Fieldwork among Women in Nepal: A Female Researcher Revisits Her Experience

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.3126/dsaj.v12i0.22177

Keywords:

Women, rural, experience, revisit, fieldwork

Abstract

In this paper, I argue, based on in-depth interviews with 75 rural women from 25 households in Nepal nearly eight years ago, that a reflection on fieldwork helps a researcher to critically review and critically appreciate one’s own work and to identify challenges that can be helpful not only to the researcher but also other researchers. I describe three distinct stages of my fieldwork. The first one relates to the image I held regarding rural women’s life and society as well as the information generation techniques I thought I ought to utilize before I actually went to the field. The second stage relates to the learning I gained during the fieldwork regarding rural women’s life and society and the manner in which I actually went about generating information. The third stage relates to how I now reflect back on the lives women lead in rural areas as well as the techniques I utilized to generate information. In the concluding section, I attempt to identify the gains I made while I traversed through the three different stages of research.

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Author Biography

Mira Mishra, Professor, Central Department of Home Science and Women’s Studies, Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu, Nepal

Mishra, Mira PhD https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2629-3908 Professor, Central Department of Home Science and Women’s Studies, teaches in the Graduate Program in Gender Studies, Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu. Her research and publications focus primarily on rural change, womanhood and women’s sexuality. Her recently published articles include “Ethnicity and ethnic inequality: Recent interpretations from rural Nepal (2015) in Contributions to Nepalese Studies, “Reflections on teaching Women’ Studies” in Indian Association for Women’s Studies (2017), and “Livelihoods, households and womanhood in Nepal” in Linda Lindsey and Mehrangiz Najafizadeh (eds.), Women of Asia: Globalization, Development and Social Change (2019) in Routledge.

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Published

2018-12-31

How to Cite

Mishra, M. (2018). Fieldwork among Women in Nepal: A Female Researcher Revisits Her Experience. Dhaulagiri Journal of Sociology and Anthropology, 12, 27–36. https://doi.org/10.3126/dsaj.v12i0.22177

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Articles