RESEARCH IN PROGRESS SEMINAR SERIES
AT THE ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE
Friday 22 January 2016, 4.30pm
Understanding Health Seeking Practices: reflections on doing ethnography as a native anthropologist in Nepal
Kapil Dahal, Tribhuvan University, Nepal/Durham University (Visiting Research Student)
This event is free, but places must be booked. To book tickets please go to: http://kapildahal.eventbrite.co.uk
Doing ethnographic fieldwork as a native anthropologist is an interesting opportunity for me to reflect upon my positionality in terms of gender, caste, educational background and numerous other categories of personhood. As a male hill Brahmin undertaking fieldwork for a PhD in Anthropology amongst Maithili Brahmin women seeking health in the lowland Terai, I found myself positioned as an insider on certain occasions but, more frequently, as an outsider. I would like to highlight my experience of complex researcher-participant relationships in the process of generating qualitative information while conducting ethnography both in the community and in a variety of health institutions. Dealing with the health vulnerability of the women in my field site, my presentation also sheds light on their interaction with the service providers in the health facilities available to them both within Nepal and across the border in India.
