Mathur, Chandana (2006) A Passage to Indiana: Reflections on Fieldwork in a Reverse Direction. Indian Folklife (23). pp. 21-22. ISSN 0972-6470

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Abstract

My two years (1989-91) of dissertation fieldwork were spent in Southern Indiana in a small town located near the flagship plant of a major multinational corporation, the Aluminium Company of America (Alcoa). As an Indian woman anthropologist whose work centres on mainstream American culture, I have become well used to the inevitable amused chuckle drawn by this disclosure. Any exploration of the intentions underlying the project, of the fieldwork experience itself, of the particular difficulties involved in writing about it, and (most pertinently for this collection) of the residues remaining, however, requires reaching beyond the cheap paradox element of this fieldwork encounter.

Item Type:	Article
Keywords:	Fieldwork; Anthropology; United States; Western societies;
Academic Unit:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Anthropology
Item ID:	2973
Depositing User:	Dr. Chandana Mathur
Date Deposited:	18 Jan 2012 16:50
Journal or Publication Title:	Indian Folklife
Publisher:	National Folklore Support Centre
Refereed:	No
URI:	http://wiki.indianfolklore.org/index.php...
Use Licence:	This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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