Leaky Revelations (original) (raw)
2019, Current Anthropology
Contests over the control of information are central to the perpetuation and critique of militarism. This article examines one of the most prominent sets of state document leaks in recent political history: the online posting of hundreds of thousands of US war logs and diplomatic cables by WikiLeaks. Bold statements were advanced in 2010 and afterward regarding what these releases made visible. In contrast, this article considers how disclosure and nondisclosure came bundled together. With reference to the tensions of keeping secrets and producing transparency, I suggest that the promise attached to the released documents did not just derive from the argument that they revealed modern statecraft, nor that such knowledge was tantalizingly out of reach, but from the manner in which what had been rendered knowable could be revisited over time. Through this argument I want to explore the affective knots, conceptual tangles, and problematic story lines associated with exposing militarism.
Sign up for access to the world's latest research.
checkGet notified about relevant papers
checkSave papers to use in your research
checkJoin the discussion with peers
checkTrack your impact
Loading Preview
Sorry, preview is currently unavailable. You can download the paper by clicking the button above.