Rethinking ‘empathy’ in feminist fieldwork

This article reflects on what fieldwork taught me about empathy as a methodological tool in feminist fieldwork through three autobiographical encounters from developmental research in West Bengal, India. It traces how empathy – trained, performed and institutionally sanctioned – can function less as a bridge across difference and more as a buffer against confronting the extractive dimensions of knowledge production. It further questions how ethical conventions like anonymisation and reflexivity can become rituals of comfort that protect researcher credibility rather than community dignity. This piece draws on fieldwork conducted during my master’s dissertation; however, written at the threshold of doctoral research, this is an attempt to extend fieldwork practices that prioritise accountability, genuine participation and the right to refuse over the performance of ethical compliance. It asks what it would mean to design research that is not just empathetic but answerable.