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███ in the Field: Lies, Silences, Half-Truths

Chapter of: Redacted: Writing in the Negative Space of the State(pp. 249–257)

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Metadata
Title███ in the Field
SubtitleLies, Silences, Half-Truths
ContributorFranck Billé(author)
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.53288/0466.1.19
Landing pagehttps://punctumbooks.com/titles/redacted-writing-in-the-negative-space-of-the-state/
Licensehttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
CopyrightFranck Billé
Publisherpunctum books
Published on2024-10-27
Long abstractIn the form of a photo essay, this text grapples with some central questions facing ███ anthropologists doing research in countries where their personal identities are, at best culturally unpalatable, at worst illegal. In this personal account, experiences in two countries (Russia and China) are contrasted. In the latter, elusiveness in responses to personal questions from interlocutors can help carve out spaces of ambiguity. In the former, by contrast, anti-███ legislation (the federal law “for the Purpose of Protecting Children from Information Advocating for a Denial of Traditional Family Values”) requires explicit forms of denial and excision of one’s family at home. These different authoritarian contexts and positioning of ███ identities lead to different forms of redaction, as reflected in the blurry vs. blacked out photographs—with the ultimate realization that the practice of redaction in itself indexes silences readily decoded by interlocutors as forms of coming out.
Page rangepp. 249–257
Print length9 pages
LanguageEnglish (Original)
Keywords
  • LGBT
  • field work
  • Russia
  • China
  • self-censorship
  • autoredaction
Contributors

Franck Billé

(author)
program director for the Tang Center for Silk Road Studies at University of California, Berkeley
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0007-2931
https://www.franckbille.com/

Franck Billé is a cultural anthropologist and geographer based at the University of California, Berkeley, where he is program director for the Tang Center for Silk Road Studies. His core research focus is on borders, space, sovereignty, and materiality. He is the editor of Voluminous States (Duke 2020), and author of Somatic States (Duke, Forthcoming). More information about his current research is available at www.franckbille.com.