Ensamblado y configuración de computadores y equipos

It is recognised that efforts to construct knowledge in research are mediated by power relations arising from the researcher’s positionality, as well as by the ideological positioning of the researcher herself. These aspects must, therefore, be problematised as part of the research process itself, and will now be dealt with in turn.

Positionality and the Negotiation of Power in Fieldwork

Positionality relates to characteristics of the researcher such as gender, race, class and nation (Pearson, 2006: 308), as well as the personality of the researcher and the general approach adopted to the research process (Wolf, 1996: 17). These aspects impact upon the way researchers are positioned in power relations as part of the research process. While the positionality of the researcher cannot be changed, this thesis argues that its impact can be negotiated and reflexively monitored as part of the knowledge construction entailed in research.

Wolf (1996: 11) notes that positionality is multi-faceted, and that different aspects off-set each other. In the current study, it is acknowledged that the researcher’s gender certainly represented a hindrance in certain aspects of the fieldwork, most notably in the finding of accommodation deemed safe for a lone female. It is also rare for females to travel alone in India which meant that the researcher attracted considerable attention, particularly in rural areas. However, it is also argued that her elevated status as middle-aged and ‘foreign’ mitigated some of the potential obstacles which her gender presented.

The observation by Pemunta (2010: 4) that ‘we can either disqualify our subjectivity as a hindrance to proper research, or turn it into our main research tool’ is particularly insightful. It was recognised that, as a foreign female, the researcher attracted significant attention. The heightened respect often granted to Westerners in rural India should not be under-estimated, and serves to explain the way in which

the colonial enterprise was capable of securing a high degree of legitimation within the Indian context. This appeared to be related to the initially pale (Irish) skin of the researcher, and the association of fairness with Brahmanical purity.

The respect with which the researcher was perceived in Indian society was reinforced to her when an unknown elderly male approached and touched her feet (a sign of deep respect) while she was awaiting an auto-rickshaw to take her to Bantala. Similarly, her visit to Jangaon cotton market was reported in a local newspaper where she was described as an American scientist. This elevated status, once recognised, was used to gain access to high-profile political figures, a possibility which would have been much more limited in her own society.

It also eventually became clear that there are numerous advantages associated with being a female researcher. It was felt that her gender served to ease the potential power imbalance which villagers perceived with regard to her positionality as a Westerner. The view that females are seen as ‘unthreatening or not official’ in fieldwork is also asserted by McDowell (1988: 85). The researcher also took obvious pleasure in, and encouraged, the growing ease with which she was treated at the micro level of the study. This was highly conducive to her desire to listen to, and learn from, the perspectives of villagers.

The enhanced access associated with being a foreign female researcher in India is also highlighted by the American anthropologist, Marguerite Robinson. She (1988:

269) notes how she was welcome ‘in both mud huts and marble mansions’ during her research in Andhra Pradesh. This, she (ibid.) argues, presents Western researchers in India with ‘an unusual opportunity to listen, to learn, and to be heard in varied environments.’

Given the strict rules which govern commensality (eating together) between castes, the taking of food with participants was particularly seen as a mark of respect by the researcher to members of different castes. This is explored in detail by Dumont (1972: 119-130; 181-194). Her sharing of food with a broad spectrum of castes, from Brahmins to Madigas, was possible only because of her status as a foreigner. Her initially gauche attempts to eat food with her fingers while sitting in lotus position, and to speak Telugu during these informal meal-times, also served to foster friendships which transcended the research process.

It became apparent that the potential disadvantages associated with working with translators could be offset by allowing the experience to inform the research itself. Mackenzie et al. (2007: 304) argue that translators can hinder ‘mutual understanding’ and ‘potentially undermin[e] the validity of the research’ (ibid.). Similarly, Jacobsen and Landau (2003: 193) highlight that there is a risk that the involvement of translators will lead to the ‘transgressing [of] political, social or economic fault-lines of which the researcher may not be aware.’

The current researcher worked with five different translators throughout the course of the research. These were all accessed through contacts at Hyderabad Central University, and were all from Telangana.155 The deliberate attempt to avoid translators from Coastal Andhra was due not only to the recognised differences in Telugu dialect between the regions, but also to the concern that villagers would feel uncomfortable with a translator from Coastal Andhra as a result of the tension between the regions discussed in Chapter Four.

It is acknowledged that the experience of working with translators requires a great deal of patience, and adds an extra degree of complexity to fieldwork, not least given the practical consideration that the availability of translators must be secured before field trips can be undertaken. The involvement of translators also contributes to a significant loss of control over the research process.156 It was found however that, in the current study, the positionality of translators with regard to their caste served to highlight caste power relations in ways which the researcher would otherwise have failed to capture given the strict segregation of castes within the villages.

It was noted, for instance, that Scheduled Caste Madiga and Mala translators would refer to Brahmin and Reddy participants in the polite form of Telugu, while other

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They included four males and one female who were aged between twenty and thirty years. Of the males, one was a Master’s student in Anthropology, one a PhD student in Economics, one a Master’s student in Sociology, and one a Business graduate. The female was a PhD student in Hindi, and a Hindi teacher. The female, the male PhD student and the Business graduate were all Backward Castes. The Anthropology and Sociology Master’s students were a Scheduled Caste Mala and Madiga, respectively. 156

participants would be addressed in the more familiar form.157 There was also a marked reluctance by the Mala translator to interrupt Brahmin and Reddy participants in order to provide the translation for fear he would be ‘scolded’ (Field note extract, 15/8/2010).

Similarly, the Madiga translator mentioned that he had attempted to fool a Brahmin participant into believing he himself was a Brahmin by using Sanskrit words in his Telugu. This is redolent of the ‘Sanskritization’ described by Srinivas (1966: 6) where a ‘‘low’ Hindu caste…changes its customs, ritual, ideology and way of life in the direction of a high…caste’ (ibid.). Here, the Sanskritization of the Telugu language was ostensibly adopted as a means of manipulating caste assumptions. It also, however, signaled the deeper insecurity of the translator given that, according to the norms of the caste system, he would not normally have been welcome inside the Brahmin’s home.

The hierarchy between the Scheduled Castes themselves was reinforced by the Mala translator’s refusal to eat a meal at the home of a Madiga participant where the researcher was having lunch. This was because, he argued, ‘his mother would scold him’ (Field note extract, 6/9/2010). Further clarification established that this refusal to eat was due to the perceived potential for pollution through sharing food with a Madiga research participant.

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Like many European languages, Telugu has a polite form of ‘you’ which is used for the elderly or those deemed socially superior. In Telugu, ‘meeru’ is the polite form, while ‘nuuvu’ is used for those deemed to be at an equal or socially inferior level.

The inclusion of a meso level meant that the researcher herself was positioned differently in power relations between the two levels. Wolf (1996: 2) asserts that ‘[s]tudying up’ is an important way of subverting the power of the researcher involving countries in the Global South. However, it is argued that working with both a micro and meso level in one study significantly enhances the researcher’s sensibility for the way in which power is differentiated within a given society. It should also be recognised that the research experience is very different between the two levels, and requires a great deal of flexibility from the researcher herself.

It was noted that power holders at the meso level sought to establish a greater degree of control over the research process than other participants. This was evident in a number of ways: the careful restriction of the time allocated to the research interview (Monsanto and Congress Party actors); the refusal to allow the interview to be tape-recorded (the ANGRAU actor); the use of ‘no comment’ to questions related to organic farming by one Monsanto actor; and the ‘vetting’ of the researcher by a representative from Monsanto’s Public Affairs department prior to the interview.

While these are, of course, all perfectly justifiable practices given the right to autonomy of all research participants, the point here is that there was a notable shift in the positioning of the researcher given the different demands made on her by participants. With power holders, she was more often obliged to work within

boundaries set by the participants themselves, rather than those self-imposed at the micro level as a result of her own ethical and methodological commitments.

Research as a Challenge to and Consequence of Ideological Positioning

This thesis argues that the research process should be designed in ways which will ensure that researchers are confronted with their own ideological assumptions, and challenged to alter them. In this way, researchers learn and, in doing so, transform their self-understanding. As Levi-Strauss (1963, as cited in Baszanger and Dodier, 2004: 14) observed, research should represent a genuine ‘internal revolution’ for the researcher.

In the current study, the attempt by the researcher to challenge her own ideological assumptions was facilitated by her removal from her own cultural context, and by her search for competing perspectives. This sought to confront the epistemic boundaries associated with her cultural positioning as an Irish European, where GM technology has been banned due to safety concerns, and to learn from the perspectives of those in a context where Bt cotton had been cultivated for some time.

One of the primary motivations for the study was the researcher’s desire for epistemic certainty as to whether or not the technology was associated with ecological and epidemiological risk.158 The researcher’s concern for the safety of

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The researcher had undertaken a smaller-scale study for her Master’s thesis in Sociology at University College Cork in 2008. This had involved a critical discourse analysis of interviews with two politicians, a

GM crop cultivation given the cultural conditioning of her European origins was immediately challenged by her visits to Warangal where Bt cotton is pervasively cultivated in an open environment.

Her ideological positioning was also challenged through early interaction with villagers in Bantala who all asserted that Bt cotton had contributed to (though was not fully accountable for) improved living standards and enhanced access to food. Thus, based upon early fieldwork, it appeared that the focus of the thesis would be an exploration of the ethical conflict arising from a technology which was associated with uncertain risk globally, but which was also contributing to the alleviation of the material risks of poverty in Warangal. It was recognised, however, that these assertions of increased wealth did not explain farmer suicides, or the opposition to the technology which was known to exist.

Her positioning changed again when the debt levels of participants in Bantala were explored, and the case of the animal deaths was more closely analysed. As the awareness of the village power structures grew, and the research was broadened to include Orgampalle and Nandanapuram, the enhanced realisation of the ideological and material complexity of the theme emerged, as did its broader sociological implications. As a result of this changed perspective, the search for epistemic certainty has been replaced with a sociological interest in the way in which societies Monsanto representative, and two NGOs, and was entitled ‘Identity, Ideology and Political Will Formation: A Case Study of GM Crops in Ireland.’ Due to the fact that GM crops were banned in Ireland at the time

are formed through the legitimation struggle involved in the negotiation of the epistemic uncertainty associated with risk.

The researcher’s initial desire for answers with regard to Bt technology was motivated by the ambiguity of her positionality as a former employee of Syngenta, one of Monsanto’s major competitors in the research and development of GM technology.159 The merging of competing perspectives at the meso level of this study reflects the researcher’s attempts to resolve her own internal conflict regarding the technology. The research has, however, resulted in a broadening of her perspective to incorporate wider concerns related to equity, justice and the exercise of power in knowledge construction associated with attempts to define the risk of the technology.

Finally, the researcher is conscious of the Eurocentric analytical concepts and methods which she has adopted in order to explore the research data. This would appear to reinforce the argument of Sinha (1997: 177) that ‘the West is perceived as the locus of theoretical and conceptual endeavours [while] the non-Western world is seen to provide empirical grounding.’

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The researcher led teams of Logistics Managers in Syngenta for seven years from 1995 to 2002, both in the UK and Switzerland. The development of GM technology was still in its infancy at the time of the researcher’s leaving the organisation. However, her uncertainty regarding the technology was a factor in her loss of commitment to Syngenta’s corporate ideology. This previous work experience has, nevertheless, provided her with an understanding of the way in which the ideological commitment of corporate actors to their employers informs the ethical positioning of these actors.

The choice of European authors to provide the theoretical and analytical framework is undoubtedly the result of the researcher’s European academic conditioning. However, it is also recognised that there is an absence of analytical frameworks developed by Indian authors. This is highlighted by Parekh (1992, as cited in Pantham, 1995: 189) who notes that the critique of the Western ethnocentrism of political theory in India ‘has not been matched by the formulation of alternative, original, non-Western political theories.’