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Introduction: A Turn to Silence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 June 2019

By
Amy Jo Murray  and
Kevin Durrheim
Edited by
Amy Jo Murray  and
Kevin Durrheim
Amy Jo Murray
Affiliation:
University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
Kevin Durrheim
Affiliation:
University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
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Summary

We open the book by showing – briefly, by a consideration of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission – how our social worlds are structured around silences and absences; and how even the process of unsilencing can lay down new absences. We explain why qualitative research in the social and human sciences has often neglected studying silences as it focused on the presences in talk, discourse, and interaction. We then provide a quick roadmap of the silence literature that has begun to gain momentum as part of what we cal, “a turn to silence.” Finally, we outline the perspectives and objectives of this book, arguing that qualitative studies are well suited to explore the unsaid, which we conceptualized as a slippery and multilayered form of social action. The chapter provides an overview of the collection and introduces the two broad questions answered by each of its contributors, namely: (1) “What is unsaid?” – focusing attention on methods, practices, and perspectives for identifying absence, and (2) “What is the unsaid doing (here)?” – focusing attention on the ideological significance of absence.

Keywords

unsaidsilenceabsencesocial actionqualitative researchdiscourseturn to languageturn to silenceSouth African Truth and Reconciliation Commission
Type
Chapter
Information
Qualitative Studies of Silence
The Unsaid as Social Action
 , pp. 1 - 20
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

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