Introduction

This chapter brings together key reflexive insights from two research studies – both attempting to research children’s experience in sensitive contexts. The first research context is that of Budhwar Peth, a red-light area in India where I conducted research with the children of sex workers to understand their lifeworlds. The second research context is that of Indian-administered Kashmir, where I studied children’s everyday experiences of conflict and resistance.

In the South Asian context, childhoods are multivariate and the extent of children’s vulnerability is decided by their position on the axis of social identity. However, much of the available literature is written in the context of childhoods in the Global North. Yet there is an epistemic difference in the way childhoods are experienced in most South Asian countries. For instance, most of the methods I read about required children to express themselves through their art or stories. However, in a context where statements like ‘Badon ke beech mein bache nahi bolte’ [Kids shouldn’t speak when adults are talking to each other] are a part of the cultural norm, children’s voices are inevitably invisibilised. During my research in Kashmir, most of the children expressed that it was the first time in their lives that an adult had asked their opinion on political matters. Questions of privacy, space, dignity, and identity also have a different ontological construct in South Asia. Often young children in developing nations and from deprived backgrounds reflect the kind of emotional maturity that is expected of an adult or take up adult roles and responsibilities such as childcare for younger siblings and labour for contributing to family income.

As a researcher, stepping in to the environment of a red-light area to conduct my research was not only a question of my own safety as a woman, but also it was loaded with notions of societal morality. During my research process in Budhwar Peth, I was not able to tell my parents about where I was conducting my thesis project. I only told them after graduating. In the society that I come from, I would face opposition due to the stigma attached to the identity of a sex worker in mainstream India.