I was wrong when I studied Russian nuclear weapons scientists.
Having successfully completed fieldwork in a US nuclear weapons community, I went to Russia to interview a handful of the country's nuclear weapons scientists. Epistemologically, I made the mistake of viewing them more as variant weapons designers rather than as Russians. More seriously, I failed to...
| Published in: | American Ethnologist Vol. 52; no. 1; pp. 58 - 64 |
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| Format: | Article |
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Wiley-Blackwell
2/1/2025
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| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ssf&AN=183848000&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ssf uiTerm: 183848000 longDbName: Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson) uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00940496 AMG jtl: American Ethnologist issn: 00940496 maglogo: Y pubinfo: dt: 2/1/2025 vid: 52 iid: 1 pid: 480 pub: Wiley-Blackwell artinfo: ui: 183848000 10.1111/amet.13386 ppf: 58 ppct: 6 formats: tig: atl: I was wrong when I studied Russian nuclear weapons scientists. aug: au: Gusterson, Hugh affil: Department of Anthropology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada su: United States Russia Nuclear weapons National security Arbitrary arrest & detention sug: subj: Nuclear weapons National security United States Russia National Security Arbitrary arrest & detention keyword: elites ethics nuclear scientists secrecy security elites ethics nuclear scientists secrecy security ab: Having successfully completed fieldwork in a US nuclear weapons community, I went to Russia to interview a handful of the country's nuclear weapons scientists. Epistemologically, I made the mistake of viewing them more as variant weapons designers rather than as Russians. More seriously, I failed to think through in advance the risks to myself and to my human subjects of interviewing important national security personnel in an (until recently) enemy state where practices of surveillance and arbitrary detention were more salient than in the United States. This partly reflected a broader common sense in anthropology that focuses concern on vulnerable human subjects at the bottom of social structures, not on elites. In subsequent years the digitization of information has at least made it easier to conduct such fieldwork without carrying sensitive data across national borders. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: N holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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