New Books in Anthropology Lisa Min et al. eds., "Redacted: Writing in the Negative Space of the State" (punctum books, 2024)
Feb 3, 2026
Charlene Makeley, an anthropologist of Tibet and state-local relations, and Lisa Min, who studies visuality and politics around North Korea, discuss the book Redacted. They explore redaction as aesthetic practice, multimodal experiments with poetry and art, workshops and printed visual interventions, and how self-censorship, ethics, and performative readings reshape ethnographic and political worlds.
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Letters From Fieldwork In North Korea
- Lisa Min used redacted letters to render the partial, corridor-like vision of fieldwork in North Korea.
- She wrote letters then blacked out portions to reproduce the grainy afterlife of what she couldn't say.
Negative Space Generates Politics
- Redaction produces a 'negative space' that is generative rather than only concealment.
- Contributors framed redaction as constitutive, multimodal, and complicit across social roles.
Work Around Production Limits
- When designing experimental print forms, anticipate technical constraints and adapt creatively.
- Frank Billett and editors 'tricked' printers (e.g., adding a gray dot) to achieve visual intentions.
