6

Ethnographic fieldworkers are unusually exposed to pressures to both make and break promises of confidentiality to subjects because they work to expose subjects to readers in a relatively transparent way. Tracking the schizophrenia that now threatens to pervade ethnographic work, I describe overlooked risks that all practitioners face and point to an as-yet unexplored collective strategy for resisting pressures to breach promises of confidentiality. I then switch from a collective to an individual focus and review ethnography as a multiphased research act, suggesting ways to minimize personal and ethical risks at each stage.