When I reflect on Ford Madox Ford’s statement, I immediately think of branching trees and river bends. Each branch is self-similar to its predecessor, demonstrating both infinite relationship and fragmentation. While I could comment on the self-similarity of page 99 to my dissertation as a whole, I think it more apt to focus on what it tells us about the iterative or branching nature of writing. In my dissertation that touches on various local, state, and extra-state actors’ definitions and applications of communist-era history in Albania, page 99 represents a moment of transition between the project that I had initially imagined to the one I came to know during the fieldwork and writing process, from a statement on collective memory production to one on transitional justice.

“As interviews with project staff and media responses to their projects make clear, both the communist past and the future of Albanian youth (and Albanians more broadly) as they stand are infused with a quality of uncertainty that stems from Albania’s narrative of democratic consolidation, one of permanent transition (see Introduction). The past as an uncertain subject appears to have no truth…” (Rocker 2022, 99).

On page 99, I introduce two of my key nongovernmental organization (NGO) collaborators – whose work inspired me to begin this project on the afterlives of 20^th century history. Since the 2010s, both organizations have found a place in Albanian civil society promoting the discussion of topics such as cultural heritage, history, and democracy and both have identified young adults born in the 1990s and later as important targets of that work. I had initially viewed their efforts as a response to decades of State Socialist control over history and its interpretation (Kodra-Hysa 2013) and a drive by international donors in the region for democratization. Gradually, I realized that NGO workers’ efforts were also responses to earlier attempts to address past wrongdoing following the end of single-party rule (transitional justice) in the 1990s within a present that was not living up to the potential that had been promised at the start of the country’s political transition (Nadkarni 2020).

The Page 99 test ultimately encouraged me to think about the iterative and branching nature of research and writing. While I had set out to study collective memory efforts, I learned even more about transitional justice, and its ongoing translation by various actors, especially NGOs and young adults. While many Albanians, scholars and media included, have characterized Albania as stuck in “permanent transition” (Pandolfi 2010), my interlocutors pushed against this idea through their projects aimed at the past. Instead of mourning for the loss of futures promised in the 1990s, they focused on the work they could do in the present to engender new futures for themselves tomorrow.

References

Kodra-Hysa, Armanda. 2013. “Albanian Ethnography at the Margins of History 1947-1991: Documenting the Nation in Historical Materialist Terms.” The Anthropological Field on the Margins of Europe, 1945-1991. Edited by Aleksander Boskovic and Chris Hann. UK: Global Book Marketing, 129-152.

Nadkarni, Maya. 2020. Remains of Socialism: Memory and the Futures of the Past in Postsocialist Hungary. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Pandolfi, Mariella. 2010. “From Paradox to Paradigm: The Permanent State of Emergency in the Balkans.” Contemporary States of Emergency: The Politics of Military and Humanitarian Intervention. Edited by Didier Fassin and Mariella Pandolfi. New York: Zone Books, 104-117.

Rocker, Kailey. 2022. Translational Justice: Facing the Past to Take on the Present in Albania. University of North Carolina, Phd. https://doi.org/10.17615/5414-9q81

Page 99 of my dissertation reflects on a detail in an elite type of garment that the Inka Empire (ca. 1476-1532 CE) fabricated in its workshops during the period before contact with Europeans. Alongside an accompanying image, it discusses a type of Inka tunic that carried significant ideological and socio-political import for the state, and comments on a design feature that broaches one of the dissertation’s main inquiries: how the Inka state conceptualized the notion of “borders” more broadly.

“…the elite tapestry workshops of the Inkas were careful to make their textile webs hermetically contained forms, with no loose threads at the selvedges (edges). However, certain Inka textiles within the category of male unkus (tunics) have another detail at the “edge” that merits further discussion. This is the zigzag form that is embroidered onto the fabric web frequently towards the bottom edge of elite unkus…”

Andean textiles are frequently discussed as metaphors of the inhabited space. The tunic referred to here seems to exhibit this capacity. According to some scholars, its checkered patterning may invoke the Inka terraces constructed on hillsides and mountainsides throughout their territory or symbolizes the storehouses they distributed across their domain. Furthermore, Inka military personnel likely wore this tunic type, thus linking it to state mechanisms that had a hand in territorial acquisition.

This page is significant to the rest of the dissertation for its interpretation of the tunic’s borders in relation to how textiles may resonate symbolically with territorial space. While the tunic is woven to be a self-contained form and adheres to strict Inka standardized practice allowing no stray threads at any of its edges, it is noteworthy that the Inka weavers disrupted the “sealed” quality by applying a zig zag embroidery to the bottom hemline. The zig zag counters the careful enclosure of the garment-aka-territorial edge. This, I suggest, speaks to an Inka notion of borders (whether territorial, spiritual, cultural) as spaces of interaction and volatility, regardless of how “contained” or integrated the matrix space may be. Throughout, my dissertation explores how the Inkas—both in the pre-contact and into the colonial period—perceived borders to be productive sites regardless of any tension, abrasion, or even hostility that accompanied encounters between oppositional factions. This also draws on ideas of relationality, for how Inka power was continually revitalized through engagement with their counterparts in, for example, spiritual, cultural, political, biological, or even supernatural realms.  

Page 99 of my dissertation falls in Chapter 1, “A ‘Viktator’ in the Making: Gaslighting Democracy, Telling Lies, and Evoking Histories,” which describes political culture in Hungary after 1989. In it, I introduce readers to a journalist, Noémi, who exemplifies the challenges of living and working in modern Budapest. Her words illustrate the substantial deterioration of a critical European Union value in Hungary, the freedom of the press (which falls under the EU’s “freedom of expression” value), due to the governing style of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his party, Fidesz. In Hungary today, journalists continue to navigate increasingly restrictive working conditions­ – ­and many have lost their livelihoods as a result. They are not always able or allowed to write on topics they find relevant and are often completely barred from writing about political happenings that are not sanctioned and/or approved by the government. Institutions that allow their journalists freedom of expression have nearly all been bought by friends of the government–entire staffs given a choice to stay on board and bend to Orbán’s will or to leave. Daily, journalists must adapt to and negotiate with the ever-changing political climate that the autocratic Orbán maintains.

If page 99 of my dissertation passes the quality test, and I think it does, it is because of Noémi’s willingness to share her story with me. Further, the page spotlights a central point in my dissertation, that political talk in private spaces matters and can shape meaning, can eventually influence the outcome of elections. Noémi nicely illustrates the process of meaning-making that happens in private conversation with her voiced exploration of the text “journalism” in opposition to what she calls “propaganda media.” She also uses the text “Orbán” metonymically, as an emotionally-charged symbol for Fidesz – the same way many in Hungary do.

……….

Before 2010, I think, it was like, we were all journalists, you know, and everyone had their own little biases, right wing, left wing—we all knew what the other was thinking. But ever since Orbán came into power and took over the media, and uh, they built up this propaganda media, which is like blatantly lying. It’s not biased, it’s lying. They make up stories out of thin air—so it’s not the same profession anymore. So, when I say “journalism” [now] I don’t include the propaganda media because I think that’s over now. They, they, I don’t call them “journalists” anymore…[i]n a way I sympathize with them because I come from the same group. I know how hard it is, how it’s impossible to get stories. How, what, how low paid, they are really [under] paid. And um, I know, like conditions are really harsh. Like, last week I was in [Germany] at a conference and I went to Der Spiegel’s headquarters—a shiny, huge building with like 15 stories and, whatever. And, the biggest, most read Hungarian newspaper’s office at the moment is in one room. In. a. room. So, it’s like, completely different realities. [Field Notes 10/02/2019]

The lack of material resources, Noémi noted, stemmed from “Orbán” gradually and consistently pulling funding from journalists. However, even if they did have a few material resources, journalists had to work to gather public information from a government that was not willing to practice transparency.

[Journalists] deal with ministries not answering them—legally they have to, but they don’t. …If you get sources [connected to the government], they lie…If you file a freedom of information request it will either be denied or you will be asked to pay tons of money or it will be unreadable…I swear to God they have a machine they put all these documents through that makes them unreadable before they send it to you! You get a grainy PDF that you can’t read—much worse than a scanned PDF…

……….

Noémi’s account may remind some of Russian state tactics like those outlined in Eliot Borenstein’s Plots Against Russia: Conspiracy and Fantasy After Socialism (2019), and it should. Orbán has been called “mini-Putin,” by Hungarians and the larger Western Press alike. He poses a real threat to the values outlined in Treaty of the European Union; values meant to prevent World War III. For those who do practice Ford Maddox Ford’s method, they should encounter an engaging story that embodies the process of democratic decline in a modern EU member-state, and hopefully, they’ll learn more here and elsewhere, because Noémi’s story is but one that’s worth reading.

Storey-Nagy, Jessica. 2022. Sovereign Voices: Politics, Identity, and Meaning-Making in Contemporary Hungary. PhD dissertation, Indiana University.

“Yes,” I said.

My answer left you like a glutton without food—unsatisfied.  Before you could request thick ethnographic details, I handed you page 99 of Endangered Words and Invulnerable Worlds: Spatial Language and Social Relations in Cheran, Michoacan, Mexico.

The text appeared straightforward about general trends in Cheran.  Still, you couldn’t shake the notion of being stranded in an ethnographic labyrinth.  So, you read it and reread it.  Being the scholar you are, you decided to immerse yourself in Cheran’s P’urhépecha.  Only there was no rabbit hole, just the whole text—Endangered Words and Invulnerable Worlds.

In the text, you found that theoretically, I argued a spatial language-based cultural model explains many of the properties of social relations.  The part-whole model is simple like a slice of pizza out of a pie, a cigar from a set, or birds of a feather flocking together.  After reading the ethnographic evidence—from emic sociological characteristics affecting face-to-face communication to people ascribing behavioral patterns onto families to large-scale ritual events of greater complexity—you remembered page 99.

Nodding in deep thought, you began repeating like a mantra, “part-whole.”

Reflecting on your initial impressions, you realize what you perceived as a tortuous reading experience was a plunge into ethnographic clarity—a simplified diagram of a complex phenomenon. I saw it in your eyes and asked, “Now do you agree with my answer?”

“Yes,” said you.

…He is like that, so all Santiagos are predisposed to behave in such a manner. They are like that… 

While thinking through the ways people in Cheran identify individuals as recapitulating kin or groups as possessing traits displayed by individuals, it helps to consider emic conceptualizations of kinship dynamics…the people of Cheran view individuals as intimately tied to their kin groups. The link between an individual and a family is inextricable. One cannot exist as an atom who makes herself or himself independently of background. When someone encounters an individual…others generally explain that individual’s behavior as recapitulating a family trend. It is quite common to find people explain this dynamic along the lines of “they are like that.” The “they,” generally, refers to the house ergo nuclear family, which in turn, often reflects the patrilineal lineage. 

The aforementioned kin dynamics make sense when considering folk views of the town’s composition. Most people claim that they all know each other. The elderly restrict themselves by qualifying their statements along the lines of “I know those of my generation but not younger folks (of various generations).” Even this statement might be an exaggeration. Cheran has a population of over 20,000…

Niku T’arhechu T’arhesi. 2021. Endangered Worlds and Invulnerable Worlds: Spatial Language and Social Relations in Cheran, Michoacan, Mexico.  University of Michigan, PhD.

On page 99 of my dissertation, I end a section that traces a series of Chinese newspaper reports on a pregnant woman’s long-winded quest for the so-called “birth permit.” It is then followed by a new section that reflects on how the media represents her experience as a sign of bad bureaucracy.

There is very little novelty in complaining about bureaucratic red tape in China. Yet, I was compelled to create a whole dissertation chapter titled “Documentation and Its Bureaucratic Discontents” for the following three reasons. First, the pregnant woman’s story was just one example of countless media reports that raised the “documentation difficulty” issue at the time. If frustration about bureaucratic paperwork is old news, why was the media churning out this old news at that specific moment? Second, Chinese news media would normally avoid directly criticizing the Party-State government. Then how and why were the media openly criticizing the bureaucracy in these reports? Third, I wanted to understand the implications of problematizing documentation issues as specifically a bureaucratic failing. Provided that these legal documents are consequential for urban lives well beyond the realm of bureaucratic spheres, what discourse and practices does such problematization enable and/or foreclose?

Page 99 addresses the second question by underlining how the Chinese media, which strives to meet demands from both the Party-State and the commercialized media market, “assumes itself to be the mediator between the state and the public” (p. 99). Ultimately, this chapter argues that this role is one reason why the media is able to criticize the bureaucracy: by domesticating documentation practices as sites of bureaucratic reform, it creates the representation of a nation-state that is moving forward. In doing so, the media “mediates the imagination and legitimacy of the state and its bureaucracy” (p.99). 

Overall, I do not think page 99 meets Ford’s test. My dissertation traces how people speak of and handle the banal and copious evidentiary documents (for example, ID card, certificates, and permits) in their everyday lives. In doing so, it demonstrates how such documents critically condition people’s mobility and their understanding of urban citizenship in contemporary China. Even though page 99 maps out key discourses through the lens of institutionalized media, it does not leave space to consider how such institutionalized discourses might unfold in the realm of everyday speech and practices. In fact, most of what became page 99 of the dissertation was written before my extended dissertation fieldwork.

Dodom Kim. 2022. Documenting Uncertainty: Bureaucratic Evidence, Media Practice, and Migrant Citizenship in Southern China. University of Chicago, PhD.