Putting Paranoia into Practice: Information Security for Ethnographers in Authoritarian Contexts

Many of the well-established methods used by ethnographers to protect participants in risky or authoritarian environments—such as destroying fieldnotes or building composite identities—are at odds with a growing demand for transparency in the social sciences. Ethnographers who employ extreme anonymization in order to study sensitive topics thus find themselves out of lockstep with this scholarly trend and must justify their methodology to an increasingly skeptical audience. Engaging with some of the literature on ethical data collection, storage, and publication, this article considers the balance that ethnographers must strike between anonymization and expectations of data transparency. The article was developed out of the author’s own preparation for ethnographic research on Russian LGBTQ+ activism, drawing on existing practices used by journalists, activists, and criminologists. While publications on danger and fieldwork are not new, ethnographers must now take digital threats into account when safeguarding sensitive data. Despite this need for information security, there are no established best practices for social scientists or ethnographers working in authoritarian environments. While recognizing that there is no “one size fits all” solution, this article outlines practical steps that ethnographers should consider before embarking on risky fieldwork. While the suggestions and precautions outlined in this article are intended for ethnographers working in authoritarian contexts, they can be applied to other forms of qualitative research as well.