they emphasise that mutual trust, informed consent, reciprocity, confidentiality, respect, and so on, are some of the values that the anthropologists need to hold on to (Armbruster 2008).

8 In the coastal regions of contemporary Odisha, the upper castes such as: the Brahmins, the Karanas and the Khandayats dominated society and its politics. However, in most parts of Western Odisha, there is only a marginal presence of the Karana and the Khandayat caste groups. In these regions, along with the domination of the Brahmins, the structural domination is centred also on the Gauntia institution. Gauntias were local tax collectors and village headmen designed by the king. The institution mainly developed during the period of feudatory kings. Mostly, the Dumbal caste group was designated as Gauntias in the Baudh region (Dumbals are enlisted as a backward caste group in the state categorisation owing to their heavy concentration in the western Odisha region, which is recognised as a backward region). Along with the Brahmins and the Dumbals, the dominance of the Mali caste groups is also found in the region. Since the Mali caste men often officiate as priests for the local deities in the villages, the purity of the Mali caste is asserted and get recognised in a prominent way (though they too are enlisted as a backward caste group in the official state categorisation).

9 Other Backward Caste (OBC) is a term used by Government of India to classify castes which are educationally and socially backward.

10 Scheduled Caste (SC) groups are designated by the government of India to classify communities who have historically faced deprivation, extreme forms of isolation and oppression under the Hindu caste system.

11 The term ‘Dalit’, which literally means downtrodden, stigmatised, and so on, has recently been used to refer to the Scheduled Caste categories in India. It is assumed that the historical subjection of untouchability is mostly the basis for inclusion of caste groups under the Scheduled Caste category. However, in Odisha the inclusion of some of the touchable caste groups like the Keuta, the Dhibara, the Kaibarta within the Scheduled Caste category in the year 2002 led to protests from the untouchable caste groups. They asserted that the historical root of untouchability needs to be considered the criteria for inclusion of any community under the Scheduled Caste category. Though the Indian constitution in principle has abolished the system of untouchability, the practice is still a living reality. I use the term untouchables to refer to the caste groups which continue to be subjected to the practice of untouchability. In the coastal regions of Odisha, the prominent untouchable communities are the Hadi, the Pano, the Bauri, the Kandara and the Chamara. In Baudh district of Odisha, the Ganda, the Ghasi and the Betera are the prominent untouchable communities.

12 It has been articulated by the Western Odisha intellectuals that though the Western Odisha districts are rich in natural resources, the region suffers from strong deprivation, while the coastal Odisha districts have flourished at the cost of the former. This consciousness of deprivation and regional domination gave rise to the Western Odisha regional movement. Another line of argument of the Western Odisha movement is that the state has not only been unable to integrate their region economically, but that the marginalisation is also evident in terms of non-recognition of their language. The coastal Odisha dialect has been recognised as the official state language or the ‘bookish’ language, side-lining the Western Odisha dialect. In this context, in most parts of Western Odisha, people from coastal Odisha are generally referred to as ‘Cuttaki’ indicating the latters’ alleged dominating and cunning nature.

13 The Teli is a touchable caste group, whose traditional occupation is oilseed grinding.

14 The Khandaayat caste is considered to be a caste of Kshatriya Varna, one of the dominant castes in coastal Odisha.

15 Cooked food is a major concern in terms of the maintenance of caste purity. Rice is a staple food in Odisha. Utmost care is taken in its handling, since it is considered to be the most susceptible food to incurring impurity.

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Madhumita Biswal

Madhumita Biswal currently teaches at the Centre for Studies in Society and Development, School of Social Sciences, Central University of Gujarat, India. She did her Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Hyderabad, India. Her areas of interest are Gender Studies, Sociology of Health, Sociology of Development and Rural Society.