Los Estudios Visuales: heterocronicidad y giro icónico

Poignantly described by De Walt and De Walt (2011), participant observation offers an opportunity to get ‘inside’ a culture:

Participant observation is a method in which a researcher takes part in the daily activities, rituals, interactions, and events of a group of people as one of the means of learning the explicit and tacit aspects of their life routines and their culture. (De Walt & De Walt 2011, p. 1)

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Many ethnographic researchers who undertake research in a variety of cross-cultural contexts across the world use participant observation as a means to, borrowing from Jorgenson (1989), ‘gain entrée’ to the field. However, generally, they do so for extended periods of time periods. In the context of this study, this was not possible due to constraints imposed on my time in the field (i.e. five months). Although this was a challenge to my research, my prior knowledge experience of Nepalese and Nepalese culture aided in this process: I had been to Nepal five times and I had significant knowledge of the culture from my association with the Nepalese community in Australia. Therefore, participant observation was undertaken using a critical lens, that is, I entered the field with the intent to gain specific cultural insights. In addition, researcher reflexivity was part of my process. However, it, too, was challenged due to environmental conditions in Nepal during fieldwork. Fortunately, as Pelto (2013) has noted, participant observation was just one of numerous data-gathering tools.

According to De Laine (1997, p. 142), ‘the ethnographer enters the everyday world of the other to grasp socially constructed meanings.’ In the application of ‘other’, I refer to the young trafficked women and their worlds which deeply contrasted with my own. In this study, participant-observation was overt and, in collaboration with Asha Nepal and Centre for Awareness Promotion [CAP Nepal] (who became partners to the project during my fieldwork), I was introduced to staff in their organisations and trafficked/non-trafficked women and girls in their care as a reproductive health researcher prior to beginning participant observation. However, Asha Nepal asked me not to state, outwardly, to their girls that the research would be undertaken with trafficked women and girls. From my perspective, this was perceived as an effort to avoid re-stigmatising the young women78. According to De Laine (1997), DeWalt and

DeWalt (2011) and Jorgensen (1989),participant observation can involve taking an active or

passive role depending on the research context. Due to my knowledge of Nepali culture and the need to gain trust with the trafficked girls, Sabrina and I took an active role in participant observation, engaging in the daily lives of the research participants. This process was a ‘…flexible, open-ended, opportunistic process and logic of inquiry through which what is studied constantly is subject to redefinition based on field experience and observation’ (Jorgensen 1989, p. 23). According to Jorgensen (p. 21), ‘it is highly desirable for the participant observer to perform multiple roles during the course of the project, and gain at least a comfortable degree of rapport, even intimacy, with the people, situations and settings of research’.

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Gaining ‘entrée’ to the setting – meaning permission to observe the research participants – was discussed with Asha Nepal prior to beginning fieldwork and with CAP Nepal in the field. At Asha Nepal, we were encouraged to negotiate participant observation directly with the girls to enable us to work with them around their school, homework, domestic work, craft, tutoring and other schedules. Notably, this process opened my eyes to the expectations placed on Nepali girls to achieve an education. While education is being promoted (and all girls at Asha Nepal were at school), the girls must also fulfil traditional roles of domesticity at the same time to prepare them for the roles of being ‘wife’ and ‘mother’. For example, I was shocked to learn that sometimes the girls arose at four o’clock in the morning to do homework and chores before they left for a 6.30a.m. school start. After school, they often washed their own clothes by hand (in cold water) and did other domestic chores, such as cooking, cleaning and more as part of their responsibilities in the hostel. As we had limited time to get to know the research participants at CAP Nepal – because the research participants were living in the community – we did not have the same opportunity to observe potential research participants. However, the limited time available was valuable as we were able to meet groups of mothers and babies and observe their often-dynamic interactions with one another and learn a little about this group of trafficked women. In addition, we were able to observe staff communication with the women and gain an understanding of their relationships with them.

As I had planned to do before leaving Australia and in my ethics application, I spent time getting to know the individual research participants at Asha Nepal on my own for one month, then accompanied by Sabrina for another month. During this time, some of the trafficked girls informed Asha Nepal’s manager that they had trust issues with Sabrina. They were worried about the ‘gossip culture’ among Nepali women and they were concerned she would breach their confidentiality. However, the manager and the team leader of social work spoke to the girls about this issue and let them know Sabrina had signed a confidentiality agreement with me and Asha Nepal. They also relayed to them that I needed to work with a female Nepali interpreter for my research. This discussion seemed to allay their concerns. However, we had to work through this issue before beginning data collection. Sabrina also undertook some observations alone prior to recruiting research participants. During the workshops we also undertook participant observation so we could continue to gain the trust of the research participants, to pre-empt any challenges that might arise during further data collection, and to enable us to make amendments to any research processes if needed. This process also helped us to assess group dynamics and develop techniques to encourage quieter group members to participate.

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During the participant observation phase, Sabrina and I ran some informal clay workshops with staff and/or women and girls at Asha Nepal and CAP Nepal to introduce them to the concept of the CERM. However, most importantly, we did this to enable the potential research participants to become familiar with the clay and other materials being used in the participatory workshops. This process was also beneficial in other ways: it also enabled us to ascertain whether we would have any practical issues using the clay, which, incidentally, we did (see Section 6.5). By engaging in a three-step process of critical ethnographic participant observation, we gained important insights into the socio-cultural worlds of the research participants, their embodied (body) experiences, their modes of learning and group dynamics. Although I planned to engage in (written and audio-recorded) observational note-taking after visits to our organisations and after workshops, this process was challenging in Nepal because of the external environment during fieldwork (i.e. issues relating to the fuel crisis). In addition, I did not take notes in the presence of the research participants because I had already concluded, prior to fieldwork, that it would make the women and girls feel uncomfortable. This could have been deleterious to gaining their trust and impacted negatively on the recruitment process for the study. However, I carried a small journal with me and I recorded Nepali words and phrases taught to me by the women and girls and/or drew pictures and diagrams to help me remember things, such as words for body parts which became important to the research. The pages were often inscribed with memories of moments when I had learned significant things about the girls’ worlds. To the girls, this book became ‘Tricia’s Nepali words book’ and it became a counterpoint to developing trust with the women. It often caused moments of great hilarity for the girls when I tried to speak Nepali (and I showed vulnerability in relation to my poor Nepali language skills) and they, in turn, tried to speak newly-learned English words I exchanged with them (showcasing theirs).

One of the phrases I coined, ‘Mero pukka pukka ghala harayo’ (meaning ‘my fluffy/chubby cheeks got lost’) after losing extensive amounts of weight following a severe chest infection, thus ‘thinning’ my cheeks, will likely be memorialised by the girls and staff of Asha Nepal because I twisted their language to try and express myself in Nepali. The phrase was not accurate, but they found my ‘dramatised’ efforts extremely humorous. It then became expected that my next visits to the office (or hostel) would be accompanied by another newly- constructed comical Nepali phrase. Of course, this process also challenged me to keep learning Nepali. The girls at Asha Nepal also taught me, very significantly, how to say ‘mato ko khel’, or, that is, ‘play with clay’, which became important for this research. When we began the first series of clay workshops in the counselling room at Asha Nepal’s main home, some of the

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children (i.e. non-research participants) learned the value of confidentiality regarding the clay workshops and made a poster for the door to ensure our sessions would not be disturbed. They

labelled these posters in English and Devanagiri script as ‘Clay Work Going On’ (seeFigure

6)

Figure 6: ‘Clay Work Going On’