Sanchi Jain and L.N. Venkataraman COMPLEXITIES OF GATEKEEPING IN DELHI: A REFLEXIVE ACCOUNT Abstract The paper provides a reflexive account of the gatekeeping experience, observed during a field study of an elite neighbourhood in Delhi. Access was highly controlled during the research on agency formation between domestic workers and employers in their daily interactions. This paper discusses how residents, welfare bodies, and institutional forces are the in/voluntary gatekeepers to fortify the elite privileges. The researcher had to rely more on close observations than on respondents’ response to understand the complexities of employer- employee negotiations. Keywords: Gatekeeping, gatekeepers, domestic workers, employers, exclusionary practices Introduction The advent of COVID- 19 pandemic led qualitative researchers to review and re-invent methodological tools of field research. Following ethnography during those uncertain times, characterised by doubts and anxiety over social distancing, was immensely challenging. Ethnography, as usually understood, involves a researcher living, and embedding oneself with a community/group to understand their life- patterns, and culture (Hammersley and Atkinson 2007:1), was almost impossible when people were afraid of one another. In order to ‘live with the new normal’, newer ways of ethnography had to be experimented. The best alternative considered was to be a ‘digitalised ethnography’ (Ghosh 2020) or online-based research. Thus, this research also followed the suit. As the objective of this research was to understand the complexities of agency formation amongst domestic workers and their female employers through interpersonal negotiations in an elite neighbourhood of Delhi, the telephonic interview was considered the best possible methodological device for that time. SANCHI JAIN, Research Scholar, Department of Policy Studies, TERI School of Advanced Studies, New Delhi. Email: jainsanchi101292@gmail.com; DR. L.N. VENKATARAMAN, Associate Professor, Department of Liberal Arts, Dr.Vishwanath Karad MIT World Peace University, Pune. Email: laksh.v@mitwpu.edu.in