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August 14, 2026Qualitative Research Journal

In-between the “field” and “home”: blurred positionality and negotiations along the Assam- Sylhet borderland

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Authors

SDShobharaj Das

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Overview

Ethnographic study reveals shifting insider-outsider positionality in borderland communities, highlighting that collaborative engagement and everyday interactions facilitate field access beyond...

Key Points

  • To examine how fluid researcher positionality, familiarity, and state apparatus shape research relationships and fieldwork access within a sensitive, militarised borderland.
  • Conducted a reflexive ethnographic study among borderland communities located along the Assam-Sylhet border.
  • Analyzed the continuous shifts between insider and outsider status during everyday interactions, personal engagements, and encounters with security infrastructure.
  • Prior familiarity, local social capital, and insider status alone do not guarantee sustained access to sensitive borderland fields.
  • Researcher positionality remains fluid rather than fixed, continuously evolving through negotiations between ancestral belonging and professional distancing.
  • Field access relies heavily on collaborative approaches, participatory methods, and unplanned everyday moments rather than formal or rigid entry strategies.

Cite This Study

Shobharaj Das (2026) studied this question.

synapsesocial.com/papers/6a7ec764b70b84ec8b913c78https://doi.org/10.1108/qrj-01-2026-0031
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