3.3.1 Researcher positionality
As a British Asian woman in my mid-‐twenties, born to parents from the Indian diaspora of the 1980s, I anticipated that my researcher positionalities would be in flux while carrying out research in India (P. Srivastava 2006; Lukose 2009). For example, I was aware that participants might respond variously to my identities as British-‐born; of Bengali and Tamilian parentage;
from an upper-‐caste background (my ‘Iyer’ surname obscures my inter-‐caste heritage); as an unmarried woman; as a ‘Western’ researcher, and so on. While in Delhi, I found myself playing with my self-‐presentation in order to highlight and obscure these different identities in different contexts. For example, I acquired several churidar-‐kurta suits, in order to conform to the ‘demure modern’ of contemporary Indian middle-‐class femininity (Lukose 2009; Gilbertson 2014 – see Chapter Two). I wore these churidar-‐kurta suits when meeting education officials and seeking research permissions in the city, and during all my visits to the schools11.
In addition to this strategic ‘Indian’ self-‐presentation, students’ initial perceptions of me were also shaped by the introduction I offered at the beginning of questionnaire sessions (see Table 1). I explained that I was a PhD researcher from the UK, that I was doing a PhD in International Education, and that I was interested in learning about young people’s experiences of going to school in Delhi. However, this led to some confusion; during the first questionnaire session at CGS, several boys put their hands up to ask my research assistant if I was ‘really a foreigner’. I then explained (and subsequently mentioned in all my introductions) that while I was born in the UK, my parents were Indian and had moved to the UK after they got married – as discussed below, this introduction still provoked extensive questioning.
Prior to fieldwork, I had assumed that my age would encourage students to feel comfortable with me during research interactions. To my surprise, however, students addressed me as ‘ma’am’ whenever they spoke to me, the same way in which they addressed their female teachers. On reflection, I realized that at 26, I was in fact a decade older than my participants, and indeed several years older than some of their newly qualified teachers. However, I found that my liminal status (as someone who looked Indian but was not-‐quite Indian, and who seemed like an authority figure but did not quite act like one) meant that I was not only an object of curiosity, but also encouraged students to interact more informally with me than the formal term of address would suggest.
My diasporic identity was particularly of interest to students; in terms of my ‘Indianness’, many students assumed that since I had Indian parents, I naturally ‘understood’ about certain things – for example, an emphasis on academic success above all else. By contrast, my upbringing in the West was a topic of assumed difference. Many students wanted to know whether I had a boyfriend; the fact that I did, and that my parents knew about him, often confirmed students’ beliefs about essential differences between ‘Indian’ and ‘Western’ upbringings. My identity as a ‘Westerner’ was also highlighted by my basic Hindi language
11 My outfits were similar to those worn by female teachers, and to female students’ salwar kameez-‐
skills, which were often a source of amusement for students (see 3.5.2 for a more detailed discussion of language issues).
My own responses to students were inevitably shaped by my research interests, but also by my lack of previous experience of working in schools or with young people. I was excited about getting to know the students, particularly since I had spent the previous two years writing and talking about the importance of ‘hearing their voices’. However, I was initially extremely intimidated when interacting with students en masse, and when attempting classroom control for the first time during questionnaire sessions. This meant that I welcomed students who chose to ‘adopt’ me while I was in the school (usually girls, and some of the boys, who were participating in the research) by acting as guides and protectors from curious crowds of students. Over the course of fieldwork, I established good relationships with these students, which undoubtedly contributed to my increasing confidence in the schools, and my eventual ability to ‘deal’ with large groups of students.
While I also felt that many students became more comfortable with me over time, as discussed above (3.2.2), participants’ responses were inevitably still shaped by the ways in which I framed the research, their impressions of me and of what I wanted to hear, and so on. For example, throughout the research I was struck by participants’ emphasis on ‘Western’ and ‘Indian’ cultures; however, participants may have spoken in these terms specifically in response to my diasporic identity – perhaps as a form of ‘explanation’ for an outsider, or due to an assumption that I was seeking to establish points of difference between India and the UK through my research. After briefly introducing my research assistant below, I offer further reflections on the ways in which students responded to me during research interactions, particularly within individual interviews (3.3.3).
3.3.2 Introducing my research assistant
Prior to fieldwork, I felt that gatekeepers were likely perceive my interest in talking to young men about sexuality as inappropriate, particularly in a context where heterosocial interactions, let alone intergenerational discussions about sexuality, are commonly described as taboo (see Chapter Two). Moreover, I doubted whether boys would feel comfortable enough to talk freely to me about gender and sexuality-‐related issues, and so I recruited a male research assistant. At the end of fieldwork Phase One (see Table 1), contacts at a Delhi-‐based youth NGO introduced me to Neeraj, a 20-‐year-‐old who was particularly well placed to be involved in my study, since he had worked as a peer educator and facilitated sexuality education
workshops with young people through the NGO. Based on his experience, I sought Neeraj’s feedback when developing research tools via email between fieldwork Phases One and Two. For example, Neeraj advised against a questionnaire item on students’ caste backgrounds; as this is not information usually requested on official forms, he suggested that students may feel uncomfortable responding to such an item.
During fieldwork Phase Two, Neeraj’s age and his fluency in Hindi meant that most students felt relaxed and able to interact with him immediately, while it took some a little longer to feel similarly comfortable with me. Occasionally, Neeraj carried out ad-‐hoc translation – for example, if students did not understand me when I was explaining the research. As well as assisting during questionnaire sessions, Neeraj co-‐facilitated mixed student FGDs with me, and carried out single-‐sex FGDs and individual interviews with boys at all the schools.
3.3.3 Ethical issues
The research received ethical approval from the University of Sussex Social Sciences and Arts Cross-‐School Research Ethics Committee (SSA C-‐REC) in March 2013 (see Appendix 1). In order to respect young people’s right to participate in the research (Morrow 2008), I did not seek parental consent on their behalf. At 15-‐17 years old, I believed that students were capable of giving fully informed consent for participation; principals and senior staff also confirmed that informed consent from schools and the students themselves was sufficient. At the same time, I emphasized students’ ‘right of withdrawal’ when explaining the research to them, to ensure that they did not participate in the study against their will (Morrow 2008). Following the ESRC’s Research Ethics Guidebook (2011), information sheets emphasized that students were not obliged to participate in the study, and that they were free to withdraw from the research any time before, during or after the research process. I reiterated confidentiality, anonymity and right of withdrawal before all research activities, and gave participants opportunities to ask questions before signing consent forms, and before each research encounter (see Appendix 2 for information sheets and consent forms).
Neeraj, my research assistant, and Alok, who translated Hindi data from audio recordings (see 3.5.2), both signed contracts to indicate that they would respect confidentiality and anonymity within the research, and that they would only disclose information shared by research participants with me (unless participants specified that they did not want this information to be shared at all). At the start of all FGDs and interviews that he conducted alone, Neeraj emphasized confidentiality, anonymity and right of withdrawal; he also informed participants
that I would be listening to the audio recordings later on. I shared audio recordings for translation with Alok via a shared, password protected Dropbox folder, and once translation was complete, these audio recordings were deleted.
The names of the study schools have been changed, while pseudonyms are used for all teachers and students throughout the thesis. In the schools, students addressed teachers by their first name followed by ‘ma’am’ or ‘sir’; to reflect this manner of address while maintaining anonymity, in the thesis I refer to teachers using their subject and ‘ma’am’ or ‘sir’ (e.g. ‘Biology ma’am’, ‘English sir’). At the start of each individual interview, students were asked if they wanted to choose their own pseudonyms, and the majority of students did this. I assigned pseudonyms for those who did not want to choose their own pseudonyms, and for students who were not interviewed individually. Some students chose existing nicknames for pseudonyms, while several boys chose pseudonyms that reflected their musical tastes (e.g. Rapper, Rocker, Honey Singh – the latter being the name of a popular Indian rapper) or sporting interests (e.g. Lionel, after Lionel Messi). ‘Tornado’ was another interesting choice of pseudonym, but by way of explanation, this student simply said that he had ‘always liked the word’.
In addition to formal procedures, it is important to consider the ethical implications of my researcher positionality in shaping research interactions. For example, students’ ‘reading’ of my diasporic identity may have encouraged them to talk frankly about their romantic experiences; several girls confided in me about their ‘boy troubles’ during interviews, which they may have felt more comfortable doing in light of my ‘Western’ (and therefore more ‘liberal’) identity. Additionally, girls’ and boys’ openness with myself and Neeraj may have developed due to the methodological time that we spent in the schools, but also simply because we provided a sympathetic ear to their experiences. Several students commented that adults (i.e., their parents and their teachers) never usually talked or listened to them in the way we did.
In light of the ways participants opened up to us, I was keen to establish a ‘reciprocal exchange’ during the research. I felt this was important not only to develop and maintain trusting, open relationships with participants, but Oakley (1981) has also described such an approach as an important feature of feminist research practice. At the end of FGDs and interviews, I therefore asked participants if they had any questions for me, and assured them that they could ask me anything; this led to questions about my own opinions on the topics we had been discussing, perceived cultural differences between India and the UK, or about my
personal experiences and family life. During classroom observation days, students sometimes asked to see pictures of my family and/or my boyfriend, which I showed them on my phone. In all cases, I answered and behaved as openly as I could; since I was asking participants to reveal so much of themselves during the research, I was keen to offer at least something of myself.