In search of the field: reflections on an ethnomusicological project in India

Abstract

This chapter sets out to analyse gender issues within the intercultural context of fieldwork relationships during ethnomusicology research in India. From a background in counselling and psychotherapy, with a particular interest in intercultural issues, I researched the music of the Bauls of Bengal in West Bengal, India. During my contact with Baul musicians in India, many issues have arisen for me as a white woman aged 60+ in relation to Baul culture that revolves around tantric practices with a philosophy of reverence for the feminine. During my fieldwork, for example, I became known as ‘Bhukti Ma’ (Devotional Mother). Ethnomusicologist Gregory Barz discusses the process of fieldwork as ‘participation in the total cultural performance of field research’ and, citing Johannes Fabian, notes that ‘it is not what they do and we observe; we are both engaged in it’ (Barz 2008, p. 206). This idea of performance in fieldwork, particularly ‘cultural’ performance, led me to consider in more depths the theories of gender as a social performance as described by Judith Butler (1990). Butler questions the concept of an essential notion of the female. This chapter discusses my role as a female researcher and my reactions to it, and I attempt to unravel some of the cultural variations in concepts of gender that I encountered. I also attempt to unravel issues from the colonial past and the continued impact of the colonial legacy. The chapter emphasises the need for further debate and action in the process of decolonisation and the reconfiguration of knowledge and power hierarchies.