ABSTRACT
In the footsteps of Peggy Golde’s Women in the Field (1974; 1983), the editors invited women scholars from humanities and social sciences to reflect on the personal and intellectual circumstances in which they navigated their field with Indian women, trying to capture their social lives, their worldviews, and representations. The contributors, born in and outside of India, returned to their field in some cases, spanning more than two decades of ethnographic observation, in other instances revisiting more recent periods. Yet, none of them dwell in the ‘ethnographic present’. Despite the diversity of their disciplinary approach, all tried to apprehend self-consciously the complexities of the ethnographic encounter narrated in women’s perspectives and through women’s voices.
In response to the intricacies of a dialogic and intersubjective procedure, the authors embraced autoethnography to reflect and substantiate their emotional and intellectual involvement with other women, unveiling unwritten or undocumented sentiments and experiences.
They traversed multiple layers of social spheres, the house, the family, the village, or city, to dialogue with women, allowing and attesting to their voices often silenced in ethnographic narratives and in patriarchal structures.
