‘At the Entrance of the Kidney Transplantation Ward’: Narrating Ethnographic Anxieties and Negotiations
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Type
Article
Date
2022-03
Journal Title
Social Trends
Journal Editor
Roy, Sanjay K.
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of North Bengal
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Roy, P. (2022). ‘At the Entrance of the Kidney Transplantation Ward’: Narrating Ethnographic Anxieties and Negotiations. Social Trends, 9, 38–53. https://ir.nbu.ac.in/handle/123456789/4645
Authors
Roy, Pinaki
Advisor
Editor
Abstract
The self or subjective experiences of the ethnographer are
essential components of the ethnographic text. Ethnographic studies of
disease, aliment and bodily suffering, and the fear of imminent death,
resulting from any chronic disease like kidney failure cannot rule out
the fact that the ethnographer is deeply implicated in the experiences
narrated and represented in the ethnographic text. In the process of
gaining knowledge, the ethnographer is subject to experiences which
generate personal and ethical anxieties as result of encounter with the
characteristic experiences of the ailing person and the immediate nexus
of inter-personal relations, including family and kinship relations,
surrounding the person. The personality of the ethnographer in such
studies is very crucial for such fields of experience throw up challenges
for documenting the unique nuances of the experiences characteristic to
it. In this paper I ruminate as an ethnographer on my experiences of
encountering the field of kidney failure, dialysis and transplantation
and the anxieties I had to encounter during my fieldwork and how I
sought to negotiate or resolve them. This paper is a reflexive
engagement with the suffering of people with kidney failure and those
immediately responsible as care-givers as much as it is a narrative
about my personal negotiations with the anxieties such study generates.
Description
Citation
Accession No
Call No
Book Title
Edition
Volume
ISBN No
Volume Number
9
Issue Number
ISSN No
2348-6538
eISSN No
Pages
Pages
38 - 53