Abstracts:

By Deepak Kumar Behera & Mehul Chauhan
Researching on and with Children: Some Methodological and Ethical Issues

Children are regarded as the most precious component of any society. The future wellbeing of a community highly depends upon their qualitative upbringing. Hence it is highly important to have good research work to be carried out on children. The findings of such research studies would help provide a good quality of life to the children.
Children constitute the most vulnerable section of any community. Children are treated as marginal people whose activities and experiences matter less than those of adults. Hence, it is seen that children remain invisible in the area of social science. In the area of research on and with children, one would notice conspicuous absence of children’s perspective on childhood. Children have been neglected as women have been neglected until recently. There are numerous methodological and ethical issues relating to research on and with children and childhood. The non-child childhood researcher is not accepted as a child by the children and thus he fails to have a deeper understanding of their childhood. The children should be furnished with all relevant information about the research by the adult researchers and the consent of the children is to be taken by the researcher for doing a piece of research. Further it is important for the researchers to share the finding of his research with the concerned children.

The present paper makes an attempt to take up such issues which are normally not dealt by the researcher. It is extremely important for the researcher to exhibit child friendly attitude while conducting research. The paper thus suggests some innovative strategies for doing research on and with children from children’s perspective.

By Debendra Kumar Mahalik
Selection of Village for Social Projects: A Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Approach

Government often selects villages for implementation of different social projects for social benefits. These decisions with respect to selection of village are multi-criteria decisions making problem where large number of factors directly or indirectly influence the decision-making process. The decision maker has to use several parameters and variables before coming to a conclusion. In certain cases these selections are often blamed for non-scientific approach due to absence of quantifiable data. Selection becomes more difficult when the data are qualitative by nature or presence of personal biasness. This paper makes an attempt to use Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method, a method for decision making through multi-criteria for selection of a village with respect to social science research.
Key Words: Selection, Multi Criteria, Decision-Making, AHP, Social Research

By Professor Sudhansu Sekhar Rath
Interdisciplinary Research Based on Theoretical Models

Research on an issue means analysis of relevant literature on it from different dimensions and to derive some conclusions in terms of a hypothesis or set of hypotheses leading toward the development of a possible new theory. The wider is the coverage of literature review the better is the analysis enriching the research outputs. In this context the interdisciplinary research in social science is very important. Application of theory into practice not only deals with human behaviour but also is based upon the action and reaction patterns of individuals under different circumstances, environmental and social systems. The orientation of studying all these aspects differs from subject to subject in social sciences. However, integration of relevant aspects from the study through different orientations finally leads to the conclusions which may be the most appropriate theoretical exploration. The paper explains theoretical models on group formation and corrective action.

By Saikat Deb
Application of Geographic Information System (GIS) and Global Positioning System (GPS) in an East African Island: An Experience

Technological developments like Global Positioning Systems (GPS), Geographical Information System (GIS), arial photography are revolutionizing surveying, cartography, mapping and other areas like public health and epidemiological studies. These technologies were and are being used primarily by the Military, but over the last few years it is being slowly incorporated in several civilian domains.
While conducting a randomized double blinded supplementation trial in the island of Pemba, which is located in the east coast of mainland Tanzania we ventured into the area of GIS and GPS technology. This information was intended to be used in the ongoing study and for future reference. Arial photographs, Arc view Software and GPS handheld devices were used for the purpose. The data (waypoints) were directly downloaded in the Arc GIS/Arc view software. A layer of the way points was created and merged with the other layers of the photographs. This data was finally attached with our census data and study data.

By Madhav Anand
Innovative Social Work Methods for Inclusive Development

Different types of research make different kinds of contribution to the growth and development of human society. The intention of this paper is not to belittle the worth of facts finding research or applied research. It primarily argues that action research through innovative social work methods would be quite useful for bringing inclusive development in society. It suggests some strategies that can be tried out by social scientists to bring inclusive development through participatory method. It is felt that the social scientists must try to understand the ground realities form people’s perspective. As the social work education puts heavy emphasis on this perspective, it provides a wonderful platform to the action researcher to suggest model for inclusive development from a subaltern perspective. Based upon his research findings and incorporating people’s view points, the researcher develop the model and implement it for bringing inclusive development in the concerned community. The paper is significant both from analytical and policy-related reasons.

By Lidia Guzy
Sustainable documentation – A case study of challenges and perspectives in establishing sound archives

This paper aims to discuss a proposed method of sustainable documentation of audio data, based on the approach of dialogical ethnography (Tedlock / Mannheim 1995; Bakhtin 1973; 1981) in a case study in western Orissa (Bora Sambar region). In the first place, sustainable documentation means the establishment of long-term relations with local musicians. Recorded data was documented in collaboration with the musicians and later mutually discussed and interpreted. The local musicians were introduced to the techniques of audio-visual recording in order to pursue the documentation of their musical culture on their own. Music was not regarded as stable or “authentic”, but as a transformative expression of culture. Thus, musical and socio-cultural changes could be grasped throughout the years.
At the heart of a sustainable documentation lies the participation of local representatives in the establishment of sound archives and a mutual exchange of knowledge: what is important to document in the eyes of local musicians and what for the researcher? The main goal of sustainable documentation is not the storage and scientific analysis of recorded materials in a European institution, but the establishment of a participatory sound archive of western Orissa, which contributes to a socio-cultural empowerment of the source communities.

Abhijit Bhattacharya 
Nationalism, Identity and Culture of Public institutions in Colonial Bengal: A Space for Studying Academic Disciplines Beyond University

Walter Benjamin imagined an archive with enormous scopes and possibilities, more than half of which banished and rest got a small home within two jackets of Walter Banjamin’s Archive and this the beginning of my argument on old public institutions as “city’s refuge” as described by Benjamin himself. Eastern India has a rich history of public institutions that created a huge database outside political society. Rajendralal Mitra, popularly known as author of Antiquities of Orissa started contributing for disseminating knowledge on Anthropology, Art and Archaeology in a popular manner even before establishment of Calcutta University. Universities are birthplace of modern disciplines, being discussed outside University and public institutions like Vernacular Literature Committee, Bangiya Sahitya Parishat, Kayastha Samaj started discussing modern academic disciplines in non-conventional pedagogical approach.
The paper will try to discuss scope of recovering these, rather unconventional databases with specific focus on modern institutional archives.

Abhijit Kundu
For A Sociology of Cinema- an abstract

As the most reflexive of social sciences sociology has expanded its scope to engage its tools and modes of analysis to study popular narratives- cinema, literature, theatre, various art forms etc. The methodological bent is that images go a long way in shaping the real lives of people. Betraying naïve empiricism, such a posture foregrounds the web of meanings in which social life is carried out, and images (along with the underlying values) as cultural products are held to be crucial in the ordering of social life.
Arguing for an appropriate research method for such a subject-matter, the paper raises the classical question of- ‘How is it to be known’ is better served when we are conceptually clear with ‘What is to be known’. Taking the case of popular cinema, we straightaway consider cinema as meaningful wholes which cannot be simply reduced to plot-analyses. Neither the recognition of available meanings is non-problematic. Sociology of cinema probes beyond film-studies.
Cinema rests on symbols and archetypes drawn from the changing states of society, which are in fact the classifications and interpretations imposed on an individual’s understanding of the world by the society. For sociology, cinema is a public event, as popular cinema   serve as entry points for understanding the legitimization of social and political power through narrative forms commanding the widest of social constituencies.
Once the cinema-world is defined, the potentialities for inferences multiply, as cinema does not perfectly reflect an absolute reality. According to the predispositions of the receivers cinema lends to multiple reality. The major communication device lies in the narrative and the thematic structure of a particular film. Fiction-cinema relies on the audience’s participation within this narrative as a basis for communication. Through this participation the spectator ‘receives the message’. The analyst studies this ‘participation’ through audience research.
As cinema presents multifaceted experiences with communication many leveled, a sociological research method too needs to be multi-pronged. On one hand, a researcher has to reconstruct the range of meanings embedded in any particular narrative structure. It is not simply a qualitative assessment of the distribution of such meanings; instead the method promotes qualitative analysis which involves the selection and rational organization of such substantive meanings of the given text, with a view to testing certain pertinent assumptions and hypotheses.
On the other, by focusing on the communicational aspects of cinema, we realize that the characteristic attitudes of the receiver ‘interfere’ in the process of receiving, as a case of ‘selective perception’. The interactive process includes the communicator, the content, the audience and the situation. Through audience research we try to see that particular imageries and representations as resorted to by the audience are essentially negotiated ones. We take common knowledge, the random information that comes the way of any  perceptive member of a society, deliberately gathered information, and try to shape the unwieldy ‘mess’ into some sort of order. Looking at cinema as performing meaningful communications, we can attempt a sociological knowledge of cinema.

Bindu Ramachandran
Methodological Issues In Making Genealogies In A Commune
                                                                                                                                                       
In anthropology, genealogical method is extensively used to study families and the tracing of their lineages and histories. It is often considered as an apt method to link individuals to their ancestors and the existing social network.  The current debate is on how far this method applicable to communes?  This paper is an attempt to analyze the relevance of genealogical method in a commune in Kerala where the biological father is not identified in social position.

Geetika Ranjan
Anthropological Approach to Understand the Politics of Power in a Vulnerable Group
                                                                                                                                                                                                                             
As deliberations on post modernism continue to be an important part of academic forum, it becomes imperative to reverse back to the basics of the disciple, in this case, anthropology, to understand that what post modernism theory has been making conspicuously known to the academia was not entirely unknown to the erstwhile ethnographers. Undoubtedly post modernist thought has raised some pertinent epistemological issues, but have championed the cause to a limit of making the issue an independent, isolate of inquiry rather than something that can be a vital linked alteration. With words like ‘representation’, ‘evocation’, ‘indigenous’ and ‘fieldwork’ ‘auto-ethnography’ being microscopically viewed, it becomes imperative to recall the  rationale of fieldwork and revisit the idea underlying  ethnography with a perceptive outlook so that the whole exercise of  understanding cultures can be scientific one.
The present paper deliberates upon the empirical study of Bhoksa– a Primitive Tribal Group (a constitutional term, objected by anthropologists), in the state of Uttaranchal, India. The study conducted attempts to bring to the fore the power and politics scenario of this vulnerable group. How the precarious balance between modernist and post modernist points of view need to go hand in hand as approaches to study the politics of power, privilege, parity and poverty has been highlighted in the paper.

Sumit Roy
Research  Methods  In The Social Sciences In A Globalising  World: An Approach
                                                           
Research methods need to be evolved in relation to changing needs of society at several levels. In this frame this paper will explore political economy issues centred on the role of comparative inter-disciplinary studies at the local, national and international level in a globalising world. This is based on an approach which draws on analytical and empirical studies undertaken by the researcher in Asia-India and China-and Africa- and at the international level. Essentially, the core theme rests on the need to confront developmental challenges-growth and reduction of poverty-at these levels in an increasingly interdependent world where the sovereignty of the nation state is being curbed and national borders are blurring. This has critical implications for the future of nations and socio-economic change and the role of institutions at several levels. In this respect,  in a globalising world there is an increasing shift from state to non state forces including international and regional institutions, NGO’s and social movements, in pursuing socio-economic goals. This encompasses conflicts and tensions between and within diverse interest groups in a highly competitive world. The approach can offer useful insights into research methodology and its application to the teaching process.

Jens Seeberg
The qualitative basis of research. About qualitative natural science and the objectivity of ethnographic field work

Natural science methodology is often also qualitative, i.e. based on determination of form and depending on interpretation. On this basis, the paper discusses some common misunderstandings that sometimes colour discussions of objectivity and generalisability in qualitative analysis. Qualitative research may be defined relative to a range of different styles of reasoning, but only few styles of reasoning can be used to assess the quality of qualitative research. The concept of objectivity is defined with inspiration from Latour as the object’s ability to object to the analysis. This concept of objectivity is common to human, social and natural sciences and implies a radical refusal of the idea that qualitative research is more ‘subjective’ than quantitative methods. But qualitative methodology is better positioned to understand contextual conditions, including the researcher’s position vis-à-vis the object. The role of context for the scope of analytical argument is discussed based on a distinction between analytical and theoretical qualitative research, and the article argues that the basic difference between natural and human science cannot be reduced to preference for certain methods but primarily depends on the ability of the object to reflect upon and react meaningfully to the human interaction in which research is embedded. The paper concludes with a discussion of the intense interest in qualitative methodology over the past twenty years and its consequences for multidisciplinary research across styles of reasoning.

Uwe Skoda
Oscillating between present and past: Notes on a historical ethnography

The relation between anthropology and history has been discussed in certain intervals in the disciplines with an early contribution by Evans-Pritchard or more recently in the work of Bernard Cohn, Marshal Sahlins or Nicholas Dirks’ ethnohistory. Based on my field research on kingship in Orissa I will reflect on experiences and hurdles in combining anthropological and historical approaches and argue that this research involved not just a shift from field to archive or vice versa, but a constant oscillating between, in Cohn’s terminology, “anthropologyland” and “historyland”. While certain periods of more classical participant observations were clearly interspersed with archival research, the boundaries were at other times fully blurred - for example in discussions on photographs which might be treated as historical auto-ethnographic documents.  Moreover, a historical ethnography that is multi-sited in a diachronic as well as a synchronic way runs the risk of projecting “meanings” onto the past or present from the opposing end, yet it also offers the opportunity to start by questioning the very same terms we are working with: past and present.

Mukesh Kumar Shrivastava and Priya Srivastava
Methodological Dichotomy in the Study of Oral Traditions and Literacy among the Mundas of Jharkhand

A tribal society is characterized by its distinct culture, language, oral traditions, elusive nature, and indigenous process of learning and construction of knowledge, while the mainstream and literate society has little such distinctiveness.  Such distinctions provide us to understand the distinct process of learning, accumulation, construction and transmission of knowledge, and the basis of formation of the identity of a tribal society. In this background the paper focuses upon the methodological universality or particularity for the study of culture, and modern indices of development among the Munda tribesmen- a society characterized by oral traditions.  Among the Munda tribe of the state of Jhrakahnd, the unique feature of land pattern, known as Mundari Khuntkatti is considered as a cultural entity that tells the early history of the Mundas in this area, and ascribes their identity as being the original/ first settlers of the land. The introduction of formal education among them, which also has a history of more than hundred years, is still considered as 0ne of the factors responsible for disintegration of their tradition and culture. This dichotomous construction of Munda worldview creates challenges, not only for the policy makers and planers, but also in terms of methodologies to be adopted for the study. Here underlines the limitations of universal applicability of methodological tools and techniques constructed for either end of the society. The paper suggests that contrary to the mainstream and literate society, an integrated methodology, tailored out of the universality and particularity of tribal’s socio-cultural traits, patterns, and norms of theorizing the worldview, and the principles of scientific investigation, should be adopted to understand the cultural and modern indices in integrated manner; particularly, in the study of societies that are still guided by their oral traditions, and where the modern system of formal education has also made its entry.

Fritzi-Marie Titzmann
Researching the Indian online matrimonial market: A transdisciplinary approach

The paper introduces a transdisciplinary approach which has been developed to research “Changing female subjectivity and agency in the Indian online matrimonial market”. In a wider sense the methodology could be best described as “media ethnography”, a combination of media studies, sociological and ethnographic approaches.
As we are talking not only about media content but about users and their reception and appropriation of media texts within their daily lives, online and offline research and interaction is necessary. Web research comprises in this context quantitative analysis of user profiles, qualitative examination of media representations regarding femininity and marriage, as well as observing online interaction as a kind of virtual participant observer. The question of how to work with very intimate and personal information published on the internet is a new challenge here. Most information is public content but some can only be accessed by logging in as a user. Would that be ethical justifiable as a research method?
Offline interaction consists primarily of interviews with users and media producers thus extending the perspective with regard to their subjective perceptions. The methodology can be described as accumulated ethnographic miniature. In contrast to classical ethnography, the focal point lays on several shorter field visits and multi-sited fieldwork. The interviews take place in the interviewee’s living environment and questions of the entanglement of media texts with cultural and social practices are key aspects.

Vijoy S Sahay
Writing Ethnography: A Concern of Mind or Soul? In The Light Of Experiences in the Nicobar Archipelago

Ever since its inception as a distinct discipline during the mid-19th century, anthropology i.e. the science of man has traveled a long distance. From conjectural history to scientific objectivity, from ‘cultural relativism’ to ‘empathizing’ with the natives, and/or ‘entering into the head’ of the natives, and from ‘participant observation’ to rigorous empirical and statistical analysis, anthropologists, during the last one hundred and fifty years, have tried and experimented a number of tools, hypotheses, concepts, and theories to discover the causal explanation of social and cultural phenomena. By the year 1920, the era of conjectural history in anthropology had come to an end; and with the publications of The Andaman Islanders (Radcliffe Brown: 1922) and the Argonauts of the Western Pacific (Malinowski: 1922), the positivist approach had moved into the discipline. This positivist or scientific approach is said to have lasted till the mid-1970s. This is referred to as ‘modernist period’ in anthropology (Taylor: 1979). During all these years, the anthropologists attempted to discover the laws governing the society and culture; a number of research strategies were adopted, giving rise to as many number of theories and concepts; however, the causal explanation of similarities and differences between cultures remained unanswered, rather open to debate. Thereafter, like a wildfire, there emerged the ‘postmodernist approach’ in the discipline, which claimed that anthropology could not be a science. It said that it was all futile to maintain ‘scientific objectivity’; as because, the data collection by an anthropologist was a ‘subjective matter’, therefore, there could not be ‘objective interpretation’ of such data. The postmodernist approach though lasted for a brief period; however, the author is of the opinion that the postmodernists have, at least, raised some epistemological issues that deserve discussion, such as:

1. Should an anthropologist include his personal experiences in the account of ‘other’s culture’?
2. Can an anthropologist/ethnographer ever claim to be authentic?
3. Whether reconstruction of a culture is justified?  

On the basis of his personal experiences during his fieldwork in the Nicobar Islands, the author believes that though claiming complete ‘objectivity’ in anthropological research would be hyperbolic, as because the ‘subject’ (i.e. the investigator) and the ‘object’ (i.e. informant) both influence each other during interaction in the field; however, we must not forget that we anthropologists intrude upon the people whom we study and require them to bear the burden of our presence. Therefore, it is our intellectual task to represent them fairly, and it is our moral responsibility to approach them with humility and dignity. And in so doing, the author believes that writing ethnography seizes to be a concern of mind alone, but of heart or soul as well.

Arima Mishra
Dealing with method and evidence: Research at the interface between anthropology and medicine

Anthropology’s public presence is widely discussed in recent times as multidisciplinarity is a value increasingly acknowledged in all fields of research.  However issues around methods used and the nature of evidence in such multidisciplinary research are seldom discussed and documented. In this context, the author would reflect on some of the issues based on her experiences of working with medical and public health professionals on cardiovascular health. More specifically, the paper would dwell on the following questions: a) what are the possible research methods one could use within the constraints of time and ‘mindset’ (referring to the nature of audience to whom deep ethnography might be irrelevant) b) how does one write the research product as documenting thick description –though valued- is often looked upon as soft and less scientific by medical professionals,  how does one make anthropological knowledge relevant to other disciplines without compromising disciplinary rigour c) the challenge of documenting the procedures of obtaining anthropological knowledge and making it transparent to other disciplines and d) the challenge of claiming the legitimacy of such knowledge as alternative evidence (alternative to the evidence produced through, for instance Randomised Control Trials). Though challenging, confronting these issues through documenting experiences of collaborative research would be beneficial for the discipline of anthropology

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