Traveling and Fieldwork in India

In the summer of 2003, I spent 4 weeks in India with a group of German students. Our journey was organized by the German NGO Via e.V. and our host in India was the Gandhi Peace Foundation whose main office is located in New Delhi. We spent 10 days in New Delhi getting to know various NGOs and discussing development issues with professors and students from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) as well as former friends and collegues of Mahatma Gandhi.

After acclimatizing in New Delhi - to the climate, food, and sheer differentness of India - we split up in groups of four and travelled to Ashrams in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, and the Himalaya. Luam, Dinah, Lena, and I went to the South of Uttar Pradesh to live at Banwasi Seva Ashram (BSA) for two weeks. At BSA I did fieldwork (interviews) for an Anthropology paper on human development and the capabilities approach.

The rest of our journey we spent sight-seeing in Varanasi and Agra before returning back to Germany via New Delhi.

Photos