Fictions, Frictions and Fragments: Reflections on Feminist Futures of Research

ABSTRACT

Building on critiques of ‘traditional’ fieldwork methods that not only reproduce masculinist and imperialist epistemes but also circumscribe possibilities of what can be studied and by whom, this article unpacks what it might mean to study the global North from the global South. My research focuses on the figure of the Indian doctoral candidate, with field sites in India, engaging in feminist knowledge production within American universities. My fieldwork then is not so much rooted in a physical site but is a shifting terrain marked by many intra-actions – of peoples, of technologies, of theories and of knowledges. If ethnographic writing depends on conjuring the sensory and experiential time and place of ‘immersive’ fieldwork in order to achieve credibility, then my own writing steps away from this credo and focuses on politics of in-betweenness, fragmented-ness and dissonance in an attempt to establish integrity. Unpacking the possibilities and constraints of researching from afar, rather than simply claiming closeness to my interlocutors or an abiding sense of mutual trust I choose to claim fictions, frictions and fragments that pass between and through us to reimagine feminist futures of research.

KEYWORDS:

• Ethnography
• feminist research‌
• gaze
• research ethics
• experimental research
• transnational feminism

Acknowledgements

I am deeply indebted to my PhD supervisor Dr. Asha Achuthan for her constant guidance and my seventeen interlocutors for generously engaging with me. I would like to thank Prof. Shilpa Phadke, the two anonymous reviewers, the editors of Australian Feminist Studies and the editors of this special issue for their thoughtful and constructive feedback on this article. My thanks also to the Graduate Anthropology and Geography Association at the Department of Anthropology, University of Illinois at Chicago for organising the Sixth Second City Anthropology Conference, where a draft of this article was first presented.

Disclosure Statement

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

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nithila Kanagasabai

Nithila Kanagasabai is a Doctoral Candidate in the Advanced Centre for Women’s Studies at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, India. She researches and writes in the areas of feminist media studies, feminist pedagogies, journalism studies, academic mobilities, research cultures, digital media and friendship. Her work has been published in journals such as Feminist Media Studies, Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, Economic and Political Weekly and Feminist Encounters: A Journal of Critical Studies in Culture and Politics. She also recently co-edited Yaari: An Anthology on Friendship by Women and Queer Folx (2023), published by Yoda Press. Her earlier disciplinary training was in broadcast journalism, and she has worked as a reporter in prominent national news media companies.