Short Abstract

How can anthropologists working with persecuted communities and at-risk activists present in-depth ethnographic accounts of precarious lifeworlds while guaranteeing interlocutors’ safety in authoritarian and digital media-saturated environments? The answer is often fictionalization. But how?

Long Abstract

How do we guarantee in-depth ethnographic knowledge when common strategies of anonymization are no longer sufficient to ensure the safety of our interlocutors? How do we address the predicament that many precarious actors desire online visibility to make their grievances heard but at the same time need to guard themselves against state and societal surveillance? To address such and similar questions, this project is situated at the intersection of anthropology, literary studies, and digital research ethics. It seeks to explore the potentialities and limitations of a method of “fictionalization” as a theoretical framework for ethical writing in anthropology under the conditions of increased surveillance and big data.

Over a decade ago, German anthropologist Richard Rottenburg already noticed the tensions between thick ethnographic description and “decency” in his work on humanitarian organizations (Rottenburg 2009). To steer clear of a scenario where the reader fixates on questions of individual responsibility, Rottenburg fictionalized his ethnographic accounts. In 2025, we argue, it is not only “decency” that demands rethinking the uses of fictionalization. Especially when working with activists and other precarious interlocutors, the interplay of visibility and tracking makes it imperative to develop the question, “What, when and how to fictionalize in ethnographic writing?”

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