Fieldwork As A Sex Object

‘I mute the audio before replaying it frame by frame. I watch the video four times. ‘It is not me. It is my fucking face.’ Amrita Chaturvedi—Amy in her London circles—identifies as a communist on Twitter, but her bio omits any mention of her privileged life back in Delhi and a stint on reality TV. When a scandalous deepfake video featuring her suddenly goes viral, the truth catches up with Amy. Overnight, she becomes a trending hashtag, hunted by right-wing trolls, betrayed by friends and family. As the media frenzy explodes and legal persecution looms on the horizon, Amy must, with some support from unlikely allies, find a way to stem the public hysteria and overcome the onslaught. But does she really have a chance? Raw and unsparing, Meena Kandasamy’s Fieldwork as a Sex Object is a searing exploration of caste, misogyny, sex, sexuality and the insecurities that drive people to do what they do. In the end, it asks each one of us how much we’re prepared to risk for our principles.