Fieldwork is a crucial element for doing original research, more commonly in disciplines such as sociology, anthropology and economics within social sciences. It involves a process of social engagement to understand the aspirations of communities whose lives are not just difficult but often brutal. This entails an understanding of historical structures of identity, power, and privilege. Not all, however, are exposed to rigorous preliminary training in research methodologies, questions of accurate data collection, ethical issues and the idea of objectivity in the social sciences. As a result, academia facilitates evolving researchers to undertake hands-on sessions to develop one’s approach to accomplish competent studies. For first-generation scholars, however, this task is bundled with immense opportunities and challenges. The author’s earliest experience with fieldwork is based on participation in a research methodology course in one of the southern states of India this year, of which it was a crucial and the most intriguing component.

Memories of those days immediately fill my heart with enthusiasm – a thought to indulge in new learning alongside the anxiety of completing field investigations within a short period of four to five hours, given the intensive structure of the program. The coursework scheduled for the purpose demanded that all participants be divided based on key sub-themes to enable their focused engagement on the ground. As part of one of the themes and with a definite objective of the one-day research, we were required to begin our respective study in a village nearly 25 kilometres from the location of our workshop. The journey towards the village was an experience as one saw new landscapes and life at work in a region to which I was unfamiliar.

As we reached our destination, I was overwhelmed by the curiosity to successfully conduct the study. In addition to this, there was a collective effort to prepare and streamline the methodological tools needed for the task. Given the limited time we had and as was true for most of us, our group equally decided to focus on semi-structured interviews with our respondents for the collection of data. To our knowledge, this was particularly relevant to absorb the ground realities that we sought to determine without restricting their freedom to express themselves. What was least expected was, that our initial respondents comprised of the ten to fifteen women members of the Self-Help Group (SHG) active in the village to help us conduct the Focus Group Discussions (FGDs). In theory, FGDs are a tool to gather data from a collective of respondents who share similarities in one sense or the other. As we sat with them, their eyes focused on us to ascertain the purpose of our study. As a prerequisite, therefore, the participants were informed about the workshop, its related tasks, and the reason for our being with them. Through the conversations, we were informed about a few elementary facts about the composition of the SHG. For instance, nearly one-fourth of the total members have been widows, and the SHG was accommodative for all caste categories, despite the existence of casteism in the formation and functions of SHGs in some parts of the country. Moreover, although the region had experienced smartphone penetration, personal banking remained a distant vision for all women, irrespective of their social location. The reason was that their earning were enough only to sustain regular monthly consumption expenditure, with little or no scope to hold on to excess funds for future distress, if any. The precarity was worse for women who lost their sole breadwinners either during the COVID pandemic or at some other point in life.

It was intuitively proved that, while grassroots associations do imply greater financial access to women, they provided insignificant effects on women’s decision–making within households. Of the few interviews we conducted, certain observations are relevant to highlight. First, self-employment occupied a major share as the source of occupation, income and wealth. Second, social protection interventions by the government reached about 22 per cent of the sample. Third, while all respondents irrespective of age, gender, caste and class were “highly impacted” by the global pandemic, it was a severe challenge for those without a secondary source of income.

Managing emotions and traumas during fieldwork is a major challenge for most qualitative research. While their tales and sorrows are difficult to interpret, their hopes and aspirations are impossible to put into words. A respondent, who called herself a teacher and social worker felt helpless to make ends meet for the education, sustenance, and well-being of her daughter. Many did not speak. They chose silence. Their pain, however, was never unnoticed. A researcher is trained to understand what is essentially needed in fieldwork – building conversations and gradually the trust of their respondents. There exists this dichotomy.

What became the most significant challenge was the struggle to trace and document an unforgettable experience through academic writing and publishing. The concern to establish the realities from the perspective of the participant and finding recognizable meanings sets a departure for further research. It is difficult to imagine whether lessons learnt during fieldwork can ever translate into actions when transitioning from a doctoral programme to a career in academia and beyond. Much more generally, the analytical target to qualify as a valuable research outcome and quality simply ignores the voice of who and what we are. It thus follows that the conventional focus on methods may fail to see how we express ourselves in our relationship with the lived experience of participants. In the progression to become a sophisticated academic, we must, to the least, offer the sober recognition of the subtle yet insidious difference of experience and emotion we discover while navigating fieldwork. Probably, this is a tool for many first-generation learners in academia to better connect and imagine research.

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Akanksha Sanil is a Doctoral scholar in the Department of Political Science at the University of Delhi.