Entering the "Field": Challenges of conducting fieldwork in an infertility clinic.

Abstract

Carrying out fieldwork in private infertility clinics poses its own specific set of challenges. Gaining access to these field sites not only obliges researchers to negotiate with gatekeepers but also to deal with structures of hierarchy and power. Based on my preliminary fieldwork in Lucknow city of Uttar Pradesh, I discuss the challenges of conducting fieldwork in infertility clinics and how methodological challenges push the researcher to question the academically established notions of the "field", "fieldwork" and "research ethics". The paper stresses the importance of discussing the challenges of doing fieldwork in private health setups and is an attempt to answer vital questions about the nature of fieldwork, how the fieldwork was conducted, and the need to include questions and dilemmas that anthropologists might face in the process of making decisions in the field.