The politics of gatekeeping: respondents as gatekeepers and gatekeepers as respondents

The important role of gatekeepers in accessing and negotiating the field has been well established. In this research note, we highlight an underexplored dimension of gatekeeping in relation to our fieldwork on the Kalbeliya community of Rajasthan in India. Existing scholarship on the Kalbeliyas has mainly focused on the politics of heritage recognition of Kalbeliya dance of India, which was recognized as Intangible Cultural Heritage by UNESCO in 2010. Nonetheless, no significant research exists on the methodological challenges encountered in this field. Our navigations in the field uncovered an aspect deeply embedded in arguably, the multi-layered nature of gatekeeping – the blurred boundaries and shifting positionalities between gatekeepers and respondents, with respondents acting as gatekeepers and gatekeepers as respondents. In this research, key respondents were Kalbeliya women dancers and other respondents included state officials, Manganiyars and Kalbeliya men, who acted as gatekeepers in accessing Kalbeliya dancers. These shifting positionalities also exposed their gendered power dynamics, which shaped our methodological navigations in the field.