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Research on gendered politics of the field has delved into the practices of accompaniment and its implications on research and knowledge production, particularly through the case of researchers' children and partners. In comparison, the tendency to seek assistance from parents is neglected within the scholarship. Drawing on the PhD fieldwork experiences of two researchers in their "native" country, specifically a Sri Lankan researcher conducting fieldwork in Sri Lanka and a North Indian scholar researching in South India, the paper reveals parents' contribution to the research process, in terms of enhancing researcher credibility, facilitating contact‐making and access, and providing emotional and practical care. The discussion illuminates two aspects of parents' involvement in fieldwork: (1) how the unique nature of parent–child relationships shapes the research process at multiple stages, and (2) how the gendered notions of knowledge production result in parents' contributions being typically unacknowledged. The paper emphasises that a researcher's positionality as a daughter shapes her ability to navigate gendered field sites in her "native" country and is implicated in the wider research process. This paper will illuminate why researchers take their parents to field sites and how this strategy helps them to negotiate gendered challenges in the field. Despite the benefits of parental accompaniment, parents' roles are frequently underplayed. This invisibility of certain actors' contributions to the research process reveals the gendered politics of knowledge construction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many researchers return to field sites that are previously known in different capacities, thus upturning traditional notions of the "field," particularly in qualitative fieldwork, of unknown places whose depths the researcher encounters anew. Returning in a different capacity affects not just the researcher, but also participants, and raises questions about research ethics with regard to changing positionality. This paper looks at the process of returning to a field that is already "known," not just through books and writing, but through first‐hand experience. It explores the dynamics underlying the process of returning as a researcher, when one has a previously established identity in a place, in this case as a development worker. The paper will explore the nuances of attempting to bridge the divide between being a development worker and then a student doing ethnographic fieldwork in Assam. It will debate whether it is possible, or useful, to abandon one role for another. It also looks at the way a change in role affects the way we gain access, as well as how returning as a student reveals certain blind spots in the understanding of the field as it was known. Finally, the paper attempts to understand how changing positionality affects ethical concerns, such as those of how to engage as an outsider, and whether each return is marked by a different process. This paper looks at the "return" to a previously known field. It explores how this shift in positionality affects not just the researcher, but also participants, and brings up questions about research ethics with regard to changing positionality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]