Doing Fieldwork in Perilous Field Sites: Towards a Context-specific Fieldwork in India’s Borderlands

In this article, we advocate for a context-specific approach to fieldwork that moves beyond standardised methodologies, recognising the unpredictability of violence and restricted mobility in perilous field sites, particularly in conflict-affected and politically sensitive regions. By and large, sociological traditions and inquiry have ignored areas and regions that are under conflict or politically unstable, despite many states from Central India to its borderland regions such as Jammu and Kashmir, and the majority of states in the Northeast reeling under conflict and violence. In writing about our experience, we aim to address questions about access to the field and the methodological challenges posed by state surveillance, militarisation, community mistrust and the researchers’ positionality.