Clandestine photography and ethical challenges of an ethnography of mining bureaucracy

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‪This article describes my ethnographical immersion in a Cameroonian administration in charge of collecting mining taxes, and my clandestine use of photography to document its agents’ work. It describes the conditions in which the images are produced, how they are used as a basis for interviews, and the ethical issues related to relations during research in the field. In this context of research conducted in a tense environment, the act of taking photos clandestinely is a tactic which allows an investigator to manage the inherent risk of the ethnographic field being closed, maintaining innocuous-seeming relations with public officials, and being able to quickly document specific aspects of what they observe. The use of these images during interviews also made it possible to create situations to discuss the tensions and informal practices underlying the relations between the public officials and mine operators. Yet regardless of its heuristic value, this practice of clandestine photography raises a deontological problem in terms of the ethnographer’s research relations. The reflexive analysis which the researcher has to conduct thus contributes to the process of ethical construction in relation to the respondents.‪