Narratives of Violence and Gendered Experience: Notes on Methodology

This paper draws on the methodology of my doctoral research that looked into the gendered
aspects of the conflict in southeast Bangladesh and explored the gender specific implications of
violence as well as examining the gendered embodiments of the Jumma nationalist project. In this
paper, I endeavour to introduce my analytical approach that challenges the idea of objectivity,
stresses the need for the researcher’s engagement with the research topic and participants, and
asserts that the researcher’s subjective position has facilitated the research process, allowing me
to access data on gendered violence in the conflict zone. I argue further that for an understanding
of gendered aspects of armed conflict and indigenous women’s subjectivity in gendered violence
in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, we need to employ knowledge of both radical and deconstructive
feminism. In doing so, I stress on the one hand the need for a continuous redrawing and
redesigning of methodological approaches in the social sciences; and on the other I emphasise
the need for a social science research ‘with a heart and emotions as well as a mind’ (Stanley,
2003:4).