Thanks to my wonderful colleagues in Warsaw.
In many human rights documents and much academic literature, silence is presented in the singular and represented as an adversary to the researcher in their quest for ethnographic insight (AKA a juicy bit of news). In contrast to Geertzian optimism regarding “thick description,” I have encountered more opacity than transparency in conducting my research. In contrast to the premise that the anthropologist may peer over the shoulders of the Balinese and read their cultural scripts as the Balinese themselves recite them, fieldwork amidst conflict raises numerous impasses, which may be information of another sort. The webs of significance that people have spun depend as much upon a turn of phrase or a colloquial expression, as they do points of refusal, practices of dissimulation, and silences in the plural. Drawing upon research in Peru and Colombia, I will discuss various secrets that were shared with me, and what those secrets were meant to do.
For a video of the conversation, visit: https://red-lines-red-tapes.ws.uw.edu.pl/keynote-speakers/
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