Chhoto Sahab, Bagaan Life, and a Pinch of Salt: Navigating Identity and Selfhood in a Tea Plantation of Assam

How does ethnographic fieldwork progress when the researcher’s field site is emblematic of their personal history, particularly when it leads to uneasy encounters in the field? How does the researcher's prior affiliation complicate the very nature of ethnographic engagement pursued during, and demanded by, the study? These overarching questions shaped much of my PhD fieldwork at Beesakopie Tea Estate in Doomdooma, Upper Assam. While my study concerned the consumption of salt by the tea garden workers in the form of nimokh cha/pani (salt tea), and the attendant health issue of hypertension linked to this practice, my solicitations “to know” from my interlocutors were, ironically, often taken with a pinch of salt. This paper aims to demonstrate how the rules of engagement in the field, generally proceeds from a premise of self (Cohen, 1992), which significantly influences the logic (and logistics) of immersion. In several encounters, particularly with pluckers and factory workers, my identity was seen as suspect and self-serving, given that I was the son of a former tea garden executive—a problem of affiliation. On a number of occasions, I was flagged as belonging to "the other side", a common refrain that frequently surfaced in discussions with my interlocutors. However, this also led to some unguarded conversations in other contexts, such as those I had with managerial and hospital staff. In this paper, I aim to present some of the challenges I faced during fieldwork, particularly when the ethnographer’s gaze was turned on its head and transformed into questions of the researcher's identity and selfhood. In doing so, I attempt to provoke the following methodological question: How can the demand for persistence in the field be reconciled with embodied histories that may, at times, warrant "letting go" (Dostaler, 2017; Di Puppo, 2024) on the researcher’s part?