Drawing on preparatory work for a study of prison life in Tunisia, this article explores the twin practices of concealing and revealing that are common features of bureaucratic and ethnographic practice. Insights from the anthropology of bureaucracy and secrecy are brought into conversation with the experience of prison ethnographers (seasoned and novice) to illuminate the way prisons as peculiar sites of rule-based domination call for a particular hyper-reflexive methodological approach best understood as ‘craft’. The encounter between research team and prison bureaucracy is documented, and its multi-layered quality illustrated with descriptions of interactions in three prisons and at prison headquarters. This hesitant, slowly unfolding, constrained and contingent negotiation of boundaries is characterised as a gradual sharing of secrets where the configuration of our relationship with gatekeepers – with whom we shared and who shared with us – is highly instructive about prison life, bureaucratic practice and ethnography. The article demonstrates the fundamental role of practices of concealment and revelation in human and institutional interaction.
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