Tag: #Assam

‘GUILTY’ daughter-researcher: Ethnography, familial politics, and guilt

‘GUILTY’ daughter-researcher: Ethnography, familial politics, and guilt

By Bhargabi Das I would like to begin by giving a little context of my research and my family and possibly how they overlapped over the course of my fieldwork. My research looks at char areas in Assam, India. Chars are river islands and are extremely unstable, undergoing constant erosion. In Assam, the chars are largely inhabited by Bengali Muslims whose ancestors were encouraged to come during colonial times to increase productivity from such fertile riverine lands. However, as more {+}

Tales of ‘Mala-Bori’: Marginalized Muslim char women and population control policies in Assam, India.

Tales of ‘Mala-Bori’: Marginalized Muslim char women and population control policies in Assam, India.

By Bhargabi Das The summer months in the chars of western Assam, India where my ethnographic fieldwork was based, are only of respite because of the calm breeze by the river, and conversations over jaggery tea. Because of my positionality, it was easier for me to strike up conversations with the Bengali Muslim women in the chars than men, particularly surrounding sexual health.  I was interested in bringing up conversations of sexual health because chars are known as spaces where {+}