Decoupling Sovereignty Index: The Wardrobe of Survival – Persona, Exit and the Ethics of Going Dark

The Decoupling Sovereignty Index (DSI) requires field data from places where formal sovereignty has weakened and conspicuous research can be dangerous. This paper establishes a field-research methodology for gathering such data through the Tri-Tiered Approach, the Visual Assimilation Protocol and the Deep Institutional Immersion Protocol. It examines the particular ethical challenges arising when deep immersion requires a researcher to operate under a borrowed identity, creating three obligations: the persona must be disciplined, the exit must be designed before entry, and the deception must be ethically justified. It proposes four tests—necessity, proportionality, protection and accountability—alongside rules for three difficult field situations and explicit duties to both the people observed and the researcher.