Abstract:
In this chapter, which is based on an in-depth analysis of a single secret police file, I approach the question of how to deal with police photography in the study of religious culture? Are photographs that were intended to capture reality from a certain ideological perspective capable of opening up new layers of the past? I examine whether it is possible to gain new insights about religious culture during the years of dictatorship with the help of the images and artefacts enclosed within the secret police archives. Are the photographs we find there more reliable than texts? Through a case study of a clandestine religious community, I explain the context and production of photographic images situated in a single secret police file and discuss how these images are presented and situated in the file. More importantly, I liberate or ‘repatriate’ photographs from the archive and, through the process of photo-elicitation with community members, allow alternative narratives to emerge.