Ethnography Among Migrants in A City Fie

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Vol. 5 (1), April 2021 E-journal of the Indian Sociological Society
Article: Ethnography among Migrants in a City: Field Experiences in Delhi

Author(s): Thanggoulen Kipgen
Source: Explorations, ISS e-journal, Vol. 5 (1), April 2021, pp. 115-133
Published by: Indian Sociological Society
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Ethnography among Migrants in a City:

Field Experiences in Delhi
--- Thanggoulen Kipgen
Abstract
People from Northeast India have been migrating to Delhi in search of work since
the last few decades. They are mostly engaged in the service sector jobs such as
call centres, retails, hotels, restaurants, beauty salon and so on. Shared
accommodation, discriminations in their daily life, social stigma against specific
work, role of church and collective celebrations of socio-cultural events and
festivities involving community participations are specific to the migrant’s
experiences and negotiations of the everyday life in the city. This paper is an
account of the researcher’s ethnographic fieldwork conducted among the Kuki
migrants from Northeast India in Delhi. It seeks to read and understand the
migrants’ everyday life through the researcher’s field experiences and encounters
in the city.
Key words: Delhi, Ethnography, Field experiences, Kuki, Migrants
Introduction
Human beings have always moved in search of new opportunities, or to escape

poverty or conflict, and clearly the last half of the 20 th century has been an ‘age of
migration’ (Castles & Miller, 2009). Since the last few decades there have been a
growing number of people from Northeast India migrating towards several Indian
cities in search of jobs and employment opportunities, particularly in the private
sectors. Their movement does not involve the crossing of any international
borders, yet, both geographically and culturally, it is a movement into a very
different place. It is a movement away from predominantly rural livelihoods with
subsistence agriculture and politics revolving around ethnic homelands, with
armed struggles and massive human rights violations (Kikon & Karlsson, 2019).
Armed struggles, violence, human rights violation accompanied by subsistence
livelihood activities at home and the availability of better education and job
opportunities in various services have led to large scale migration of people from
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the Northeast to Indian cities in the last decade or so. In spite of their economic
inclusion into the megacities in a booming urban India, the Northeast migrant
faces certain exclusion in the social and cultural milieu. They are stereotyped as
‘backward’, ‘dangerous’, ‘exotic’ and ‘erotic’ (Wouters & Subba, 2013; Nongbri
& Shimreiwung, 2017). McDuie-Ra argued that ‘the experiences of Northeast
migrants are distinct and reveal different elements of contemporary Indian society
as the distance between frontier and heartlands shrink’ (2012, p. 87). They are not
vied as yet another ethnic group in the vast Indian milieu but as an ‘exceptional
population’.
For my doctorate research, I conducted ethnographic fieldwork among the Kuki

migrants in Delhi who migrated from the Northeastern states of India since the
last few decades in search of jobs and opportunities. The Kukis are identified as a
Mongoloid racial stock of the Austro-Asiatic group of Tibeto-Burman linguistic
family. The term ‘Kuki’ means ‘hill-people or highlanders’ (Reid, 1893, p. 238).
In post-colonial era, the Kuki tribes were divided by three international
boundaries viz – India, Bangladesh and Myanmar. In India, they are found in the
Northeastern states of Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and
Tripura. It is believed that the Kuki migration to Delhi had taken place since the
1950s who were chiefly government employees and few students. The volume of
student migration for further education increased slowly since the early 1980s.
Subsequently, Delhi became one of the most favoured destinations for the Kukis
for work and employment, particularly in the post-liberalisation. The migration
volume became much bigger in the 21st century with improvement in transport
and communication which encouraged many Kuki youths to migrate to Delhi in
search of jobs and opportunities (Kipgen & Panda, 2019).
The study basically looks at the Kuki migrants working in the private sector. They
are mostly educated youths engaged in different service sectors jobs such as call
centres/BPOs, retails, in hospitals as nurses, beauty salon, waiters/waitress in
hotels and restaurants and so on (Kipgen & Panda, 2020). Some of them migrated
as students and stayed on after completion of their courses and are earning their
livelihood in different private sector jobs. The study involved interviewing the
migrants and also observing their life through participant observation. The study
examines the various factors that led to the out-migration of the Kukis from the
Northeast, giving special focus on the role of social networks in this migration
process. It also examines the problems and issues that the migrants encounter as
they settle in a new environment such as discrimination in accommodation,
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racism, language gap, relatively high expenditures, stereotyping as being

‘backward’ and ‘primitive’ due to their distinct food habits, and loose and
immoral due to their dress and lifestyles and so on. The study also examines the
sites where social boundaries are established and where patterns of group
identities are constructed and located. It analyses the important sites and the
forces at work within them such as the residential space, ethnic stores, social
institutions, cultural events, church and death where collective identity and
consciousness are located.
The paper is an account of my experiences and encounters in the field site, the
personal engagement I formed with the participants and also the ethical decisions
I had to make while conducting ethnographic fieldwork. The main theme of the
paper is to understand the everyday life of the migrants and their negotiations in
the new place of destination through reflections from my field experiences. It is
an attempt to present a picture of their everyday life and negotiations in the city. I
shared the same space and encountered experiences similar to the migrants on
account of common ethnic identity and shared cultural and physical
characteristics. Engaging with them in the neighbourhoods and being part of the
collectivity has given me ample scope to understand certain meanings and gather
true picture of them.
‘The Fieldworker and the Field’
Fieldwork as a rigorous scientific method played a major role in social

anthropology and sociology for a very long time. Fieldwork is not usually a topic
for discussion as most research tends to be focused on the outcome rather than the
method and process involved in collecting data (Crinis, 2012). The term ‘field’
means ‘the community of human beings who are being studied’ and the
‘fieldworker’ is the person who conducts research in the field (Srinivas, Shah &
Ramaswamy, 2002). The field of research enquiry is not simply a geographic
place waiting to be entered, but rather a conceptual space whose boundaries are
constantly negotiated and constructed by the fieldworkers and the members
(Gupta & Ferguson, 1997). This makes the time spend by a fieldworker in the
field very crucial to understand the meanings of everyday life of the people.
William Foote Whyte’s (1993) ethnographic study of an Italian slum district in

the United States provides insights on the fieldworker’s role in order to
understand the life of the community under study. The fieldworker’s lived
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experience is a testimony of what is actually happening in the field. A real

explanation of how a research is conducted, thus, involves personal account of the
researcher’s lived experiences during the period of study. Whyte’s friendship-
making, interview methods such as refraining from arguing with people or pass
moral judgments, participation in their everyday life such as games and sports,
hanging on the ‘street corner’, when to ask questions and what questions to ask
are vital elements of field method.
M.N. Srinivas also exclusively narrated his encounters while making a study in a
rural village in India such as finding accommodation, absence of privacy, dealing
with factionalism among villagers, caste conflicts and so on. Based on participant
observation, Srinivas was able to capture the various nuances of life in a village.
Srinivas was critical of fieldworkers writing reports ‘which are impersonal,
abundant in sketches and charts and nowadays, also tables’ arguing that the
reports convey an impression of objectivity which they do not (2002, p. 28).
According to him, one’s affiliation, class, regional and religious, values and
temperament, influence what he sees and how he sees them. In short, fieldworker
‘should pay serious attention to presenting their reports in such a way that the
subjectivities inherent in their fieldwork are made clear to their readers’ (ibid.). A
description of the conditions of a fieldworker’s encounter while conducting
ethnography may give a better picture of local life in the field.
Similarly, A.M. Shah (2002) in the fieldwork in rural Gujarat described the
importance of understanding the ‘flavour of life in the village’ for which reason
they ‘follow the flow of activities and events’ as they occurred in the village. He
argued that it was important ‘to keep eyes and ears open and observe sensitively
whatever happened’ (ibid., p. 35). As such, intensive fieldwork has been
considered to be the major method in social and cultural anthropology. The
method has travelled far since Malinowski did his fieldwork in the Trobriand
Islands, both with regard to the methods and techniques used, and the kind of
communities and problems studied (Srinivas, 2002, p. 1).
Finally, when a fieldworker conducts ethnographic fieldwork, he or she

encounters unexpected experiences and events. Their experiences and challenges
may differ from one geographic location to another. In a sprawling metropolis,
fieldworkers encounter issues such as where does one (respondents) reside, how
to contact them, where to conduct the interview and when to sign them up for
interview as they spend very limited time away from their work place (Dorson,
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1981; Crinis, 2012). Safety and security concerns are crucial challenges a
fieldworker encounters in urban centres. Areas with high levels of violent crime
may make travelling short or long distance risky and challenging for a fieldworker
(Goldsmith, 2003). Therefore, the hostile and dangerous areas of research pose a
great challenge for the fieldworker that can seriously affect the ways in which we
approach the field and interpret social phenomena within it (Kovats-Bernat,
2002).
Entering the Field Site
The fieldwork was conducted in Delhi in two phases between 2015 and 2017
lasting for about ten months. Besides, I also visited the field site occasionally
lasting up to few weeks as and when certain events and programmes were
organised such as festivals and sports events. On my first entry to the field, I
stayed at my relative’s residence at Dwarka in the South-West corner of the city.
For the first few weeks of my fieldwork, I commuted to my field area in the
morning and returned home in the evening. As I was new to the city, I did not
have proper knowledge on public transport system. So, I had to rely on auto
rickshaws for my transportation every day. It became difficult for me to afford the
expensive auto rickshaws for my travel anymore. At the same time, Delhi being a
big metropolitan centre makes it hard to visit different localities and return back
home on the same day. I also realised that it was important for me to spend more
time with the people to capture the real picture of their everyday life. So I decided
to stay in localities where I can find my respondents. I ended up staying in various
localities for up to several weeks and return home for a day or two to rest. In order
to comprehend and capture their everyday life in the city, I followed and stay as
close as possible with the migrants. I went to attend church with them, celebrate
religious events, joined them in sports tournaments, in annual sports meet,
freshers meet, shopping, dropping them for work, dinner, etc. I tried to gain
access to different locations in any possible ways in order to observe and
understand their lives in a regular manner.
Discriminations and Dangers
People from the Northeast are targeted for violence because of their distinct
physical features. Their Mongoloid features attracted strong rejections of their
citizenship and belonging from the host members. I was also not free from a being
target of violence and discriminations because of my look. Since I had to move
around mostly at night, the vulnerability to violence and discriminations were
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high. Travelling alone was dangerous. When navigating life during days were
equally challenging, one can imagine how hard it can be at night. On one occasion
at around mid-night, I had just conducted an interview and was returning home.
There were few local boys in the corner of the street. As I was passing by, they
started calling me ‘chinky’, ‘bahadur’ and ‘nepali’. I knew their intentions were to
instigate me. I knew very well that if I retaliate, I could be in trouble. I had to
sprint which was the only option and the best way to deal with such a situation.
On another occasion in one fine afternoon, I exited from Delhi Metro to visit one
of the field sites. I asked one of the auto-rickshaw drivers how much the fare was.
I knew the normal rate very well as it was not my first time going there. The
driver quoted an amount which was double the normal rate. I told him, ‘I know
the normal rate very well. Don’t try to cheat me’. After a few seconds, he
approached me and pulled my shirt and said something in Hindi which I couldn’t
understand. Therefore, my safety was dependent on my reactions, alertness, and
steady watchfulness from potential threats from unexpected dangers at any point
of time. Similarly, the everyday life and encounters of the migrants revolves
around this feeling of insecurity and discriminations. Whether it was day or night,
they were under close watch and they were subjected to various forms of
discriminations which may erupt at any point of time.
The Kuki migrants in Delhi were engaged in challenging and stressful jobs with
very limited engagement outside their home and workplace. Their life revolves
around the duality of home and work place and vice versa. Even on holidays,
migrants prefer to relax and have their own time, hang out with friends, and go for
shopping if they have time or just remain confined to their rooms. To visit them in
the evenings was a common answer to most of my appeals for interviews. As
most of the interviews were carried out at night my safety aspect was on many
times challenged and tested. Travelling alone in a particular locality and to distant
places at night becomes very risky. Despite friends accompanying me on few
occasions as a guide during the course of the fieldwork, it became increasingly
difficult to always expect their companion as they were all working migrants. So,
I had to arrange my own schedule and travel plan. In fact, I had a very
individualistic and lonely life during the course of the fieldwork.
I tried avoiding meeting my respondents at night because it was chiefly in the

evening or night where violence and harms were expected. But somehow I
realised that such drastic decisions will hide certain facts about the migrants I was
researching. To understand the migrants’ precarious life, especially for those who
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return home from work early morning or late night and who were not
accompanied the moment they got off from their company’s transportation, or
those who went to workplace early in the morning, I thought it will be helpful if I
could also see and experience their actual life, the time and the spot where the
migrants navigate their life during this time. Curious to know more about the
migrants’ life, such as those who were returning from work and who were
heading for work, I sat at the entrance in one of the neighbourhoods early in the
morning before sunrise. I wanted to know answers to questions such as: What
were their means of transportation? Who accompanied them? Were they alone?
What about women migrants? As I was walking, I encountered groups of people
in a very stern mood and the moment they saw me as I walked down, they started
making unwelcoming stares. They belonged to different ethnic communities; I
could not ascertain their identity at that moment. I became alerted and sensed that
something went wrong. I put my head down and walked silently in their midst as I
heard some of the guys talking to each other in their dialect. It was only in the
afternoon when I asked around what happened in the locality they told me that a
serious fight broke out between two ethnic groups in which one of them was
seriously injured and needed treatment at Intensive Care Unit (ICU) in one of the
hospitals. Throughout the night there was search and counter-search between the
communities inside the locality. Therefore, in addition to the fear from the host
residents, there were also certain level of fear for violence due to infighting and
brawls between ethnic migrants from the Northeast that are sometimes witnessed
especially on weekends.
The everyday life of the migrants became more precarious and dangerous
particularly for female migrants who have to travel alone even late at night due to
the nature of their work. There was nothing much they could do but only to
remain alert, careful and cautious. They had no choice but to face these challenges
as navigating alone in the night becomes their daily routine. The persistent
apprehension that I felt as a result of situations, such as a target for violence,
prompted me to take careful decision on my movement around the locality. I
would not deny that as I became more concerned with my safety, the pace and
flow of my research was badly affected. I had to cancel some of the appointments
I had made for interviews which gave a very bad impression as some of them had
even cancelled their own prior appointments for my sake. Given their limited free
time, it was a big sacrifice they had to make.
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Congested Rooms and the Struggle for Space
As housing is expensive in Delhi, the migrants shared rooms with others who may
be their siblings, close relative or friends to decrease the burden of high rent. In
most cases, the rooms were congested as three or more persons would share a
single room. The rooms were overcrowded leading to absence of privacy.
However, the migrants seem to adjust well to the situation as they had no other
options. At the same time, since the migrants had different work shifts, they
hardly stay in their rooms together except on common holidays. For instance, if
one of them had afternoon shifts, another one would have night shifts and vice-
versa. So their sleeping time and eating schedule, their departure for work and
arrival were different. In this way, they did not mind sharing congested room
though there were certain difficulties they had to face.
The high expenditures and relatively low income also forced the migrants to share
accommodation with others. By sharing accommodation, the migrants could
maximise their savings. They cannot afford more rooms which will ultimately
affect their remittances back home. Sharing accommodation was therefore crucial
for the migrants to survive in the city. This was particularly true among fresh
migrants as they remain jobless for certain period of time since their arrival in the
city. During this lean period and with limited financial help from home, staying
together with friends and relatives becomes necessary to minimise expenditures
and also receive assistance from friends while they look out for jobs.
On account of this shared accommodation, I faced hurdles while conducting

interviews, especially when the other roommates were present, which made the
respondent hesitant to reveal the truth as some questions were related to their
economic status, their monthly income, and their lifestyles. I could sense their
reservations in expressing their true narratives. The situation made it impossible
to obtain free and frank information and the presence of other members made the
interviewee to give out stereotyped replies – ones which the interviewee felt
enjoyed the sanction of the imposing other members and thereby hiding away
their true feelings. Because of such experiences, I decided to find a place where I
could have uninterrupted conversations such as parks and other public spaces.
However, these public places were not even safe for me and my respondents,
particularly when the interviews were conducted at night. For instance, on one
occasion, I and my respondent decided to conduct the interview in a small open
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space below an over-bridge that also served as a park in the locality. As we were
having a conversation and when the interaction was pacing up, I saw few guys
coming towards us and started creating noises and unnecessary attention. My
respondent started showing her discomfort and became restless. I knew that if we
stayed longer, it can turn ugly so I have to abort the interview for our own safety.
Finding a proper place for an uninterrupted interview was a challenge in a shared

accommodation. Parks, ethnic stores and rooftops of buildings were mostly used
for conducting interviews in absence of proper places to conduct the same. Most
of the times, I used amusement parks to meet and talk to the migrants. These
places were fine as far as the respondents were male, even if it was late night.
However, when it comes to female respondents, certain issues might arise. For
instance, sitting together in the park at night with a female was uncomfortable as
there were also other people, particularly the locals, who visited the park as well.
The stares we received and the unintelligible talks we heard from the locals
elucidates their unaccepting attitude towards us sitting together and talking in
such a place. I tried avoiding conducting interviews at night but the migrants
working hours, which made them reach home at night, gave me no other option
but to adjust to the situations and be careful as far as possible.
However, most of the times, I had fruitful observations and insights while
navigating through the field site at night. In one instance, I came back after an
interview around quarter to three in the morning. By the time I reached my friends
place where I had to stay for the night, all of them had left for their work and they
forgot to leave the key. So I had to call up another friend in the same locality. I
asked him if I can sleep for the night. He told me their room is quite small but I
can fit in. As I entered the room, I saw three of them sleeping together in a small
congested room and another roommate will be back shortly from work. I managed
to find small space on the floor enough for my body to lie down. As it was
summer, the migrants usually prefer to sleep on the floor as it was much cooler.
When I woke up, two of them had left for work and another one had joined us
already on the floor. Three or four migrants occupying small rooms was a
deliberate coping strategy to get rid of the burden of higher rent fees. In this way,
they could save more money to be sent home. In fact, such experience provided
me with insights on the migrants’ stressful work life, absence of social life and
their saving strategies to help their family at home through remittances in a
clearer picture.
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Finding and Mingling with Migrants
The migrants were engaged in various jobs with varying work routines. Those
migrants working in call centres serving European and American customers had a
completely reverse daily life cycle because of the different time zones. They had
limited time for any other work as they came back tired and weary after work.
Tiredness and fatigue made the migrants unwilling for any engagement and to
socialise with others on their working days. They wouldn’t want to spend their
free hours at home doing hard work or going out unless it was necessary. This
mental stress seems to be heavier among migrants working in retails and hotels
because of their long working hours. For instance, they were not allowed to rest or
sit during their working hours except for lunch break. The tough workload made
them stressful and fatigued. Therefore, the migrants preferred to have a calm and
uninterrupted space free from any serious engagement during their free hours at
home. The only day I could meet them with enough time was on their holidays
and that too after prior appointments. Due to their rigorous work, the migrants
would spare their holidays to fulfill their basic and urgent necessities. They had
many things to execute on holidays such as visiting banks, buying groceries,
visiting sick friends or relatives, spending some time with their friends, go for
shopping and eating together and so on. The days were spent in fulfilling these
duties. Therefore, it was mostly in the evening that one can observe their presence
around the neighbourhood.
Social life and activities among the migrants seems visible more frequently by the
evening especially during summer. On many occasions, I came across migrants
telling me how they would love to spend the evenings outside their stuffed rented
rooms to relax and to beat the heat and the boredom. Since the migrants, due to
their little income, couldn’t afford to possess air conditioner, the best way to beat
the heat was to get out of their rooms into the open spaces. Therefore, in most of
the localities migrants came out during evening hours where they went for a walk,
chat in the park and even played sports. In one of the localities, I found that the
migrants played volleyball around mid-night which goes till early morning to beat
the heat, to relax and also to mingle with their own co-ethnic members. They were
just few boys at the beginning which eventually turned into a large crowd after
few weeks. Later on, even women teams were formed and informal betting was
also done. Slowly the volleyball match became their favourite way of beating the
heat, boredom and also meeting each other.
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I also formed a team with some of the migrants and joined the competition. Since
I was new to the locality I heard some girls whispering about me and why I was
there with them. Some of them who had known me told them that I was doing
fieldwork in Delhi. Through participation in the game, I met new friends,
observed them and even contacted them for interviews. It was after seeing their
night life it came to my understanding how I could hardly find people during day
time even on holidays. For example, the call centre employees arrived home early
in the morning which makes them spend the rest of the day asleep. They would
wake up in the late afternoon, get ready for their cab which would pick them up at
a stipulated time. They couldn’t miss the service cab as their workplaces were
very far from their residence.
At another place, migrants were seen playing badminton in the park at night. Even
community prayer services in various localities were conducted late in the
evening around 10 p.m. as most of the members returned home late from work or
were free only during this time of the day. The migrants would come out and visit
ethnic stores after dinner where they would also find their co-migrants; they
would spend some time together, drink tea and chat for a while before they
withdrew to their own respective rooms. Some of them would visit the ethnic
stores to have zarda pan (mixture of tobacco and betel nut for chewing) which
was very popular among the migrants. They would even pack extra pieces to be
consumed later at night. However, I am not trying to argue here that there were no
activities and life during daytime among the migrants. The migrants, in fact, came
out every day to fulfill basic necessities during day time. What I want to argue
here is that due to the nature of their work, the daily interactions and group
activities of the migrants within neighbourhoods tends to revolve regularly in the
evenings and sometimes at night.
Festival, Dress and the Church
Migration to Delhi even at this age of instant communication and cheap travel is
still a traumatising experience for the migrants as they become strangers in a new
destination with loss of familiar sounds, sights and smells. The expectations of
familial and friends support, communicating in native dialect and other social life
and expectations enjoyed at home were no longer taken for granted. The migrants
seek to create their own communities as they were separated from family and
friends, isolated from their old and familiar socio-cultural institutions. They,
therefore, try to preserve their cultural practices and maintain their individual as
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well as group life. Collective celebrations of socio-cultural events and festivities

involving community participations are a reminder to their identity and cultural
heritage.
One very prominent marker of cultural expression and identity formation was the
dress. Wearing ethnic attires on special occasions such as the festivals were
highly visible among the migrants in Delhi. The Chavang Kut, a post-harvest
festival, represents an important cultural expression among the migrants which is
usually celebrated in autumn. The celebration of Chavang Kut in Delhi involves
multiple events such as outdoor games and sports competitions, cultural dance,
singings, speeches and talent shows, and so on. Traditional dances performed by
various cultural troupes and performances by leading artistes from the community
invited from home were the main attractions of the event. At the sideline, a
display-cum-sales shop is also opened where various traditional items such as
handicrafts and shawls and compiled booklets of selected folklore written in local
dialect were also made available. However, the most awaited and anticipated
component of this festival was the donning of the traditional attire. Every
participant would make to the event with fully dressed traditional attire or at least
with some traces of traditions on their body. Even the organisers would give
advisory on the dressing code for this day. The migrants made it very important to
attend this event and some even took leave from work to attend this event. One of
them told me, ‘I asked my mother at home to send me one Saipikhup ponve
(female traditional sarong) to wear on the Chavang Kut day. It’s a big event we
have been waiting for so long. It tells us who we are and where we come from’.
The church was another important site where social life could also be observed.
Praying and worshiping together in their native dialect provided the migrants with
emotional connection to home as the feeling of lost was immensely felt in the new
destination. I could see the migrants going to church regularly on Sundays in spite
of their hectic and tiring working days. Some would even travel long distance,
sometimes an hour, to attend the church service using various means of transports
such as the Delhi Metro, auto-rickshaw and public buses. Migrants from far
localities would hire a bus on Sunday so that they could attend the church service
and come back home together in group. Sunday was mostly spent away on church
related activities. The separation from family, relatives, friends and community
was hard which often leads to search for emotional stability, new friends and new
connections. Fellowship with co-ethnic members was important to cope with this
problem. The church performed this crucial role in making these connections. In
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fact, their participation and attendance in the church services provided them the
opportunities to fill the psychological void it created and at the same time created
a sense of belonging to the new place. It was important for them to go to church,
sing and pray with their co-ethnic members. They felt homely as they could sing
their own ethnic songs, listen to sermons in their own dialect and ensure
conversations with friends after the service over a cup of tea. All these factors
made Sunday one of the most awaited days for the migrants.
Moreover, their desire and motivation to own a church and participate in the
church activities was not because of the simple need for ethnic fellowship but also
by a powerful desire to promote and preserve their identity and culture. A very
important marker of this ethnic consciousness was the public visibility of their
ethnic attires which was very much evident from the dress of the women
migrants. Female migrants simply wouldn’t go to the church without wearing the
traditional sarong. It was an interesting moment to see these church goers in their
beautiful traditional attires. Sometimes it looked like they were competing for the
best traditional attire. In fact, the church not only provided spiritual needs of the
migrants but also performed social and cultural roles and helped the migrants to
create a sense of belonging.
Living at the Edge
There were migrants in a particular profession who seemed to be invisible in

public spaces. Since the first phase of my fieldwork, it was a big challenge to find
migrants working in ‘body spa’, a professional service which deals in body
massage, foot massage, head massage, back massage and so on, though I heard
that fairly a number of them were engaged in this profession. That made me spend
much time in trying to understand this complex question. Migrants working in
this profession were labeled poorly by the other members of the group. They were
thought to earn ‘easy’ money and the profession was in itself found inappropriate
and seen as ‘dirty’ by many others. On account of this stigma, migrants working
in this profession camouflaged themselves as working in call centres, restaurant,
beauty parlours or salon just to hide their identity.
But somehow I managed to establish contacts with them in the latter part of the
fieldwork. It happened that some of them who had agreed for an interview did so
because they were curious about my research. There were times when they knew
that I was seeking information from them and that I may not be useful to them in
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any concrete way, the interview got disrupted or could not be completed. It was
possible that they were suspicious of the data and information that I collect from
them as some of the questions were personal and more so because I belong to the
same community. There were some who were very much willing to talk and share
their life. They shared with me about their status in the society and how they
would like to see people to understand their work not as something dirty or
immoral. They told me how people should not judge everyone who works in this
profession as being dirty or immoral just because of some negative comments
somewhere.
I spent a lot to time at the ethnic stores located in various localities and
neighbourhoods. At these stores, the migrants would halt to buy their needs on
their way back home from work or as they go to their work place. That way I got
to know them and sometimes I managed to talk to them. One fine evening, a lady
was returning from work and made a stop at the ethnic store as the owner of the
store was her good friend. The owner offered her a chair and we all sat together,
joking and laughing. After a while I asked her about her work and how is her life
in Delhi and so on in a very informal way. She said she worked in a beauty salon.
Since I hadn’t interviewed anyone working in a beauty salon till that time, I was
very keen to talk. As I started enquiring when she can be free and if I can get her
interviewed, she suddenly stood up and left the store. I was shocked and I felt
very sorry. I asked the owner of the store what went wrong as she told me that
‘maybe she didn’t like to talk about her work and you know why’; only then did I
realise that it was probably because she was working in this particular profession.
In this way, migrants camouflaged themselves as they navigated their life in the
city. They would draw themselves into their own confines and avoid public life as
much as they can. They would instead form a circle of friends to mingle and share
their issues and problems together. Some would even avoid attending prayer
services and church programmes. In fact, it tells their existence at the edges of the
society they were part of. The stigma and image they received from their peers
and members of their group forbids them to have a normal life. However, in spite
of the bad images from others, their work is very crucial for them. They were
supporting their families back home by sending remittances every month, they
were taking care of the medical expenses of their sick parents, education of their
younger siblings, buying properties for the family, and so on. From their
narratives it was found that these migrants were very hard working with
tremendous obligation towards the financial support of the families back home.
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Some of them even complained about fatigue and mental stress because of the
hard working conditions. They would like to change their job because of its hard
labour-intensive character but this job provides them with enough salaries to look
after themselves and their families back home.
Conclusion
The paper highlights the experiences and encounters I faced in the field site. I
tried to understand the life of the migrants through these accounts and narratives.
One important argument is that the social life and friendships among the migrants
were mostly carried out in the evening or at night, making life at night an
indispensable part of the migrants’ life in the city which can be attributed to the
nature of their work. The paper also shows how race and racism shapes everyday
experiences of the fieldworker and the migrant communities in the city. While the
sense of fear of conducting research in a city characterised by hatred and violence
was felt immensely, this feeling of vulnerability helped me grasp certain realities
of the field better. By truly engaging with the migrants, I was able to position
myself to understand certain realities and experiences of the migrants in a deeper
sense.
The racial, socio-cultural and ethnic distinctiveness made the migrants extremely
difficult to associate with the host residents. The various discriminations bring
frustrations and a sense of alienation, which in fact creates wider gap between the
migrants and the host members, making regular interaction difficult. In fact, these
sense of frustrations and alienations led the migrants to question their citizenship
and belonging in the city. The feeling of ‘strangerness’ and fear of discriminations
was constantly there at the back of my mind which in a way hampers the smooth
flow of the fieldwork. In other words, ethnographic fieldwork is a time of intense
unpredictability and vulnerability especially for young and fresh scholars
conducting fieldwork in a place characterised by hatred and discrimination.
By observing the lived experiences of the migrants and by witnessing the

everyday life and the challenges they encountered, I was able to discern meanings
from it and draw better pictures of their life. My physical proximity combined
with persistent anxiety to gain knowledge about the field and the people I studied
allowed me to gather raw materials in a very substantial manner. I was able to
interpret the experiences of the migrants, their feelings and the way they interpret
these meanings. By truly engaging on the everyday practices of the migrants, I
130
e xplorations
was able to analyse various meanings from these activities and also explore
hidden meanings which otherwise might remain unknown.
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e xplorations
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Email id: [email protected]
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Vol. 5 (1), April 2021 E-journal of the Indian Sociological Society

Article: Ethnography among Migrants in a City: Field Experiences in Delhi

Vol. 5 (1), April 2021 E-journal of the Indian Sociological Society