Experiences as a Field Researcher
From the journey of culture shock experienced when first walking on the site to the final reconciliation of developments from the previous field visits, fieldwork in the development sector is not far or difficult. Taken with the right spirit, I believe a field tour is the best starting point for any person venturing in the social sector space. Through this article, I will try to share my experiences and learnings from my first field visit tour at Development Alternatives (DA Group) in Mirzapur from 13th — 16th December 2020.
As a part of the Sustainable Enterprises Domain (SED) team at Development Alternatives, I got a chance to observe the implementation of the Kaun Banega Market Leader (KBML) challenge. Its’ Nukkad Natak sessions were piloted first in two villages Sinharkala and Godsarpatti, with an average footfall of 150 people. The first thing I realised while explaining the benefits of the programme to the crowd was that all developmental activities must be tailored to the needs of the stakeholders to be truly effective. And this can only be understood through careful study of society through in-depth study. This important wisdom for “social development and research” and equally important tips for field ethics, including the right dress, right questions, body language and most important “signs of respect” matter a lot when one is going on a field trip. My team had defined its own domain from the context of our research to our geographic location, and most importantly, the audience we studied, the barriers that the field faced. Simply told, I realised we are as diverse as the people and cultures we study.
Throughout the day, I met many respondents. Meeting the Garima Girls cohort was also quite astounding. The girls explained their journey through a short presentation, with the Medha and Janatsu teams managing the programme physically and virtually respectively. Though I didn’t have much context about the programme or its stakeholders, I was still fascinated by the level of awareness, confidence and communication skills shown by the girls. All of them were extremely open in terms of sharing their personal journeys, aspirations and challenges so far. This meeting gave me my second lesson in this area, which is that if we are transparent with respondents in terms of the potential and benefits of the programme, then most respondents are very welcoming in terms of sharing their stories and problems, hoping everyone could find a solution to their problem.
As a final part of our visit, I got a chance to meet the three entrepreneurs, Bhagwani Devi, Shivnarayan and Jahangir, each of whom got empowered by the DA Group to start their own enterprises. It was amazing to see them grow their businesses without having any prior experience in that sector and empower even more people financially. This is what gave me my third and final lesson, which is developing the right mindset as a development professional. At first, our mind forces us to develop prejudices about the people based on their appearance and identities. The solutions we design for them can also get heavily influenced by such preconceived notions. It soon became clear to me that in order to develop an apt enterprise solution for the stakeholder, we must first abandon prejudices and see people as people, not the problem to be solved. Our team’s effort to truly understand respondents has helped them express their honest opinions and solutions in a variety of ways.
Working in the field is always rich. The scope of experience provided by field research is not limited to raising awareness, but improving people’s skills. The geographic location of the study, weather conditions, field surveys, time management, and regional issues that make it difficult to achieve the study sample size are all obstacles to the study completion. However, overcoming these limitations through adaptation and innovation, I have become much more aware of the dynamic nature of field research, as well as anticipating all future field research opportunities at DA Group with unlimited enthusiasm.
Insights from Gitesh Aggarwal
