Cambridge Journal of Anthropology

At the heart of the anthropological enterprise lies the gathering of data. Anthropologists find informants; we build networks and cultivate rapport. But we are not the only agents in our field. Fieldworker and informant observe, engage with, and interpret one another; their mutual curiosity may occasionally cross the line into practices of surveillance, which in turn cause each to reconsider and call into question the purpose of fieldwork; anthropologists may find themselves mimicking, voluntarily or not, the cautious silences of their interlocutors, who have their own strategies and domains of secrecy; and, of course, the parallel interests of their respective states (who may sometimes be one and the same) are magnified and distorted in the carnival looking-glasses of fieldwork. This is the Hall of Mirrors, whose myriad reflections are made up of shadows and suspicion, spying and surveillance, smoke and, on occasion, actual fire.

The method of participant observation often generates mistrust and suspicion; sometimes participation and observation also result in complicity between fieldworkers and interlocutors. Such ethnographic complicity, however, takes different forms and is expressed differently according to the co-ordinates of local knowledge and social institutions. This article compares ethnographic complicities in central China and in the Wa State of Burma. Accusations of spying, interactions with gatekeepers, and mutual surveillance run their course, according to the respective roles and rules of interaction. What emerges in this ethnographic comparison are two radically different forms of complicity: whereas in central China, complicity tends to be understood as concealment of the illicit, in the Wa State complicity is seen as positive co-responsibility. These differences are explained in relation to the nation-state apparatuses of both settings.

The power of state surveillance derives, in large part, from the pervasive and paralysing fear it generates in those subjected to its panoptic gaze. In this article, I explore how Turkish dissidents try to fend off such fear of surveillance through the performance of what I call ‘apotropaic belittlement’. Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork in Turkey and its diaspora in Euro-America, I show how critics of the Turkish regime cultivate fearlessness by casting undercover agents and informers as trivial and inferior, and by degrading the surveillance state through unfavourable comparison with an all-knowing, omnipresent God. I ask if such performances hold the critical potential to diminish, or even demystify, the experienced presence of the Turkish state within the everyday lives of political dissidents and exiles.

Drawing from fieldwork conducted among people engaged in criminal activity in Romania, this article explores two distinct forms of surveillance. Firstly, it sheds light on the strategies employed by my informants to thwart surveillance, while ostensibly being under scrutiny by law enforcement. Secondly, it examines how, during fieldwork, I, as the anthropologist, became the subject of surveillance—not by law enforcement or the authorities, but by my informants. In the article, I explore ethnographer positionality through an analysis of the relational dynamics and social practices that emerged from this surveillance, contending that surveillance manifests as a form of social interaction, encompassing dualities of vigilance and uneasiness on one hand, and familiarity and safety on the other. To capture this ambiguity in a fieldwork context, I suggest the concept of ‘caring surveillance’ and argue that surveillance can simultaneously exert control and dominate, while also providing reassurance and comfort to its subjects.

Drawing on a study of the Uyghur diaspora and minority politics in China, this article examines spying and suspicion as both products and producers of the radical distinctions inherent in totalitarian dynamics. It argues that this mode of relating transcends spatial boundaries, extending beyond specific territories such as China or Xinjiang. Spying thus assumes a pervasive and contagious presence within social life pertaining to ‘the Uyghur issue’, with the spy—or ‘hidden third party’—emerging as a recurring figure across multiple domains and scales, embedding itself deeply within many facets of Uyghur existence, even beyond the borders of China. Furthermore, the article suggests that while anthropological enquiry shares certain features with espionage and may face constraints on access to information in politically charged contexts, these limitations can be productively harnessed to illuminate key aspects of the ethnographic field itself.

Field research in politically authoritarian contexts poses special problems for the ethnographic project of pursuing intimacy and trust. During my fieldwork in communist Romania, both up to my denial of entry and during my subsequent public activities outside the country until 1989, I was subject to continuing surveillance by the Romanian security organs, who also interrogated and harassed several Romanian informants and friends. Ethnographic fieldwork is supposed to be about becoming involved in the lives of the people we study. But in the context of pervasive state surveillance and intimidation, where secrecy abounds and the rules of engagement are unclear, we may be naive about our position. Our conventional pursuit of intimacy and engagement thus needs to be balanced by the need for distance and detachment.

This article explores how surveillance and suspicion shape ethnographic criminology. Drawing on long-term fieldwork with West African cocaine dealers, it examines ‘the social life of criminalisation’ and its impact on ethnographic practices and immersion. Ethnographers commonly strive to become ‘outsiders on the inside’, balancing participation and observation. However, in the context of criminalisation, where social worlds become surveilled and counteracted, this betwixt and between positionality is often misinterpreted as the hallmark of undercover police, snitches, and emissaries (see also Højer, this issue). The article argues that we need, in such situations, to rework our classical ethnographic modus operandi and ideals in order to be able to research and grasp the encountered insecurity and uncertainty. In doing so, we should embrace our ethnographic difficulties and failures as keys to both methodological advances and empirical insights.

How do spying, surveillance, and ethnography unexpectedly resonate with or reflect one another? How do these cross-cutting gazes affect both the practice and the methodology of fieldwork and the ways we think about our fields, as well as the discipline of anthropology more generally? This special issue investigates these fundamental questions and offers a timely overview of what an anthropology of mutual, parallel, or reciprocal surveillance might be. It presents a range of field situations—in Turkey, Romania, China, and Africa—featuring multiple different forms of surveillance, focusing not only on our informants but on ourselves as ethnographers, as well. The collection makes a stimulating if unsettling read and should incite further work on this essential subject.

Can we speak of experiencing political pleasure in participating and enacting public policy? In this article I examine the enactment of an innovative framework for local public policy-making in the Basque Country. Aimed at producing alternative social development, ‘Sovereign Hernani’ is based upon public-cooperative-community collaboration of the local government, a citizens’ assembly, and organised social sectors such as energy, care, food, telecommunications, commerce, currency, biodiversity, labour, and housing. Drawing from my ethnography with the promoters and government officials who foster this project, the article suggests it is possible to complement the anthropological study of sovereignty and policy-making with an ethnographic exploration of political pleasure. I conclude that political pleasure is experienced both collectively and in a personal manner, and that in certain socio-political settings it may offer some answers regarding what a contemporary Left could offer to reimagine public well-being.

Sandra Ott, The Circle of Mountains: A Basque Shepherding Community, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 240pp., 1981