Exploring identity, culture, and suffering with a Kashmiri Sikh refugee

Anthropology, psychiatry, and other fields that primarily rely upon verbal communication face a certain tension: to what extent is the information garnered accurate? How does accuracy change depending on context? Has the interviewer provided a safe space for respondents to share personal experiences? This paper explores concepts of identity, culture, and suffering with a displaced Kashmiri Sikh in a camp settlement in the province of Jammu and Kashmir. First, I will provide a history of the province and my project. Then, I will select the text of one respondent who uniquely claimed to follow two religions. Next, I will analyze the interview as “spoken text” for content and “unspoken subtext” for context. Finally, I will show how the respondent draws upon culture and religion for solace in an environment where secular state institutions such as the military and civil bureaucracy fail to provide justice. We shall reconcile these strands of thought by conceiving of the interview as a text co-produced and co-consumed by interviewer and interviewee and subject to interpretation.