Gay Bombay: Globalization, Love and (Be)longing in Contemporary India (23 page)

Also, as Weston (1997) warns, there is the danger that a researcher who chooses to study his own society is ‘likely to be seen as native first, ethnographer second’.50 If such researchers choose to use ethnography as a means of activism to bring about change in their own societies, they often have to ‘confront charges of unprofessionalism and various labels of personality aberration, not to mention accusations of extremism’51

(Morsy, 1998). On the one hand, these researchers are often viewed ‘with suspicion, as people who lack the distance necessary to conduct good fieldwork; on the other hand, well-intentioned colleagues thrust upon them the responsibility for speaking their identity, thus inadvertently forcing them into the prison-house of essentialism’52 (Gupta and Up Close and Personal
133

Fergusson, 1997). Weston (1997) characterizes the native ethnographer as a ‘hybrid’—one that ‘collapses the subject or object distinction’ by the ‘act of studying “people” defined as one’s own’.53 This hybridity creates a
double bind
for the native ethnographer when it comes to writing up one’s work—one has to surrender ‘the intricate operations of hybridity to the oversimplifications of nativity or objectivity’ and ‘treat the components of [one’s] hybridity as merely additive (‘native’ plus

‘ethnographer’) or split (‘native’ or ‘ethnographer’) by writing from only one subject position at a time
…
’. 54

It is naïve to posit the insider or outsider dichotomy as a clash between subjectivity and objectivity, as both the researcher and the research subject are ‘social persons with a certain position vis-à-vis one another with a common social structure’ and thus, instead of wondering whether the indigenous ethnographer can be objective or not, the concern should rather be about how his ‘relative social position…affects the methodology of research’55 (Shami, 1998). In any case—

For those engaged in working with their ‘own’ communities, engaged in activist organizing or for supporting financially strapped extended families, exoticism has no inherent value. Leaving their commitments and responsibilities for the sake of untethered research interests…

[would imply] a betrayal of those people whose lives and livelihoods are inextricably linked to their own. (Gupta and Fergusson, 1997) 56

According to Narayan (1993), as ethnographers, we all exhibit what Rosaldo (1989) has termed as ‘multiplex subjectivity’ with many crosscutting identifications.57 ‘What facet of our subjectivity we choose, or are forced to accept as a defining identity can change depending on the context and the vectors of power’.58 Thus, ‘dismantling objectivism creates a space for ethical concerns in a territory once regarded as value-free. It enables the social analyst to become a social critic59 (Rosaldo, 1989).

One invariably takes a stand; indeed, one must take a stand, not as the waving of certain flags, but as a reflection on where one’s allegiances and emotions are, what sympathies and empathies drive one to interpret events in certain ways rather than others. (Hansen, 2001) 60

Kamala Visweswaran’s (1994) differentiation between ‘homework’

and ‘fieldwork’61 that Clifford cites in his 1997 essay
Spatial Practices
is a
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useful one; it hints at a model in which ethnography does not succumb to a home or field divide—

[For Visweswaran] Homework is not defined as the opposite of exoticist fieldwork; it is not a matter of literally staying at home or studying one’s own community. ‘Home’… is a person’s location in determining discourses and institutions…a locus of critical struggle that both empowers and limits the subject wherever she or he conducts formal research. By restructuring the home or field opposition, Visweswaran clears space for unorthodox routings and rootings of ethnographic work.62

Clifford builds on this argument to envision the inclusion of the ethnographer’s ‘autobiography…the shifting locations of his or her own life’63 as a part of this homework. In the same vein, Narayan reflects that

‘people born within a society can be simultaneously both insiders and outsiders, just as those born elsewhere can be outsiders and if they are lucky, insiders too’.64

The loci along which we are aligned with or set apart from those whom we study are multiple and in flux. Factors such as education, gender, sexual orientation, class, race or sheer duration of contacts may at different times, outweigh the cultural identity we associate with insider or outsider status. Instead what we must focus our attention on is the quality of relations with the people we seek to represent in our texts—are they viewed as mere fodder for professionally self-serving statements about a generalized ‘other’, or are they accented as subjects with voices, views, and dilemmas—people to whom we are bonded through ties of reciprocity and who may even be critical of our professional enterprise.

(Narayan, 1993) 65

ARRIVAL SCENE TWO: POST-IT NOTES

The Gay Bombay newsgroup66 began on 31 December 1998 via the free group email service—Egroups, which was subsequently renamed Yahoo!

Groups after its acquisition by Yahoo! in June 2000. Yahoo! Groups is one of Yahoo!’s many free services offered to its users. Through Yahoo!

Groups, one can not just send and receive group messages, but also upload and download files, engage in online chat, work with photos and Up Close and Personal
135

albums, link to other web pages using bookmarks, conduct online polls, maintain an online calendar, create online databases as well as maintain lists of members. The groups are indexed according to several categories. Yahoo! has a team of category editors, known as
surfers
, who go through the groups’ directory constantly. If they feel a particular group has been improperly categorized, they may move it to a more appropriate location.

The person who starts or maintains the group and has adminis-

trative powers over the group functions is called the group’s
owner
or
moderator
. The moderator can decide whether to restrict membership to the group, permit email attachments and let members post directly to the group or through the moderator. Yahoo! Groups is free to both members and moderators and is partially sponsored by advertisements. To join the service, one needs to register for a Yahoo! ID and link it to any email addresses that one wants to use for the purpose of accessing the groups. The Yahoo! website outlines the general guidelines for the use of the groups.67 In addition, each individual group may have its own set of guidelines, both explicit and implicit that its owners or moderators enforce.

I am a subscriber to the Gay Bombay Yahoo! newsgroup since August 2003, but my presence on it is that of a lurker—a silent observer of the postings. I need to clarify my purpose and intentions of my research clearly to the group before I begin my work here. I go to the Yahoo!

Groups homepage (http://groups.Yahoo.com/) and create a separate Yahoo! identity (ID) just for research purposes. Like most other large portals, one’s ID gives one access to the entire range of free Yahoo!

services, including email, calendar, chat, address book, photograph management, and so on. The procedure is very simple and involves filling in a standardized questionnaire including details like one’s name, location, offers of free subscriptions to services, and so on. There is also a word verification box, which requires one to retype a printed word from the screen into a special box placed on the screen. I choose an ID that specifies clearly my name, my institutional affiliation and my purpose within the newsgroup—parmesh_mit_researcher. On confirming my

ID and password, I can now access any of Yahoo’s! services by using this new ID.

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I proceed to the Gay Bombay group page. There are five main sections here—the horizontal top bar, the horizontal bottom bar and the centre of the screen divided into three sections—a wide centre section and two narrow sidebars. The horizontal top bar is used to navigate to other sections of the site, the vertical bar on the left is used for navigation within the specific site. The vertical bar on the right lists details about the Gay Bombay group—the number of members, date founded and the language of the group. It also provides the settings for the group as decided by the group’s moderators. The settings for Gay Bombay are—

(
a
) Listed in directory

(
b
) Open membership

(
c
) Posts from new members require approval

(
d
) All members may post

(
e
) Archives for members only

(
f
) Email attachments are not permitted

The centre portion of the screen has the name ‘Gay Bombay’ with different links above it, separated by thin horizontal lines. Right on top is the caption
Our virtual community
with an icon of a fluttering Indian flag.

Below it are links to the Gay Bombay website, upcoming Gay Bombay events and Gay Bombay advertisements. Below this lies the section for archived messages. These are archived by month and year. Details on how to post messages, unsubscribe and so on, are listed below the message archives.

I click on the link
Join this group
which is located on the top of the screen, in the centre. I am then asked for my preferences about messages—whether I wish to access them off the site, receive them in my Yahoo! Mailbox individually or in
digest
format (in batches of 25) or at some other email address. On confirming these preferences, one clicks on another link to join the group. In the case of Gay Bombay, membership is confirmed immediately and does not need prior approval from the group’s moderators. However, there are other groups that need to applicant to be approved by the moderators before granting membership.

In March 2004, I post my first message to the newsgroup,68 introducing myself and my research intentions—

Up Close and Personal
137

I follow this up with a notice about
Between the Lines
, the LBGT Film Festival I am organizing at MIT in April 2004.69 I do this because I want my position as an out gay student and event organizer in Boston to be known within the group. I think this would be an effective way of immediately establishing my credibility within the group as well as the integrity of my research intentions. However, to my disappointment, I only receive four responses. I was ambitiously hoping that the moment I declared my research intentions and MIT credentials, I would be flooded by a deluge of emails from eager members, all wanting to share their experiences with me…but this is clearly not happening.

It is time for plan B. I scan through the posts on the newsgroup of the previous six months and note down the nicknames of the regular posters. I then send each of them a personal email, introducing myself, outlining the nature of my work and requesting an opportunity to interview them using an instant messaging (IM) client such as MSN Messenger or Yahoo! Messenger. I mail 22 people—trying to construct a balanced mix of newsgroup administrators, regular posters, flamers and dis-senters, as well as some completely random posters.

The response to my effort is more favourable this time. I receive replies from 14 of the 22 I have emailed, stating that they would be
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happy to be interviewed. However, I face another problem. Most of the respondents say that they are not comfortable with an online interview—

they would rather have me compose a questionnaire and send it to them, which they can answer at their leisure and mail back. With others, the time difference becomes a factor. I schedule several interviews with one particular person based in India, but each time, either one of us cannot make it online at the required time.

At first, I am irritated as I see my plans of Annette Markham style chat-oriented data collection70 disappear in smoke. On reflection however, I realize that this is fine and in fact, my idea of on online chat was quite silly considering that the newsgroup is asynchronous in nature—that is, messages on it are posted through email by its members at their own convenience and not in simultaneous real time. By carrying out email interviews, I am merely collecting my data from the group using the same device they use in their regular interaction with the group. It is as it should be. I interview a total of 12 individuals electronically, conducting only two IM interviews—the others are conducted via email.

I use an open-ended questionnaire, which I think will work both for online research and my subsequent physical world research in Bombay city. I divide the questionnaire into four different sections—
General
Information
,
Being Gay in India
,
Gay Bombay
and
Identity
. I structure the questions in each section to move from general to the specific, trying to replicate textually the interview style I will use later on with my face-to-face respondents. I reproduce the questionnaire below—

GENERAL INFORMATION

1. Age

2. Location

3. Sex