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Paper short abstract:

Building on research among political journalists working for independent liberal publications in Kyiv, Ukraine, my paper explores how freedom is pursued by subjects whose speech depends on that of powerful, unreliable and potentially manipulative others.

Paper long abstract:

Liberal ideologies of public speech often presume sincerity, autonomy and equality as the requirements for free speech. In this framework, to be free, speech must be governed by immaterial meanings and values (Keane 2009) and be realised by autonomous, equal subjects whose words are demonstrably disentangled from the material world of transactions and social constraints. Responding to this, emerging ethnographic literature on free speech has focused on the actual ways in which the value of freedom is realised in specific social circumstances (Englund 2018; Roudakova 2017).

Building on research among political journalists working for independent liberal publications in Kyiv, Ukraine, I explore how freedom is pursued by subjects whose speech depends on that of politicians -- self-interested, unreliable and potentially manipulative figures who themselves frequently lack political autonomy. I thus examine how reporters, who seek to reconstruct what they see as a hidden reality of power, come to relate to and rely on politicians seeking to influence media; and how journalists deal with political, epistemic and moral complexities that inhere in these relationships. In doing so, I trace how freedom and autonomy are achieved and publicly demonstrated amid ostensibly unequal relations that edge on unilateral dependency.