The above image captures me sharing my research at the Organizational Communication Mini Conference/OCMC 2022, University of Texas at Austin
In my upcoming international fieldwork-based project, I will employ ethnographic research methods that involves field observations, in-depth interviews, and note-taking to understand how folk artists in Nayagram, Pingla, Midnapore, West Bengal, engage in contemporary grassroots organizing and communicative practices through traditional scroll painting.
The study will be conducted in-person in phases as part of a larger ethnographic project. The first phase will be a four-week data collection this year (Dec 2025).
My tentative research question for this project is: How do local folk artists residing in under-resourced rural West Bengal communicate about community participation shaping alternative forms of organizing?
Research Focus: Health Communication and Organizational Communication
– Health inequality and community participation in water insecure areas
– Organizing practices of local and global organizational actors (such as local communities at the margins, local NGOs, international NGOs) in marginalized communities
– Articulations of nonhuman actants in environmental health
Methodological Impetus
– Goal: Document marginalized discourse and practice(s)
• Culture-centered approach
• Dialogue and listening
• Self-reflexivity
• Solidarity
• Praxis
Parameswari Mukherjee, Ph.D 