Paper short abstract:

I consider how questions of consent are complicated by shifting relations of power between research participants and the state.

Paper long abstract:

Questions about the relations of power between researchers and both informants and gatekeepers have long been a concern for anthropologists, as has the recognition that consent is more meaningfully understood as a process that must be continuously re-negotiated rather than a simple binary. Here, drawing on fieldwork in Xinjiang, China, I consider how these issues are complicated by shifting relations of power between research participants and the state. How can their data be used when it is no longer safe to contact participants, and their consent was given under very different circumstances? And how should power relations between different groups influence the weight given to their respective rights of consent? I argue here that at such critical moments standard codes of ethics fail to offer helpful guidance, but that consideration of the internal good of anthropology, and insights offered by its practice, can provide potential answers.