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Suspending belief and suspending doubt
the everyday and the virtual in practices of factuality
pp. 519-537
Abstract
From an ethnomethodological perspective, this article describes social actors' everyday and virtual stances in terms of their practices of provisional doubt and belief for the purpose of fact-establishment. Facts are iterated, reinforced, elaborated, and transformed via phenomenal practices configuring relations of equipment, interpretation, and method organized as "other" than, but relevant to, the everyday. Such practices in scientific research involve forms of suspended belief; in other areas they can instead involve forms of suspended doubt. As an illuminating example of this latter class of virtual fact-establishment practices, I offer an extended analysis of the "yes; and…" principle of information-establishment used in improvisational theatre to progressively develop the content of a performance.
Publication details
Published in:
Endreß Martin, Nicolae Stefan (2012) In memory of Harold Garfinkel. Human Studies 35 (4).
Pages: 519-537
DOI: 10.1007/s10746-012-9244-y
Full citation:
Zaunbrecher Nicolas J. (2012) „Suspending belief and suspending doubt: the everyday and the virtual in practices of factuality“. Human Studies 35 (4), 519–537.