Ghosts of researchers past, present and future in Mumbai

Button, C

doi:10.4324/9781003099291

Ghosts of researchers past, present and future in Mumbai

Lookup NU author(s): Dr Cat Button ORCiD

Downloads

Accepted version [.pdf]

Licence

This is the authors' accepted manuscript of a book chapter that has been published in its final definitive form by Routledge, 2022.

For re-use rights please refer to the publisher's terms and conditions.

Abstract

We are all ghosts to other researchers, and sometimes we even haunt ourselves. Certain places attract high concentrations of research and Mumbai is one such place with many past, present and future researchers. The traces of previous researchers are seen in the literature and their echoes were felt during this fieldwork whilst researching middle class housing and environmental initiatives. Encounters with past researchers can change the behaviour of respondents, making the process easier, harder, or just different. Mumbai has so many researchers that others were physically present during data collection. The ghosts of these researchers emerge in data analysis and writings. The ghosts of future researchers are also present in how we collect data as responsible researchers and how we write about places. This chapter has two objectives: Firstly, to analyse encounters with other researchers (past present and future) in Mumbai and consider the effect on both respondents and data; secondly, to take a reflexive view of what these encounters are doing to the urban studies discourses produced. We are all in flux and cycle between positions of past, present and future researcher, and this chapter calls for acknowledgement of these complexities in our approaches to proposing, undertaking and presenting our research.