In-between the “field” and “home”: blurred positionality and negotiations along the Assam- Sylhet borderland
Shobharaj DasPurpose
The paper foregrounds challenges and negotiations involved in conducting ethnographic fieldwork in a militarised and sensitive borderland. It highlights how my position shifts continuously from insider to emerging outsider. It emphasises how the field was shaped by personal connections, spontaneous everyday conversations and the presence of state apparatus, which blurred the boundaries of my positionality as a researcher who was simultaneously at home and in the field. This paper thus reflects on the process of building a researcher-participant relationship as a partial insider navigating familiarity, distance and reflexivity.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is a reflexive account of the ethnographic study conducted among borderland communities along the Assam-Sylhet borderland. It highlights how the complexities of the researcher’s positionality shape relationships and how these social relationships, in turn, influence the research process.
Findings
The paper highlights that familiarity with the field, social capital and insider status do not always guarantee researcher access to the field. Instead, a collaborative and participatory approach and attention to the unplanned everyday moments provide access to the borderland. Additionally, the researcher’s position is reflected as flexible rather than fixed, which shaped the researcher’s identity as the study progressed.
Originality/value
The paper offers a distinction between the field and the home and challenges how the infrastructure of security, mobility and bureaucracy shapes the researcher’s access to the field, which is simultaneously an ancestral “home” and a sensitive zone.