Fieldwork in Indian Religion: Some Notes On Experience and Ethics

Abstract

Field research in India is always a challenge, especially the investiga tion of religious experience, which has been my area of research. Questions about integrity are relevant ones in the study of religious experience, and more generally the question of integrity is important to explore. What does it mean to it right? For instance, I have had informants share experiences that they have never discussed be fore, and that they value highly. For some, these experiences were the defining moments in their lives, the most cherished and precious moments. How, then, do we treat the experiences of others with integrity? There are many levels to respect, and many ways that data can be misused. A colleague in anthropology told me of the distress of his own advisor, whose work on the hill tribes of Cambodia was used by the U.S. government as a map for bombing during the expansion of the Vietnam War. Here is a gross case of misuse of data, where research led to destruction in the informant's culture. However, in formants can be treated badly in other, more subtle ways. For me, integrity means honoring the religious views of my in formants, not belittling them to their faces (as missionaries and Com munists have done) or behind their backs (like academics who reduce their experiences to economic or political ignorance, pathology or sexual repression). People can be belittled in many ways—they used to be ignorant or benighted and pre-logical savages, now they are puppets of governments or slaves of hegemonic ideas, or hypocritical seekers of power. I respect the religious experiences of my informants by not analyzing and contextualizing them out of existence—which is not a popular position in a field with a liking for sociological models. I consider such reductionism a violation of my informants' trust.