Encountering, interrogating and realising the self: Managing emotional upheavals and break-downs during development fieldwork

In February 2013, I embarked on a field study with my colleagues at a NGO to understand and examine unjust and unlawful land acquisitions by private mining companies in the tribal belt of Raigarh in Chattisgarh during the last one decade. The experience was an emotionally shattering one for me and I decided to quit my research job at the NGO which involved working with highly vulnerable groups, and move full time into the academia where I would spend more time teaching. It was a journey of self-realisation which showed me that I needed more time and strength to face despair day after day and to prepare myself better for dealing with an unjust world where harsh realities stare you in the face when you enter the field, writes Kanchan Gandhi.