ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author addresses in relation to secrecy and methods is how researchers can move beyond a static binary understanding of secrecy and openness, towards an understanding of the shifting dynamics of partial (in)visibility and managed transparency. She provides a brief outline of the contours of the political and methodological challenges at stake. The author outlines some of the methods she have found productive in assessing the politics of a seemingly mundane bureaucratic process: the analysis of government licensing data; interviews and participant observation; and the use of Freedom of Information requests. She describes the relationship between methods, methodology and the mode of critique, discussing the challenges of moving between scholarship and activism. The author aims to help researchers find ways to study practices that are both facilitated and obscured by secrecy, partial visibility and managed openness; navigate the shifting boundaries between scholarship and activism; and reflect on modes of academic critique.
