A blog post by Brogan Pritchard
The act of writing has a long history. From Homer’s ancient epics to Shakespeare’s sonnets and Orwell’s dystopias, writing has been a tool for expression, imagination, and experimentation. It unfolds possibilities for the self, the community, and our shared world. But in other ways, writing can be dangerous. It is a naturally situated, embodied, and subjective production shaped by our personal and shared politics that has the power to unsettle, disturb, and in some cases, radically shape history. Taking many forms, be it through memoir, manifesto, letters, or even literature, the written word has been used to relay dangerous ideas, discourses, and perspectives. As is so commonly expressed, the pen is mightier than the sword (see Gee, 2015). But what is it that makes the act of writing so potentially volatile? How do words themselves become threatening? And more critically, who decides which words are dangerous?
The recent Dangerous Writings Symposium, held by the University of Manchester’s Faculty of Humanities, offered a space to explore these questions further. Introducing us to the phrase “dangerous writings”, the symposium brought together an interdisciplinary discussion on how we characterise danger, how it emerges through writing, and how we might engage with it ethically and responsibly. Ethics, in this case, refers to our pursuit to protect the dignity, rights, and welfare of ourselves and those communities we do research on (World Health Organisation, 2025). In fact, the original idea for the symposium itself originated out of discussions surrounding a controversial text, involving correspondence between a long-term prisoner and a journalist. Discussed in detail at the beginning of the symposium by archivist Janette Martin, and later dramatised through an interactive performance entitled Dear Daisy directed by Steve Scott-Bottoms, the text presented a novel challenge for social scientists at the University, bringing to the fore some of the thorny ethical issues presented by risky materials such as storage, publicity, and institutional reputation. Uniting scholars and professionals from across Europe, the symposium provided a place for candid and critical dialogue about the ethical and practical challenges in working with harmful or controversial texts within and around the academic sphere.
The first set of panellists—from an archival and curatorial perspective—introduced us to the theme of danger as it can materialise through writing. Involving talks from Steven Hartshorne, Janette Martin, Flora Chatt, and Tereza Ward, the panel explored the variety of methods through which dangerous ideas, evidence, and memory can live eternally within the written word. This includes, for instance, extremist ideologies hidden within medical texts and prison writings, and colonial violence documented within humanities archives. Warning against the risk of engaging with these materials neutrally, the panel invited us to reflect on some of the real harms produced by these texts, such as the perpetuation of racialised political agendas, the platforming of harmful voices, the normalisation of violence, and the potential for collective retraumatisation. The idea of vicarious harm to the archivist and/or researcher was also integral to discussions throughout the day. Andriani Fili’s talk in the second panel, drawn from her research on immigration detention with Mary Bosworth, introduced the audience to some of the risks involved in bearing witness to dangerous material, specifically the embodied emotions that naturally overwhelm us when we archive and analyse the suffering of others. Closing the symposium, the last panel—from an academic perspective—drew us back to these concerns about the perpetuation and legitimisation of harm. With talks from Jacopo Bernardini and Jon Shute exploring radical and extremist biographies, specifically those of prefect of the Italian Social Republic Nicola Benagli, and German SS officer Rudolf Höss, we were encouraged to rethink our relationship with writing, and were left reflecting on the duty of care we have as academics towards others and ourselves in analysing, teaching, and potentially circulating dangerous texts.
Whilst there were some really interesting debates brought to the fore about the dangers that can be caused by and through writing, it was the middle set of panels that really piqued my interest, especially as a PhD researcher exploring prison voices. There is no doubt that our ethical project has increased our vigilance towards writing and its potential for relaying dangerous ideas and evidence towards readers and the wider community. Yet, this very vigilance, born of ethical responsibility, often becomes a weapon for exclusion. As institutions, and the academics working within them, become increasingly concerned with safety, reputation, and danger, the line between caution and censorship no doubt wears thin. There was, of course, some recognition of this in the first panels. Whilst acknowledging her own felt obligation to safeguard some humanitarian collections due to their potentially harmful content, Flora Chatt reflected critically on the idea of responsibility—more specifically, as it relates to her power to open and close certain archives, and her choices not to represent the story of a community outside of her own. Similarly, Tereza Ward questioned her role as an archivist in silencing uncomfortable colonial pasts, and questioned the impact on the communities that may be put at a disadvantage by how their ancestors histories are, or are not, portrayed. A new set of questions is therefore posed to the audience: Who has the power to decide what is dangerous? What is our responsibility, as social scientists, in (re)telling stories? And how might we reframe our ethical project to interrogate deeper epistemological and sometimes philosophical questions about voice, knowledge, and representation? In this case, I want to draw on the concept of “epistemic injustice”, which relates to the silencing, policing, and suppression of knowledge, usually established under structural frames of political power (see Fricker, 2007).
The discussions in the second and third panels began to unpick these knotty issues in more detail. Talking from a specifically criminological perspective, Kate Herrity brought forth the concept of hierarchy into the debate on dangerousness, riskiness, and representation, arguing that there is a power in deciding which stories to share, and a powerlessness in being censored. Of course, those subject to censorship have often been outliers—the marginalised, disenfranchised, and those naturally or intentionally disrupting authoritarian or political order. Jason Warr, in his more philosophical discussion, linked censorship to the idea of hegemonic discourse, arguing for a more critical interrogation of criminological knowledge-production practices that often exclude those with lived experience in favour of state actors and professionals. In line with what I am finding to be my own academic perspective, these discussions emphasised that, whilst engaging with certain so-called “dangerous” writing might involve risk, there remains an ethical responsibility to listen to voices from the margins to avoid silencing. Prison writings in particular were explored in depth, giving life to the idea that the very texts deemed too dangerous are often those that most urgently demand to be read. Sanja Petkovska first introduced us to the plethora of forms through which writing can manifest in prison, for instance, memoirs, autobiographies, diaries, blogs, and even visual artefacts like graffiti. In each of these forms, prison writing reveals itself as uncomfortably personal and unapologetically political act. Lived experience scholar Lucy Campbell described prison as seeping into her bones, and through its totality, completely changing her makeup—yet, writing offered her breathing space, and a tool to document and eventually share the harsh realities of incarceration. Emily Turner and Marion Vannier, in their joint presentation, discussed the specific role of diaries as a research tool, which they argued provide a distinctly intimate insight into both the mundanity and volatility of prison life. Beyond this, they also frame diary writing as an instrument for documenting small moments of hope, survival, and resistance that offer
optimistic insights into how prison life may be made less distressing.
Andriani Fili’s discussion on the emotional labour involved in engaging with dangerous texts helped me to translate these ideas into a more concrete ethical consideration of epistemic injustice; specifically, what is at stake when our affective responses, such as fear or discomfort, shape what knowledge is legitimised or silenced? For myself, there are no doubt transformative aspects of working with these types of dangerous texts, be it reshaping carceral and punitive policies, learning more about conflict and post-conflict peacekeeping from those on the sidelines, or understanding more about the historic and current suffering of marginalised groups. I therefore found myself reframing the question of ethics to include my thoughts on silencing, censorship, and epistemic justice. Assuming there are so-called “dangerous writings” that we have a moral responsibility to engage in, how best do we do this? What emerged from the discussions throughout the day was a more critical insight into the idea that danger is not a reason to turn away from such texts but an invitation to read, analyse, and archive them more carefully, to be inclusive and reflexive, recognise difference, prioritise context, and forewarn about potential personal and community harm. Rather than allowing the ethical review process to become a tool for repressing texts that we deem dangerous, the symposium left me hopeful that it can instead be used as a catalyst to enhance our awareness of our emotionality as social researchers, and contribute to the expanding the field of Criminology in ways that address these broader philosophical, yet inexplicably humanistic arguments about knowledge production, access, and sharing.
References
Fricker, M. (2007). Epistemic Injustice: Power and The Ethics of Knowing. Oxford University Press.
Gee, A. (2015). Who first said ‘The pen is mightier than the sword’? BBC News.
World Health Organisation. (2025). Ensuring Ethical Standards and Procedures for Research with Human Beings.