9 December 2024
Stealing and redacting: fieldwork among transnational thieves in Eastern Romania
Assistant Professor Trine Mygind Korsby has contributed the book chapter ‘Stealing and redacting: fieldwork among transnational thieves in Eastern Romania’ to the book Redacted: Writing in the Negative Space of the State, edited by Lisa Sang-Mi Min, Franck Billé and Charlene Makley.The chapter introduces Sebastian who is a Romanian man in his 20s with extensive experience as a transnational thief. Taking a point of departure in a tense meeting between Sebastian and some of his illegal business associates, the chapter starts by describing the meticulous practices of transnational theft, in the form of stealing from clothes stores in other EU countries.
Engaging with the volume’s overall focus on ‘redaction’, the chapter focuses on Sebastian’s family dynamics and shows how his family manages their knowledge about his illegal activities abroad. In the chapter, Korsby argues that redaction can function as an analytical concept to capture how her informants ‘redact’ by concealing different aspects of their illegal enterprises within their families. Simultaneously, the chapter shows the ways in which she, as the anthropologist, attempts to capture these fieldwork moments, centered around illegal activity.
By analyzing her own practice of ‘redacting’ her fieldnotes during fieldwork, Korsby suggests that the concept of redaction can be used to illuminate and critically analyze the practices that we as anthropologists engage in during fieldwork – in the name of safety and anonymity – in order to protect our fields, our informants and ourselves.
The book is open access and can be accessed on Punctum Books’ website.