Experiences in Doing Ethnography: Studies on Anglo-Indian Women in Kolkata

Abstract

This article attempts to explore the relationship between gender role, stereotyped gender expressions and demands on a field researcher in a cross-cultural setting. This idea of the conflicting demands in a cross-cultural field setting came as an outcome of a research on Anglo-Indian women living in Kolkata. This is a reflection of the first-hand experiences of the author while doing her research for her doctoral thesis. Here, the author is the representative of the ‘other’ to the researched. The author seeks to find how her experiences of ethnographic research are of importance to the study of subjects situated differently from her own. It attempts to locate her experiences within the larger field of ethnographic experiences of cross-cultural researchers and show how it penetrates deeper into her awareness of herself and her selfhood.