Being Watched and Being Handled

This chapter explores how risk assessments at universities in the Global North revolve around the Northern researcher and their associates and participants. It looks into the wider and longer-term consequences of researcher behaviour in the field that are less considered or understood. It also discusses Jesse Driscoll's fieldwork in the context of research in illiberal states. By employing a game-theoretical model that draws on extensive fieldwork experiences in Central Asia and the south Caucasus, the chapter shows the stakes involved in the game for two types of players: a bureaucrat in the security sector of the state where the research is taking place and a researcher who wants to publish critical aspects of the politics of the state in question. It highlights the potential dangers of academic work that interprets the role of the researcher in an oppressive context, as well as that of a social and political activist.