“You're the FBI”: Navigating Ethnographic Research with Suspicious Communities

Drawing upon my doctoral fieldwork with ‘freedom’ activists in Australia, this paper examines the value, and challenge, of sustaining ethnography with a suspicious activist community. This paper questions the methodological approaches that emerge from attempts at long-term commitments to such a community, and how this can challenge imperatives of reciprocity in ethnographic fieldwork. ‘Freedom’ activists rose to prominence in Australia during ‘covid-19 lockdowns’, resisting and protesting vaccine mandates. Since then, many freedom groups have continued to hold meetings and organise on a variety of issues from ‘protecting children’ to the illegitimacy of government. Through their continued activity, complex narratives of the world emerge including orientations toward the environment and democratic governance. This paper reflects upon the value of ethnographic research within these communities where extremism can surface, and the challenge for the researcher in developing and sustaining relationships. Reflecting upon my time with the freedom movement, I explore what demands of the researcher emerge when building relationships with people whose narratives position universities, and researchers, as nefarious characters. I question what a sustained ethnographic relationship looks within and beyond fieldwork encounters? While critically assessing the ethical imperatives that come to the fore during the process of analysis and research dissemination, and how they translate to ideas of reciprocity? These questions aim to shed light on the complexities, and possibilities, of long-term ethnographic fieldwork in these challenging settings.