Remapping trans-Himalayan studies in the digital domain during the COVID-19 pandemic: Constraint-based innovation,multimodality and the way of knowing

Abstract

This article offers a critical reflection on the adaptive reconfiguration of my South Asian Studies-based PhD project into a multimodal and collaborative endeavour in response to the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Challenging the binary narrative that constraint-based methodological innovations are merely reactive measures to restore research projects to their pre-pandemic state, this paper posits that such innovations are integral, yet often overlooked, elements of social dynamics and relationships in Asian contexts. These innovations call for heightened attention, action and emotion that are typically marginalised in what is perceived as normalcy. The paper begins by contextualising my positionality, PhD project and fieldwork within the broader discourse on remapping Asian Studies, multimodal research and constraint-based innovation. Following this, I explore my interactions with Jade and her transnational charity group, describing how I conducted remote, virtual ethnography within this virtual community. This methodological shift is then discussed, with a focus on how it contributes to alternative, decolonial approaches to knowledge production in Asian Studies. The paper concludes by advocating for constraint-based innovation as a vital method of knowing diverse social and cultural experiences at the grassroots level.

Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic, an unforeseen and unprecedented event, has profoundly impacted research methodologies and trajectories, particularly for fieldwork-dependent disciplines. This disruption was vividly experienced in early 2020 when I was engaged in my in-person fieldwork in Nepal for my doctoral project. My research, situated within the framework of Nepali Studies, aimed to explore the intricacies of the Chinese diaspora’s everyday life in the Himalayan nation as a way to decolonise the relevant academic bodies and Asian Studies in general. My methodology, rooted in qualitative traditions, involved participatory observation and semi-structured interviews to explore the nuances of daily experiences, emotions, interpersonal relationships and spatial interactions. However, the sudden imposition of a national lockdown by the Nepali government in March 2020, a response to the escalating pandemic, rendered my on-site, face-to-face fieldwork, which had just surpassed its halfway point, virtually impossible. The restrictions on physical movement instigated a period of prolonged societal immobility across the country, fundamentally altering the feasibility of my original research approach.

Compelled by concerns over health risks expressed by my family and supervisor, I withdrew from my fieldwork site and returned to London in April 2020. This transition necessitated a re-evaluation of my research methods, leading me to increasingly rely on digital technologies to maintain the momentum of my project. This shift raised several critical questions for me as a junior scholar in Area Studies, a field that traditionally relies heavily on empirical, on-site research to gain a deep understanding of local social, cultural and spatial dynamics. Undoubtedly, the questions and challenges I faced are not unique to my research. As Howlett (2022, p. 12) aptly notes, the global pandemic has relegated researchers to ‘armchair’ methodologies, compelling them to adopt innovative methods for conducting research from their homes. Preceding the COVID-19 pandemic, digital and other remote qualitative methods were well-established (Cachia & Millward, 2011; Carter, 2004; Hartelius, 2020; Hine, 2000; Shogan, 2010). There is a growing consensus among scholars that the dichotomy between online and offline, or virtual and physical communities, is increasingly ambiguous (Hallett & Barber, 2014; Matei & Ball-Rokeach, 2001). The pandemic-induced restrictions have catalysed a re-evaluation of methodological practices, integrating physical and virtual spaces through tools like video conferencing, mobile messaging, remote participatory methods, video-call ethnography and telephone interviews (Góralska, 2020; J. Hall et al., 2021; Howlett, 2022; Madziva & Chinouya, 2022; Watson & Lupton, 2022). Current literature not only examines the efficacy of these novel, digital approaches but also delves into their ethical and epistemological dimensions (Konken & Howlett, 2023; MacLean et al., 2021; Zuberi, 2022). This body of work challenges the traditional perception of fieldwork as geographically bound and distant (Eggeling, 2023, p. 1345). In Area Studies, scholars like Vainio and Pendleton (2023, p. 253) argue that digital technologies can complement traditional field methods, maintaining the essence of ‘being there’.

This article addresses how I adapted my ethnographic study on the transculturation and mobility of diverse Asian actors during a period marked by immobility. It builds on and extents existing literature by detailing my transition from a long-term, on-site ethnographic study in Nepal to a digital, remote approach, epitomising constraint-based innovation. Instead of striving to circumvent the limitations imposed by the pandemic, I adopted a multimodal approach, pivoting around these challenges. I will illustrate this by discussing my collaboration with Jade (a pseudonym) and her innovative online transnational charity network, formed during the pandemic to assist Nepal’s homeless. This collaboration facilitated my engagement in long-term, collaborative virtual ethnography across unconventional fields. By analysing multimodal research and constraint-based methodological innovation, I challenge the binary narrative that methodological changes during crises are merely reactive and forced. Instead, I argue that such innovations are an integral yet often overlooked aspect of social dynamics and relationships in Asian contexts, demanding a heightened level of attention, action and emotion, and the capture of these local experiences are crucial to remap Asian Studies.

The forthcoming sections detail the multimodal innovations I integrated into my fieldwork, exploring their dialectical relations with my research project, conceptualisation of constraint-based methodological innovations and remapping Asian Studies organically. First, I will elaborate on my positionality as a Chinese South Asianist, the context and agenda of my PhD project, and their intersection with the COVID-19 pandemic with the broader discourses on remapping Asian Studies, constraint-based methodological innovation and multimodal research. Following this, I investigate my interaction with Jade’s online charity group and outline the transition to conducting remote, virtual ethnography. Subsequently, I analyse this methodological shift, emphasising its contribution to alternative, decolonial knowledge production in Asian Studies. In conclusion, based on the analysis of constraint-based innovation as significance of as a way of knowing, I reflect on the trinity of positionality, method and research agenda in production of knowledge of Global Asian Studies.

Positionality, remapping Asian Studies and situated COVID-19

My doctoral research, conducted from 2018 to 2023, is encapsulated under the title ‘An Experiment in New Nepali Studies: Decoloni-sation, Transculturation, and Everyday Life between (and beyond) Nepal and China’. This project aims to explore the potential contours of Global Nepali Studies, a nascent academic field and by conceptualising so, questions for whom this body of knowledge might be reshaped, and how. It posits that the current academic discourse of Nepali Studies, with its predominantly Western-centric, nation-state-affiliated characteristics, often fails to serve the diverse needs of local actors.

My interest in undertaking a project in South Asian Studies, with a particular focus on the Chinese presence, has been profoundly influenced by my identity as a Chinese scholar specialising in South Asian studies. Race, along with other social constructs such as gender, religion and ethnicity, has played a significant role in shaping Asian studies (Bridges et al., 2022). The marginalised experiences of researchers highlight the persistent barriers faced by non-Western scholars in Area Studies who seek to explore regions outside their places of origin (Bandeh-Ahmadi & Alonso, 2022). These barriers are not merely misunderstandings but are embedded within the globally asymmetrical structures of knowledge production, where non-Western researchers are often relegated to the role of native informants.

As a Han Chinese male born and raised on mainland China, I embarked on my career in South Asian Studies initially by learning Hindi in China. Subsequently, I pivoted towards the Nepali language, society and culture during my Master’s programme in the UK. This significant shift was driven by a desire to decolonise, although it was paradoxically entangled with the very coloniality it aimed to critique. My graduation coincided with a period when China began to develop its own Area Studies projects, and I was privileged to receive a governmental scholarship for a Master’s programme in London, focusing on learning the Nepali language. It was presumed that my proficiency in Hindi would facilitate the acquisition of another South Asian language. A year later, I opted to pursue a Ph.D. at the same university without the governmental scholarship. Reflecting on my decision to investigate Chinese presence in Nepal, it seems both natural and inevitable. At that time, the vast array of disciplinary theories remained foreign to me, and my connections to China – primarily the convenience of communicating with other Chinese actors in Nepal – became the sole foundation I could rely upon. This reliance obscured other significant issues that could compromise my dissertation, such as the relevance of a project focused predominantly on Chinese individuals to the field of South Asian Studies. From the inception of my project, through my viva and into the job market, I have repeatedly faced questions challenging the validity of my research focus within South Asian Studies. Each time, I have had to devise theories and methods to defend my research interests and position. In this way, my project has consistently been constrained, requiring continuous constraint-based innovation to navigate these limitations, even before the disruptions caused by the pandemic.

Frankly, when I initially designed my research proposal, the robust concepts of decolonisation and transculturation were not included. The integration of these frameworks as guiding theories in my thesis paralleled my efforts to justify the project’s relevance. However, this alignment was not merely a reluctant entanglement prompted by the necessity to validate my role and my project within South Asian Studies. Rather, it emerged coherently and mutually informed, liberating my research subjects from the confines of methodological nationalism (see Wimmer & Schiller, 2002), and focusing on the diverse transnational flows that cross and reshape Nepal’s borders, rather than static roots (Jivraj et al., 2020). This approach reflects broader efforts to decolonise Asian Studies and Area Studies at large, engaging with the ongoing debates on the future directions of Area Studies in its afterlife (Harootunian & Miyoshi, 2002). Furthermore, the need to decolonise and remap Area Studies necessitates a methodological approach to ‘discern global patterns of power concerning the issues’ (Günel & Watanabe, 2024), which reveals different modes of knowledge production. Thus, my responses to the constraints imposed by my identities, backgrounds and the global asymmetrical production of regional knowledge are not merely reactive; they are integral to and coherent with the entire system.

The concept of Area Studies is subject to fluid interpretations across different academic contexts. Predominantly, definitions highlight its role in perpetuating colonial paradigms by promising to deliver ‘psycho-cultural profiles of the world’s peoples’ (Child & Barnes, 2019, p. 44), thereby enabling a theoretical West to produce knowledge about the empirical Rest (Mérieau, 2020). Specifically, the field of Asian Studies, which has evolved significantly since the Second World War, is replete with narratives prescribing modernisation for Asian actors, often modelled on Western benchmarks (Sato & Sonoda, 2021).

However, the spaces and tools of colonisation can be repurposed for decolonial ends if we acknowledge the affinities, affiliations and productive differences that are inherently present yet often obscured (Bhagat-Kennedy, 2018). This perspective treats transnational peripheral knowledge not merely as raw materials but as foundational in establishing theoretical and methodological frameworks (Jivraj et al., 2020). Scholars advocating for the remapping of Asian Studies emphasise the importance of valorising and legitimising the agency, subjectivity and knowledge production capacities of traditionally marginalised agents (Houben et al., 2020). More specifically, decolonising and remapping Asian Studies necessitates acknowledging the instability of cultural signification (Bhabha, 1994), and recognising the multi-routed trajectories of cultures rather than their origins. This approach involves an intricate articulation and intentional disassembling of cultural formations, viewing them as epistemes in formation (S. Hall, 1995). Specifically, research should explore ‘the role played by capitalism globally and [the] relationship between the experience of everydayness’ (Harootunian, 1999, p. 146).

Drawing on the collective insights and individual reflections of scholars in Area Studies and Asian Studies, I have embarked on a mission to decolonise the study of the trans-Himalayan regions, which span the sovereign territories of Nepal and China. My approach eschews the traditional focus on national narratives, instead emphasising the local, trans-regional dynamics involving heterogeneous actors. This shift enables an exploration of their alternative histories, subjectivities, agencies and cultural expressions within global transcultural processes. My intent is to move beyond the conventional ‘fossil’, ‘interface’ and ‘Shangri-la’ models of knowledge production about this region (des Chene, 2017).

By conceptualising a Global Nepali Studies framework that examines its entanglements with other global and trans-regional actors – predominantly Chinese in my thesis – my project underscores the nature of interdependencies among Asian regions (Sato, 2020) and highlights trans-local experiences. This app-roach contributes to contemporary debates in Global Asian Studies by repositioning the focus, testing new methodologies (Sato & Sonoda, 2021) and problematising the notion of unfragmented compassion among Asian regions (Bridges et al., 2022).

Despite my intentions to collect diverse, grounded experiences, my initial fieldwork plan and methods were not fundamentally different from those of the scholars I sought to engage in dialogue with. I had planned a multi-site (centred in Kathmandu), long-term (1 year), in-person fieldwork in Nepal among Chinese communities established in various spaces such as tourist agencies, hotels, shops, restaurants and expatriate compounds. My methodology primarily involved participant observation and semi-/un-structured interviews to facilitate empirical fieldwork. With these plans documented and approved by my university’s Doctoral School, I commenced my fieldwork in Kathmandu, Nepal, in September 2019.

In the original research design, digital techniques were incorporated but were limited to consulting online cultural products, like travelogues written and circulated online by contemporary Chinese tourists, as material-semiotic representations. At that juncture, I perceived the online virtual world as largely dependent on and a reflection of the physical world. Hence, during my approximately 6-month empirical fieldwork, I focused mainly on engaging in in-person activities, diversifying my contact pool, securing research permissions and building rapport. This period of fieldwork progressed steadily, aligning with my initial plan. I managed to interact with various actors within their own contexts, acquiring empirical experience for situational analysis. This approach facilitated an in-depth exploration of relationships, behaviours and event processes within diverse social and natural settings, yielding a nuanced understanding of the interplay between phenomena, people and meaning (Shank, 2006).

Even before the pandemic struck, my fieldwork in the Nepal-China contact zone presented numerous unforeseen, on-ground situations that starkly contrasted with my initial armchair assumptions in my London-based office. These unexpected developments served as constant reminders of the critical and often inevitable role of improvisation and constraint-based innovation in grassroots, on-the-ground and asymmetric transnational cultural contexts. In recent years, the discourse on constraint-based innovation has garnered considerable attention in both academia, particularly in entre-preneurship studies, and industry (Agarwal et al., 2017, 2021; Ananthram & Chan, 2021; Kaur, 2016; Molina-Maturano et al., 2020; Prabhu & Jain, 2015; Radjou et al., 2012). As a multifaceted conceptual framework, constraint-based innovation encompasses various nuanced approaches, including frugal innovation, grassroots innovation, jugaad and resource-constrai-ned innovation (Agarwal et al., 2017). These strategies are commonly characterised by their potential to foster sustainable development while addressing the needs of the larger population at the Bottom of the Pyramid globally (Molina-Maturano et al., 2020). Agarwal et al. (2021) succinctly describe them as ‘products that creatively utilize often-limited resources to deliver high-quality, affordable solutions to target customers’.

The South Asia-originated concept of jugaad, extensively explored by Radjou et al. (2012), has emerged as one of the most notable constraint-based innovation strategies. Jugaad, derived from Hindi, signifies ‘an innovative fix; an improvised solution born from ingenuity and cleverness’ (Radjou et al., 2012, p. 4). This approach is distinguished by its fluid, non-prescriptive nature, differing significantly from structured, top-down methods (Radjou et al., 2012, p. 196). While rooted in the Indian context, the adoption of similar strategies is prevalent in developing markets and industries across the Global South (Ananthram & Chan, 2021), challenging the North’s dominance in economic, technological, cultural and political innovation.

My empirical experience in the Nepal-China interaction zone revealed that such ‘frugal, flexible, and inclusive’ innovations (Prabhu & Jain, 2015, p. 844) are not confined to the business sector but are intrinsically woven into the everyday lives of local actors, particularly those with limited resources in asymmetrical capitalist systems. These practices are seen as ‘uplifting’ and ‘emancipatory’ (Kaur, 2016, p. 315), enhancing social and transnational mobility. For example, one of the most active yet underrepresented groups among contemporary Chinese actors in Nepal are the daigouers. A daigouer is someone who lives outside China and purchases goods for individuals within China. Martin (2017, p. 905) describes ‘daigou’ as ‘an opportunistic exploitation of temporary gaps’. In a previous article, I document how Chinese daigouers during the pandemic exploited transnational personal networks and transregional opportunities to enhance their social mobility (Yang, 2022). They exhibited frugality and flexibility in their trade, lifestyle and mobility tactics, adeptly navigating constraints in their daily experiences.

My interactions with Chinese daigouers and other actors, particularly their constraint-based tactics, continuously inspired me to rethink how I could learn from their frugal and adaptable tactics. These methods not only represent alternative, legitimate forms of knowledge production and ways of knowing but also align with my objective of decolonising Nepali or Asian Studies, which requires diverse experiences of inter-Asian movements. In the realm of knowledge production, knowhow is deeply interwoven with power dynamics, serving not just as a pathway to knowledge but as a fundamental element in its (re)creation. Various mediators – objects, tools, skills, ideas, bodies and spaces – contribute to the multifaceted nature of knowledge. The ‘materialist’ and ‘social’ aspects of learning are inextricably linked, and learners are actively involved in a continuous process of discovery and knowledge creation (Ingold & Lucas, 2007, p. 288). Thus, when individuals like daigouers creatively navigate everyday constraints by mobilising limited resources and engaging with new technologies, they are not merely replicating existing knowledge but actively and innovatively reconstituting it. Recognising and understanding their tactical approaches, the technologies and social networks they utilise, and their inclusive, flexible nature, is vital to comprehending meaningful knowledge production from their perspective.

However, before I could fully integrate these fieldwork insights into my research, the COVID-19 pandemic emerged and swiftly spread to Nepal in March 2020. On March 23, 2020, the Nepali government, without prior warning, announced a national lockdown effective from 6 am the following day. The nation’s borders were shut, and all international flights were suspended. This drastic measure profoundly affected everyone’s daily life, including the Chinese community in Nepal. With physical movement drastically restricted, most interactions and exchanges transitioned online, predominantly occurring within the chat groups of WeChat, a widely used Chinese social media platform.

Even before the pandemic, online platforms like WeChat were already a dynamic component of the Nepal-China contact zone. These platforms have long been crucial in the tactical innovation of relatively vulnerable and marginalised actors, enabling them to achieve diverse forms of mobility and cultural expression. While scholars like Castells (2020) and Zuberi (2022) have highlighted the issues of digital inequality and questioned the emancipatory narratives of digital spaces, in my case study, the transnational virtual space significantly aided actors like daigouers in overcoming and circumventing many on-ground constraints. However, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, when physical infrastructures were fully operational and terrestrial channels accessible, these virtual trajectories were often perceived as secondary to their physical counterparts.

In April 2024, I returned to my flat in London. Reuniting with my family during the tumultuous pandemic was comforting, yet I was plagued with anxiety about the future of my PhD project. The questions I raised at the outset of this article weighed heavily on me. The unpredictability of when I could resume fieldwork in Nepal, along with the uncertainty of how the situation there might change, was daunting. Moreover, with only two more years to complete my project, time was of the essence. Nevertheless, this period of interruption provided a valuable opportunity to reflect on the methods I had employed over the past 6 months and to reconsider the meanings of ‘area’ and ‘field’ in relation to my mission of decolonising my study.

van Schendel (2002, p. 649) conceptualises ‘area’ at three interconnected levels: as a place, a site of knowledge production and a career machine. This definition aligns with the traditional view in Area Studies where the ‘field’ is a geographically and culturally distinct space, remote from the researcher’s home environment. In this conventional framework, ‘area’ and ‘fieldwork site’ often overlap, with the geographically defined area serving as the locale for collecting local practices, which in turn (re)define the area. Therefore, understanding the place-bound colonial routes, activities and power dynamics through which materials from specific areas are collected, and relevant knowledge is produced and circulated, is crucial to deconstructing the colonial constructs of ‘area.’

Recently, these sites of knowledge production have become increasingly unanchored. As revealed by my in-person fieldwork interactions, in the contemporary Nepal-China contact zone, many inter-Asian actors’ knowledge production activities concerning Nepal and the broader Himalayan region are not always spatially fixed, but operate in heterogeneous, untethered spaces. Here, the boundaries between the physical and virtual worlds are indistinct and fluid. Despite ongoing debates about the role of digital technologies in the knowledge production of areas (Clement, 2016; Miller & Horst, 2020), ground realities suggest that cultural products and expressions circulated in these spaces are not mere semiotic representations of the ‘real’ world. Instead, they are multimodal routes and practices contributing to knowledge construction. In essence, local, Asian actors do not merely learn and live by these cultural products; they interact with them, shaping and being shaped by these multimodal experiences.

Embracing these insights, I resolved to adopt a multimodal research approach to sustain my project amidst the pandemic. My initial anxiety about being unable to immerse myself physically in the field dissipated as I recognised that ‘home’ could also function as a ‘field’ (Konken & Howlett, 2023). This shift towards a multimodal methodology was not a compelled response but rather an agile (Watson & Lupton, 2022), tactical adaptation to the multifaceted nature of the field, aligning with my decolonising mission to foreground the experiences, practices and agencies of Asian local actors. A multimodal research approach is comprehensive in its recognition of diverse ways of knowing and experiencing social phenomena. It advocates for an assortment of tools, practices and concepts to convey these insights (Westmoreland, 2022, p. 174), fostering a more public, collaborative and politically engaged research ethos (Dattatreyan & Marrero-Guillamón, 2019).

In practical terms, I continued to focus on online cultural products such as travelogues and vlogs, as I had done before the pandemic. However, my engagement with these materials evolved from a purely representational and semiotic analysis to an appreciation of them as distinct modes of process, practice and experience. Additionally, I employed remote, digital methods not only to maintain contact with my research subjects but also to transform my role from a detached observer to an active collaborator, working alongside them as epistemic partners (Holmes & Marcus, 2021). In the following section, I will analyse my interaction with Jade’s virtual transnational charity group during and after the pandemic. I will detail the steps I took to conduct virtual, collaborative research within this group, showcasing this approach as an example of my constraint-based, agile, flexible and inclusive research innovation.

Jade and her trans-Himalayan network for merit accumulation

Jade, hailing from Western China, had been living in Kathmandu with her daughter for about 6 years when I first met her during my fieldwork. At that time, she was working for a Sherpas’ trekking firm. In addition to her full-time job, Jade operated a small Chinese language class in Boudhanath, a prominent Tibetan Buddhist centre in Kathmandu. She also volunteered as a Chinese language teacher at a nearby monastery. Despite not being a Buddhist herself, Jade’s extended interactions with Buddhists in Nepal gradually influenced her worldview, leading her to adopt a semi-Buddhist perspective and connecting her with an extensive network of Buddhist followers in China.

During the lockdown, Jade came across a newspaper article about a woman living in a village near Bhadgaon, on the outskirts of Kathmandu, who was suffering from starvation due to the lockdown restrictions. Compelled to help, Jade, together with two other Chinese Buddhists from Boudhanath, decided to donate essential food supplies to this woman. However, when coordinating with the local authorities, they were asked to extend their aid to more individuals in similar situations. This request exceeded Jade’s personal capacity, prompting her to reach out to her Buddhist network in China for support. Consequently, she created a WeChat group to facilitate this effort.

WeChat, which introduced its mobile payment function in 2014, allows users not only to communicate but also to transfer money to one another. Jade’s group, primarily consisting of Chinese Buddhist followers, utilised this platform to raise funds for purchasing food for the villagers. The fundraising process was straightforward: members could send digital Red Pockets containing specific amounts of money. Upon receiving these Red Pockets, Jade could ‘open’ them, transferring the digital funds into her WeChat account. Once the funds were collected, Jade’s next task was to find local agents, often located in places like Thamel, Kathmandu’s emerging Chinatown (Sharma, 2019), to convert the digital RMB into physical Nepali rupees for purchasing the supplies.

Subsequently, Jade was able to raise more than enough funds to provide for the villagers. Intriguingly, the WeChat group continued its operations even after the initial mission was accomplished. Jade had not planned for the group to be a long-term initiative; rather, it was the members themselves who expressed a desire to continue supporting people in Nepal. Their enthusiasm for the project was such that Jade found it necessary to implement rules to limit daily donation amounts to ensure manageable group operations. As of December 2023, the group has grown to 233 members, with about a quarter actively contributing funds on a regular basis. In Nepal, Jade collaborates with local partners, including Tibetan monks and Chinese residents, to sustain this charitable endeavour at a consistent and modest scale, assisting a variety of people in need.

Jade’s informal charity work, when compared to many institutionalised and registered NGOs, is marked by its direct contact and efficient process. Often, requests for aid reach Jade through her local network, or she proactively identifies individuals in need of assistance. She then presents these requests to the group, seeking their input. Funds are typically gathered overnight, and Jade swiftly transfers the money to the local parties involved. She takes her role seriously, respecting the trust the group members have placed in her. She provides daily updates in the group, accounting for each donation received the previous day. Additionally, Jade meticulously requests invoices or receipts for every disbursement and takes photos at donation sites, not only as proof but also to inspire and engage the group members.

The Buddhist religion plays a pivotal role in the group’s operations and democratic dynamics. Most members are devout followers, and even the lay members believe in the merit of helping others as a contribution to their religious journey. When sending digital cash via Red Pockets, many members choose to include auspicious notes, offering prayers for themselves, their families and the world at large. This practice transforms everyday transnational financial transactions into acts of religious significance. Moreover, the group often engages in religious discussions, such as clarifying doctrines and sharing teachings from Rinpoche. In this way, the chat group transcends traditional boundaries, functioning as a transnational, ‘non-institutional’ religious site (Ji, 2006), existing beyond the active regulation of any state.

The rapid emergence of Jade’s transnational charity group in response to the immobility constraints imposed by the pandemic highlights a collective adaptation encompassing various frugal, flexible and inclusive innovations. These innovations, aimed at navigating the transnational asymmetry during a turbulent period, are characterised by creativity, solidarity, cooperation, inclusiveness, democracy, efficiency and compassion. The group’s activities, fuelled by unconventional and decentralised emotional energies akin to ‘emotional petit capitalism’ (Zani, 2019), contrast sharply with rational, explicit, linear and calculated benefits, adding significant complexity to the group’s dynamics. As these new dynamics evolved, they facilitated the discovery of new spaces and interaction trajectories, challenging and redefining various boundaries. This shift allowed for the integration of new technology, motivation, values, agency and concrete agents, fostering novel patterns of trans-Himalayan engagement and problematising the traditionally dominant role of grounded sites in dictating everyday exchanges. In summary, Jade’s transnational charity network exemplifies how Nepali Studies could be re-imagined and reformulated in a decolonising, inclusive and locally rooted manner within virtual, alternative spaces.

Fortuitously, I had the opportunity to interact with Jade’s group since its inception. Their strong sense of collaboration and compassion inspired me to shift my research approach from mere participation to active collaboration, aiming to develop mutually respectful and functional partnerships with individuals within the contexts I sought to understand (Krause et al., 2021). I participated in Jade’s initial offline activity shortly before returning to London and subsequently joined the online chat group for research purposes, after obtaining Jade’s permission. A public announcement of my role as a PhD researcher was made to the group members. I then crafted a personal list outlining several empirical creative possibilities based on my initial interactions in the group, such as exploring its bridging of virtual and physical infrastructures, grassroots transnational networks and the members’ religion-based charity work. My goal was to establish a research collaboration within the group, transforming virtual interactions into tangible experiences. This collaboration was predicated on a mutual understanding of clear and satisfactory expectations, which was relatively straightforward given the group’s well-defined purpose. I openly communicated my research objectives to the group members before commencing my long-term, collaborative research.

In this virtual field, I viewed my environment as an interface of interactions (Waltorp, 2018), remaining mindful of my multiple roles beyond that of a researcher. One straightforward way to engage was through regular monetary donations, made feasible by Jade’s regulation of minimum daily contributions. Additionally, I consistently studied members’ interactions, such as sending Red Pockets, posting memes, sharing Buddhist inspirations, making requests and chatting. I approached these expressions contextually, understanding them as multi-semiotic and functional forms that produce meaning through their interrelations. Actively participating in these interactions, I sought to reposition myself from a distant observer to an engaged interactor, emphasising ‘situated action … the social context and the resources available for meaning making, with attention to people’s situated choice of resources’ (Jewitt, 2013, p. 252).

My engagement within the chat group proved to be intellectually enlightening, epistemologically and practically expanding my fields beyond the confines of the group itself. Embracing multimodality, which recognises communication and representation as encompassing more than just language and involving a variety of meaning-making forms (Jewitt, 2013, p. 251), I discovered numerous alternative fields and practices that had previously been overlooked. This shift offered innovative methods for exploring these emerging fields. These methodological innovations enhanced my understanding of the imaginative and practical uses of remote, digital technologies in Area Studies. This was particularly relevant in addressing issues related to understanding the voices and practices of local, ordinary and even marginalised actors in the construction of knowledge and the collection of pertinent materials. Although unable to interact intimately with individuals in person, remote, digital approaches allowed me to share in their experiences within alternative spaces. Furthermore, these methodological advancements challenged the traditional, place-bound theories of the field, rescuing my project from spatial limitations and enabling a deeper understanding of nuanced experiences, practices and emotions to decolonise established area constructs.

The alternative fields rediscovered during the pandemic were a continuation of my original interest in the representational analysis of online travelogues, vlogs and other cultural expressions and practices. Key questions emerged: How are these expressions processed and practiced? How can the voices, experiences, dilemmas and contradictions of actors be brought to the forefront? How can I challenge official, objectifying narratives, representations and images to collaboratively create counter-narratives? How might the relationship between researcher and researched be renegotiated? By exploring these questions across heterogeneous fields, I aimed to investigate the ‘multiple means of meaning-making’ (Jewitt et al., 2016, p. 2) concerning Nepal and the Himalayas as perceived by various contemporary inter-Asian actors.

Conclusion

The pandemic, in essence, served as a ‘convulsion’ (Xiang, 2021), bringing to light underlying issues often obscured in normal circumstances. My methodological adaptations in response to the immobility constraints posed by the pandemic were not merely reactive, but rather an agile re-evaluation of my methods, positionality and research agenda, allowing me to share the experiences of my fieldwork partners in marginalised and alternative spaces, and to understand constraint-based innovation in Asia as a way of knowing.

The analysis not only demonstrates my methodological innovation in response to the pandemic but also underscores the interconnectedness of methods, positionality and research agendas in my field within Asian Studies. These elements do not exist in isolation; rather, they coalesce to form a coherent trinity of knowledge production. My identity as a Chinese scholar of South Asian Studies, for example, has directed my focus towards the Chinese presence in the region, provoking an identity crisis for both myself and my project. The pursuit of appropriate methodologies to navigate this crisis has prompted a reevaluation of the concepts of ‘area’ and ‘field site’, and a subsequent reconfiguration of my research agenda to remap both Asian Studies and South Asian Studies. Furthermore, my research methods consistently aim to justify my project while adapting to various data collection, analysis and presentation methods that align with the remapping agenda. In this context, multimodal research – viewed as constraint-based innovation – has been a constant element in my research, with the pandemic intensifying this focus, revealing specific issues and opportunities under unique conditions.

Moreover, the decolonising and remapping agenda of my project, though closely linked to my identity crisis, engages more profoundly with recent discourses in Asian Studies, such as using ‘Asia as a method’ (Chen, 2010). These frameworks aim to liberate Asia from colonial, geographically bound and nation-state-dominated narratives. However, these areas require further exploration, particularly in questioning the definitions of ‘Asia’ and ‘Trans-Asia’ and the diverse methodologies they encompass. This exploration is not intended to redefine Asia definitively but to highlight its complex, multifaceted nature, thereby opening up new possibilities for multiple areas and fieldwork sites for scholars. In this process, understanding the everyday constraint-based innovations of ordinary Asian people is crucial, as these innovations are often deployed to achieve a situated, contented life with available resources. Here, knowledge, living and practicing are deeply intertwined, and ways of knowing are diverse, fluid and contextually situated, incorporating multiple modes of knowledge and practice. Thus, a multimodal approach is essential for a comprehensive understanding of the historically, socially and culturally contextualised voices and actions.

As indicated by the title of my PhD thesis, my research represents an initial foray into a domain that is fertile for further investigation. The application of multimodal research methodologies in my work is nascent and has not yet coalesced into a comprehensive toolkit for remapping Global Asian Studies. Nevertheless, the innovative, multimodal thinking that emerged during the pandemic as a response to constraints will persistently inform my approach to research, teaching, publishing and public engagement.