There’s little point in teaching Milton and Shakespeare in colleges in the North-East. That’s an insight that came to Dr Theyiesinuo Keditsu, an academic from Kohima. “There are many problems in how Nagas are represented in academia and journalism, so I look at whether it’s possible for us to claim agency and take control of our own narratives.”
Having left Nagaland for 15 years and only returning to teach at 25, she said, “It was a cultural shock for me. I had developed a romanticised idea of what it meant to be Naga.” She was speaking at “A Field Guide for Research in the North-East”. This was the second online event put together by BOOM as part of its North East Facts Network. The session covered both academic and non-academic research work focusing on the north-east of India.
Joining the discussion with Theyiesinuo Keditsu was Dr Rituparna Patgiri originally from Guwahati, Assam--a sociologist and professor currently working at the Thapar School of Liberal Arts and Sciences (TSLAS), Patiala.
The third speaker was Abhishek Saha, a journalist for many years who has recently shifted to academia and is currently doing a PhD at Oxford University. He grew up in Guwahati, where he mentioned having a protected childhood, away from the sociopolitical questions surrounding identity. But having started as a journalist at the Indian Express, he learned to travel, write about critical issues, and look at citizenship questions with NRC.
HR Venkatesh: Is it helpful or problematic to generalize our identity when conducting research?
Theyiesinuo Keditsu: It’s a necessary evil. Having some kind of locational reference helps, so even if I am from the north, it is convenient for me to say North Indian or South Indian. But when it comes to academics or journalism we need to be a little more careful. In regular conversation, it’s okay to say Northeast India but beyond that, it’s very important for us to be mindful of the wonderful diversity in this country. As academics, there is a responsibility for us to know of really study and expose and sort of revel in that diversity. I am half Angami and half Sumi and by accidents of history, we are considered more forward tribes or more developed tribes. Therefore, I’m very careful about speaking as somebody from the Northeast. As a Naga, I speak only about my own tribes and my situation because even within Nagaland, we have such unbelievable disparities.
HR Venkatesh: Is there a difference between how an academic and a journalist approach research?
Abhishek Saha: In my understanding, it depends on the opportunity that the researcher has at the moment. If you’re commissioned for a long-form journalistic piece and have the time and scope, you can go beyond what a journalist with shorter deadlines has to work on. The deadlines are usually harsh so that ties us up. But for my doctoral dissertation, I have had 3-4 years to engage with the subject. If given the opportunity, it’s a privilege to go after one question and explore the dynamics of it for a longer duration. Plus as a journalist your efforts are lauded and might benefit people, however, in academic research, there are ethical clearances that need to be taken care of even as you start to explore your question.
HR Venkatesh: Can you tell us a little more about sociology and how does it differ from the natural sciences?
Rituparna Patgiri: Sociology can be about anything and everything and each and every part of our lives could be analysed sociologically. The biggest kind of point that the founders of the discipline made when trying to establish sociology, was about empirical verification. When I say verify, it doesn’t mean that it has to be about numerical data alone, but it could be narrative. It could be conversations which are very viable and also have patterns that develop again. Sociologists believe in multiple realities of one single phenomenon. However, as a researcher or sociologist, it is my job to sort of also verify empirically who is speaking more attuned to reality.
HR Venkatesh: How would you look at research and divide it into methodologies according to accepted definitions?
Theyiesinuo Keditsu: When it comes to qualitative research, deciding on a frame of reference is important. The idea of decolonial and sensitive research is now considered the responsible thing to do. The need of the hour is decolonising particularly when it comes to the north-east, whether it is doing reviews of literature. For instance, whenever I submit any paper I refuse to put in a paragraph about where Nagaland is, what kind of place Nagaland is and what are the different types of people, races or ethnicities we have. Now we have Google so anybody who reads my paper can just google Nagaland or Naga and find out where we are. We shouldn’t be asked to provide demographic information or preface our identities while producing an epistemological outlook.
HR Venkatesh: What are some mistakes people should avoid while researching the north-east?
Rituparna Patgiri: I would say as budding researchers, anyone interested in doing research, should ask themselves whether they’d be interested in carrying forward that research for a couple extra years. You can’t assume that research won’t be tedious and it has nothing to do with intelligence. It’s more about dedication and whether there’s a possibility to write your topic as a thesis or book chapter. Research is often also about questions of pedagogy and rage; because male researchers willingly ignore gender in the field. Questions of representation are also questions of rage. So a mistake I made in research was adopting a linear approach - one in fieldwork and then in writing. If respondents are telling us things that don’t align with our hypothesis, we should be able to reframe our questions.
Another thing about writing in research is that it’s often assumed that if work is not done in English, the work is not done. Vernacular languages should be checked to see if they exist. When looking at the north-east, you should look at colonial history, post-colonial or nationalist histories and then local history. You have to have an unbiased opinion as a researcher, it’s not about big names or who writes in English. Mistakes, however, shouldn’t be at the cost of community harm. Because you and I as researchers would go away, but our respondents would continue to live there.
Abhishek Saha: When you’re working on hard-pressed, hard-deadline reportage, a lot of conversations with people were about yes or no. The techniques of interviewing and engaging with people are different from journalism. When you’re talking about the north-east, often there are representational questions- about who has written it, whose voice you are hearing. There are fewer questions asked about local contexts or vernacular sources.
Theyiesinuo Keditsu: It's important for us to question what constitutes a mistake. The things that academia says are mistakes, should be looked at again. We need to dislodge research from its Eurocentric baggage. Research should be liberating and empowering. So when you enter research, we should see how our work can form resistance against oppressive conditions. Check if it’s okay to make some mistakes over others. Again, when our articles are expected to follow some rules, we should see whether the semantics of us doing research means we are making mistakes that we should be making.
HR Venkatesh: What does one mean by decolonising research?
Rituparna Patgiri: When one thinks of decolonisation, the term has been misused. So we should be wary of the right-wing across nations using decolonisation and then promoting non-scientific research as scientific. Decolonisation doesn’t mean avoiding Western scholars. It does mean, however, to bring in a balance where you cite Asian or African scholars also. If you’re citing them in an English-language-produced work, it automatically carries more value. Decolonisation as a practice also means interacting with each other’s work in a more accessible way.
Theyiesinuoa Keditsu: During oral research, it’s very important for us to realise there are so many epistemologies that already exist in our local systems.
HR Venkatesh: How do sociology and anthropology overlap?
Rituparna Patgiri: When you’re in the Delhi School of Sociology, you are an anthropologist by default because our methods are very similar to that of anthropological research. Primarily the distinction would be in the kind of societies that you’re looking at. Sociologists study modern, whereas, social anthropologists study traditional societies. In India, this distinction doesn’t hold because the modern and the traditional sort of come together, which is why our methods overlap.
Questions on denouncing age-old rules of academia…
Rituparna Patgiri: A lot of acceptance is about your seniority in academia. As someone with years in the field, I might feel more comfortable taking revolutionary steps to protest against age-old rules and generalisation. But as a budding researcher, it might be very difficult to denounce the same rules because your work and recognition are hanging in the balance.
Theyiesinuo Keditsu: We have this fear and an acute sense of marginality. We feel like there are so few of us and therefore, we must fall in line. But if we decide “to hell with what academic traditions say”, is it possible to say we want to do a different kind of research? Maybe you won’t get published with your first choice journal and your second choice instead. But all it takes is a few of us to agree that we won’t give in.
HR Venkatesh: Can you recommend some resources for research in the North-East?
Panellists recommended Edward Gait, Dolly Kikon, Duncan McDuie-Ra, and Jelle J.P. Wouters, as well as resources from the North Eastern Social Research Centre and North East Network, EastMojo, and the Highland Institute.
The full session is available here. To join the North East Facts Network, please visit https://www.boomlive.in/northeastfactsnetwork