Negotiating Otherness: dilemmas for a non-Western researcher in the Indiansub-continent

This paper focuses on certain methodological issues that arose while interv iewing Indian women activists in Uttar Pradesh, a state of North India. The se activists had actively contributed to the anti-colonial struggle from 19 20 fill India's independence in 1947 This Paper addresses two key issues. F irstly, the category 'Other' was not a fixed category. Its meaning was cont inuosly negotiable, both, in my relationship with respondents and in terms of what I understood to be feminist methodology. Moreover, in the Indian co ntext it was difficult to follow, the precepts of what I understood to be f eminist methodology because I could not write about the respondent's experi ences by wing their own language. At the same time, present feminist concep ts such as gender-equality oppression and consciousness had little meaning for women born at the turn of the century. Secondly, there were dilemmas ar ound interviewing Indian women which made me aware of issues of class, reli gion, gender and generation. This paper is divided in three main sections. The first section focuses on other sources of evidence such as official and unofficial records, newspapers and magazines which provide the initial fra mework as well as help to locate the historical context of ally research. H owever, they have to be studied in conjunction with oral narratives, which Provide the crucial link between all the other sources of evidence. The sec ond section deals with the dilemmas of 'Otherness' and the third section fo cuses an the dilemmas that arose while conducting interviews.