Abstract
In this methodological paper, field and archival data standing in a dialectical relationship in the wider context of the contributions and limitations of the subaltern school of history in India and the recent methodological innovations of anthropologists towards multi-sited ethnography have been viewed. 1 Accordingly, the complementary role of archival materials and field observations, in the form of a multi-sited ethnography, has been explored. Methodologically, the description revealed the pluralism of anthropology. At the theoretical level, society and culture existed not only in space but also through time, and what has been in the field could be related with the records which human beings preserved, used and manipulated in the archives. It is concluded that ‘field’ and ‘archive’ were cultural artefacts and their underlying unity could be discovered by placing them in a broader context of policy and politics.
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