Autoethnography of an Anthropology Fieldworker in Two Housing Complexes in the City of Kolkata in India: A Semiotic Study on Anthropology of Space

Abstract

The following paper is an outcome of a research project conducted on “Anthropology of Space” in two housing complexes in the city of Kolkata in India. I am to present my write up in two different contexts: the first one of which will include my fieldwork experience in an autoethnographic form in the studied complexes. One of the two is my own residential housing complex, while the other is new one for me. Majority of the residents of these complexes are the educated middle-class Bengali people, popularly and colloquially called Maddhyabitta. The second one will complement my fieldwork experience with theoretical discourse on “Anthropology of Space,” the domain of the study. The collected information is thereafter analyzed using “semiotic cluster” and “semiotic chain” techniques. Finally, I will try to narrate the way, my fieldwork experience has led to the construction of an autoethnography in the studied complexes.