Doing Insider Research on Sex-Selective Abortions in India: Challenges and Opportunities

• In Event: Missing Narratives in Feminist Methodology: Complications of Graduate Student Transnational and Domestic Fieldwork

Abstract

I explore the challenges I experienced as a graduate student “insider” researcher during my study of sex-selective abortion in India. My paper navigates this terrain by providing relevant examples from my fieldwork of how insider researchers can be “simultaneously both insiders and outsiders.” I assess the challenges of using a feminist methodology that primarily advocates for the researcher to serve as a conduit, in order to allow research participants to be the narrators of their own stories. Lastly, I discuss the fluid and messy ways in which power dynamics shift back and forth between the researcher and the researched.

Presenter

• Josephine Kipgen, University of Wisconsin - Eau Claire