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In this article, I discuss my experiences, dilemmas and emotions following my field surveys conducted in the rehabilitated villages of Sardar Sarovar. The Sardar Sarovar Project (SSP) is a multi-purpose river valley project that has dislocated thousands of Adivasis and non-Adivasis from their traditional lands. I have used the narrative method to research and gain insights into the lifestyle changes of the Adivasis displaced by the SSP. Accordingly, I reflect critically on the negotiation of ethics and insider–outsider status in international field research and pay close attention to the importance of reflexivity, positionality and power struggles.
En este artículo, discurro sobre mis experiencias, dilemas, emociones luego de mis encuestas llevadas a cabo en las aldeas rehabilitadas de Sardar Sarovar. El Proyecto Sardar Sarovar (SSP, por sus siglas en inglés) es un proyecto multipropósito de un valle fluvial que ha desplazado a miles de adivasi y no adivasi de sus tierras tradicionales. He utilizado el método narrativo para investigar y obtener nuevos conocimientos sobre los cambios en los estilos de vida de los adivasi desplazados por el SSP. De este modo, reflexiono críticamente sobre la negociación de la ética y el estatus de pertenecer/no pertenecer en el campo de la investigación internacional y pongo particular atención a la importancia de la reflexividad, la posicionalidad y las luchas de poder.
Acknowledgements
I am thankful to Professor Mullings for her critical perspectives and consideration, particularly in terms of providing extra time to finalize this work. The suggestions and inspiring words of the anonymous reviewers have sharpened my arguments. My discussions with Professor Townsend on the tone of the article added clarity. I was motivated from the writings of Parvati Raghuram, Richa Nagar and Chandra Mohanty. And this article would not have been possible without Professor Engel-Di Mauro's insightful comments, careful readings and stimulation. Finally, I thank the GPC crew who have made this project successful.
Notes
1. In the context of the SSP, rehabilitation means resettlement with basic amenities, such as housing, agricultural land, schools, roads, community centres, spigots, water tanks and electricity.
2. Here, I am referring to Kutch and Saurastra, located in the north western part of Gujarat.
3. The terms ‘third’ and ‘first’ worlds are problematic. Even the alternatives, such as core–periphery, north–south, developed–developing, colonizing–colonial and wealthier–poorer, are problematic as a simplifying, dichotomous view of the world, but these terms are more useful than the terms ‘first’ and ‘third’ worlds, the latter implicitly reinforce existing economic, cultural and ideological hierarchies (Mohanty 1988, 83).
4. The plan of damming the Narmada dates back to nineteenth century British India. After independence, in 1965, the Nehruvian development policy formulated the need for constructing the SSP, a colossal multi-purpose hydropower project (see Chattopadhyay 2009).
5. For the most part, in the article I employ the terms ‘indigenous’ and ‘Adivasi’ interchangeably, although the term ‘Adivasi’ is the most widely accepted term in the Indian context, as the term is employed by the people to define their identity as ‘original inhabitants’ (literally translated). Indigenous is often unsuitable outside its original context of the Americas, where historically there is a sharper distinction between the Native Americans and the European settlers. The use of the term ‘tribe’ is also somewhat difficult because of the porous boundaries between caste and tribe, both of which have existed side by side in India for centuries (Bétéille 1986, 310).
6. I use highly problematic terms such as primitive, savage, western and backward without quotation marks only to promote fluency in reading. Additionally, since the Constitution of India features the word ‘primitive’ to describe Adivasis, I retain it to keep the meaning intact and also to stress that the use of these terms as a rhetorical strategy of the post-colonial (and colonial) state belies an ideology, which supports a disparity of scale in power (for details on the tribes of India, see Bétéille 1986; Hardiman 1987, 1–54).
7. As a result of this, those involved in resistance to and negotiation with the state on rehabilitation have acquired fertile and accessible cultivable lands, houses close to transportation nodes and healthy draught animals. In many villages, most had better amenities, cultivable lands and houses. Some villages were quite inaccessible, with no availability of direct transportation, and malfunctioning of public amenities was prevalent.
8. For example, women do not plow lands, or drive tractors, or fit pumps for irrigation; rather, they clean and tend the cattle, weed the fields, plant seeds and harvest crops with their male counterparts. In one case, I found a mother-in-law engaged in plowing, planting and harvesting along with her husband and sons, while her daughter-in-law, like other women in the village, tended cattle and performed household chores (Chattopadhyay 2009).
9. While some think the name came from the word Khal meaning canal, others believe the name is derived from the Bengali words Kali meaning lime and Kata meaning burnt shell, as the area was known for manufacturing shell lime. Or the name could be derived from the word Kikila which means flat area, http://www.calcuttaweb.com/history. Accessed January 4, 2012.
10. In the fifteenth century, the British East India Company agent Job Charnok chose this place for a British trade settlement because of its strategic location, and the British bought the land from a local landlord for 3000 rupees. The site was chosen as it was protected by the River Hooghly on the west, a creek in the north and salt lakes to the east. The three villages bought by the British were Sutanuti, Gobindapur and Kalikata along the east bank of the Ganges. In 1772, Calcutta became the capital of British India.
11. Nature, in this article, means wilderness, floral and faunal species, grasslands and forest commons used by Adivasi farmers, herders, swiddeners, hunter-gatherers and fisher folks (Sivaramakrishnan 1995; Arnold and Guha 1995; Rangarajan 1994; Guha 1989).
12. But then my readers might also ask the same question. Hence, as I transcribed my narratives, I attempted to share them with the Adivasi women and men luminaries and activists.
13. All my villages have pseudonyms. This is to protect the information given by the villagers.
14. The Tadvis, an Adivasi group, resided in Malawi host village and in Malawi rehabilitated village. Tadvis of different places had different cultural traditions, rituals and social systems. Cultural differences between Adivasi groups with the same name, but from different places, were common.
15. Pan is chewed as a stimulant mostly in the villages. It is made from betel leaf, which is wrapped in a cone shape with some strong flavors and coarsely or finely chopped betel nuts. Betel leaves and nuts are obtained from a plant which is grown mostly in south and southeast Asia.
16. Three wheelers that can typically carry three adults, but in the villages they used to bulge out with more than five people.
17. There have long been debates on what distinguishes feminist from non-feminist methodology and epistemology (Harding 1987; Kobayashi 1994, Katz 1994; England 1994, Gilbert 1994, Lawson 1995; Women and Geography Study Group 1997). Feminist research can be differentiated from non-feminist research in at least three ways. First, feminist research debunks the myth that research done only with male subjects represents human experience. To represent the world of women, their perspectives have to be analysed and counted. Moreover, feminist methods examine how individuals are grounded in their experiences, make sense of the events and actions in their lives, and make the researcher responsible for doing something beneficial for the research participants (Gilbert 1994). Second, feminist research focuses on the mutuality of research processes and inter-subjectivity, not objectivity. Above all, feminist methodologies give prominence to human agency and imagination, and are suited to studies of subjectivity and identity. Lastly, feminist research carried out by women (e.g. see Monk and Hanson 1982) has a consciousness raising component and a positive impact on the research participants.