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Revisiting 'Nativity': Doing 'Anthropology at Home' in Rural Bangladesh

Ishrat Jahan

Auto-anthropology is where anthropologist works in his/her own society. It is often taken for granted that doing such ‘auto-anthropology’ or ‘anthropology at home’ is the easiest option for anthropologists to carry out ethnographic research. Since the 1980s, many researchers have, therefore, enquired into the lives of the rural women in Bangladesh and in some instances the tendency was to research Bengali women as they share with them a common culture, particularly the language. However, as their fieldwork testimonies suggest, they had problems gaining village women’s trust, and becoming insider researchers, despite their roots in Bengali culture. In this article, I explain similar difficulties in accessing the lives of the poor women as well as men in the village settings of Char Khankhanapur and Decree Charchandpur, Rajbari, Bangladesh by discussing the research methods I used during my PhD fieldwork. In this context, I consider my engagement with the villagers during my research, and focus on my reflexivity as an insider researcher (belonging to the study community) while working in an outsider institution (belonging to the academic research community). I also clarify my ‘positionality’ in relation to the people I studied, and discuss my ethical concerns in the field. The major ethical issues concern my social position of belonging to a certain class, gender, age and educational group. Additionally, I discuss the role of village factional politics and family rivalry, in shaping my research experience. I have argued in this article that doing fieldwork in one’s home situation is not easy with obligations as a researcher, family member and Muslim female.