Resuming Fieldwork in the Indian Sundarban Delta
Author: Sumana Banerjee
The team at Jadavpur University embarked on field visits to the Indian Sundarban Delta in late July and late August. The fieldwork encompassed travel through the breadth of the delta where we covered Sagar, Nakhana, Kakdwip, Patharpratima Community Development Blocks in the first phase during end of July and Basanti, Gosaba, Hingalganj in the second phases during end of August. The financial support from lead organisation Newcastle University helped the fieldworks see the light of the day. The opportunity to participate and carry out fieldwork despite multiple challenges makes the experience more cherishable. Here are some of my key reflections from the visits.
Plan ahead and be prepared to re-plan – For any fieldwork to go ahead the first step is always having a field plan. This planning becomes even more critical in the face of communication challenges. With schedules covering different islands and areas of mainland, it was necessary to note down the finer details including mode of transport, arrangement for food, approximate travel and work time. Repeated meetings were conducted to finalise a plan but we were flexible and kept 1-2 buffer days in the plan in case things did not go according to our plan.
Productive fieldwork entails effective teamwork - The Hub members at JU met virtually and in person at least thrice before finalising a field plan. A meeting was then fixed with Mr Sanjoy Mondal, who organises travel, accommodation, and food for our field visits to the delta, to share our plan and receive his feedback based on his knowledge of the delta. The plan was then edited and a final version was shared with Mr Mondal for him to brief the rest of the boat crew.
Teamwork includes the participation of all who support our work. It is necessary for the boat crew to be aware of our plan as they schedule their activities like buying supplies, cooking accordingly. In a challenging terrain like the delta, acquiring supplies need much thought as supplies cannot be stocked in the boats for weeks in a humid climate. Our fieldwork plan gives the crew an idea on where and when they can stop for buying supplies.
Besides the boat crew, communication with Mr Ansar Sheikh to liaise about the schedule of cars to accommodate travel for two different groups for two different purposes was also kept up. The support that we receive from all our field partners enables us to carry out our work smoothly.
People build our capacities – I have heard time and again how we as a research community can help in “capacity-building of the communities”. I often wonder why we forget to acknowledge how the people have been building our capacities over time. When we were dependent on tide chart timings at one part of the delta and were trying to calculate the time for the next high tide, it was our very own Gopal Mondal, the expert boatman, who very casually remarked how we were experiencing the peak high tide at the moment as the water was very still. The boat crew have warned us of any approaching localised storms based on the “way the sky looks, or the way the wind feels” when weather reports did not cover such localised forecasts.
During our formal and informal conversations with the people, we learn, unlearn, and re-learn. I found the unlearning most challenging as it is difficult to let go of my pre-learnt ideas. The more I listened, the more I understood and respected the dynamism of the system. The biggest folly I could commit was trying to fit people’s lived experiences in compartments I created beforehand. I firmly believe that without the people and their kindness, my capacity-building would have remained incomplete.
Inter-linkages over Work-packages – Interdisciplinary research often faces the threat of being compartmentalised into work packages but the curiosity to understand the big picture and the interest in seeing how my research can have connections with other areas of research carves out the true merit of interdisciplinarity. While drawing up the list of things which need to be achieved during the field visits, we did so under the different work packages to help us keep a track of the things that need to be done. Once in the field, I found it particularly helpful to lift the work package barriers from my mind and let questions and reflections flow freely as I was seeking to learn about issues which were pertinent to the Hub as a whole than specific work packages. This gave people the space to share a wider range of issues with richer responses and we saved them the boredom of answering related questions over different points in time. The responsibility of fitting their responses into our work packages lies with us and thus seeking to understand the inter-linkages is of utmost importance.
Challenges require quick thinking – Challenges faced during a fieldwork make it stressful at the time but tests one’s ability to think quickly, act smartly, and test the flexibility of plans.
Challenge 1: With a sudden turn in the weather and the sea getting angrier, we had to take a quick decision of changing the type of boat which is better suited to face the turbulence. This involved leveraging connections and making calls to other boat owners and also negotiating for a decent rate so as not to exceed the fieldwork budget.
Challenge 2: While we thought we were prepared to traverse through the shallow creeks to reach certain water sampling points by using a small boat, when some of us had to disembark at one of the Forest department offices, we could not do so as the big boat could not dock at the jetty during the high tide. The small boat which we had hired was on its way for water sampling, while we were stranded a few metres away from the destination and on the verge of missing an appointment. Quick thinking came to rescue when a local fishermen’s boat was summoned and we requested them to ferry us up to the jetty. The kindness of the people has always been pivotal. They took us to our destination and were even refusing to accept any money for the ride.
Challenge 3: Another challenge came when there was a forecast of the weather turning worse with a very small time window to complete water sampling at one of the points where one had to cross a shallow stretch during high tide. Waiting for the high tide meant doing so in bad weather. The challenge was that the fieldwork gets stalled for at least 2-3 days and we end up wasting time and money, and even risking the safety of the team. Knowing the areas pays off and a quick decision was taken where boat crew Avijit Mridha, our very own Boltu, swam across the particularly shallow stretch to get the water samples in large 20 litres container and met the team after traveling by road at another point which was navigable in a big boat. As I said earlier, kindness of the people has always been instrumental in letting us work.
To conclude, I will say that we are nothing without the people of the delta and their selfless deeds put us in heavy debt. The very little that we can do to match up to their selflessness, is try and work with them, learn from them, and give back positive outcomes in any way we can. Research is much more than data collection and it encompasses everything that happens beyond and within our fieldworks, which makes it important to see the big picture than seeing parts. This visualisation of the big picture is enabled when regular communication is maintained and relationships are nurtured with the people. For any fieldwork, thus, it is necessary to have a good understanding among team members, to have flexible and robust plans, to have quick decision-making abilities, the capacity to see inter-linkages over work packages, and finally the acknowledgement that our capacities get built every time.
