Building Trust, Situating Repair , livre ebook
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English
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2024
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125
pages
English
Ebooks
2024
Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne En savoir plus
Publié par
Date de parution
19 mars 2024
Nombre de lectures
0
EAN13
9783906927534
Langue
English
Poids de l'ouvrage
4 Mo
Nature conservation is often framed as an ecological problem in need of repair. With both material and discursive dimensions, repairing things involves repairing people's orientation to those things. As such, nature conservation can be understood as a negotiation between different orientations to ecological problems.
This publication seeks to understand the negotiation through trust, the analysis of which situates repair in a particular setting. Empirically, the book is structured around an encounter that unfolded over the course of a single day between white commercial farmers and experts belonging to various government departments, universities and an NGO working in a South African nature reserve. By moving through the situation se-quence-by-sequence the author captures the relationship between trust and repair vis-à-vis the material forces that structured the situation, and the discursive methods that actors used to repair a degraded ecology.
Originally from Makhanda (South Africa), James Merron grew up in Botswana and the United States. After his Master's degree, he lectured at Stellenbosch University in 2012. By 2023, he earned a PhD and then post-doc position at the University of Basel. He is associated with the Centre for African Studies Basel (Switzerland) and his work is based on exploring the relationship between science, technology and society.
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This publication seeks to understand the negotiation through trust, the analysis of which situates repair in a particular setting. Empirically, the book is structured around an encounter that unfolded over the course of a single day between white commercial farmers and experts belonging to various government departments, universities and an NGO working in a South African nature reserve. By moving through the situation se-quence-by-sequence the author captures the relationship between trust and repair vis-à-vis the material forces that structured the situation, and the discursive methods that actors used to repair a degraded ecology.
Originally from Makhanda (South Africa), James Merron grew up in Botswana and the United States. After his Master's degree, he lectured at Stellenbosch University in 2012. By 2023, he earned a PhD and then post-doc position at the University of Basel. He is associated with the Centre for African Studies Basel (Switzerland) and his work is based on exploring the relationship between science, technology and society.
Publié par
Date de parution
19 mars 2024
Nombre de lectures
0
EAN13
9783906927534
Langue
English
Poids de l'ouvrage
4 Mo
Building Trust, Situating Repair
James Merron
Basel Southern Africa Studies 15
Building Trust, Situating Repair James Merron
An Ecology of Action in a South African Nature Reserve
BAB
Building Trust, Situating Repair
James Merron
Building Trust, Situating Repair An Ecology of Action in a South African Nature Reserve
Basler Afrika Bibliograpien 2024
©2024 he autors ©2024 he potograpers ©2024 Basler Afrika Bibliograpien
Basler Afrika Bibliograpien Namibia Resource Centre & Soutern Africa Library PO Box 4010 Basel Switzerland www.baslerafrika.c
All rigts reserved
Cover poto: Andrea Zimmermann,2017
eISBN 978-3-906927-53-4 eISSN2297-444X
Contents
Sustaining illusions.A Foreword by Elísio Macamo
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Analysis of a Social Situation Building Trust, Situating Repair
1 he Farmer Conservationist he Worksop
2 Monitoring Sites Control and Negotiation Aerial potograpy and Ground truting
3 he Definition of “Natural” Conflict Talk and he Pases of an Argument Callenging Normativity, Negotiating Order
4 Making Repair Workers Retorical Closure Repair Workers
Conclusion
Reference list
Index
VII
XI
1 4
11 18
31 36 41
55 58 67
75 76 83
91
97
109
Sustaining illusions A Foreword by Elísio Macamo
It ad never occurred to me ow fruitful it can be to approac sociology as an activity of picking up pieces to put tem togeter again. Now, tis will sound relatively futile. How-ever, te idea tat sociology is engaged in an activity more like te punisment meted out against Sisypus, wic made im famous for posterity, may old some deeply ingrained truts. One suc trut migt be conceptual, te oter analytical and yet anoter em-pirical. hey all provide a reading lens to understand te significance of James Merron’s oeuvre. It is wort considering eac of tem. First, let us ponder te critical concept guiding tis book’s account: “repair”. It as a distinguised career witin sociology. It started on te fringes of te discipline wen soci-ologists, wary of te positivism tat dominated te discipline and its attendant idea tat te sociologist was a mere observer of a social reality waiting patiently to be accounted for, began asking uncomfortable questions. One uncomfortable question tey asked was weter te possibility of society required individuals equipped wit te relevant kind of knowledge to produce social reality in desirable ways. In oter words, to paraprase Garfinkel, society was made possible essentially by “judgmental dopes”. Anoter question disaffected sociologists asked was weter a standard reality existed somewere against te background of wic sociologists could validate teir accounts. Put differently, were our accounts of social reality valid because tey were consistent wit some standard real-ity, or was tis question irrelevant because wat mattered was simply te ability to de-scribe and document wat individuals actually did? his is te intellectual context witin wic an at-first diffident intellectual agenda emerged witin sociology to suggest new ways of tinking about social reality. hese new ways did not assume its apriori existence. Instead, tey brougt attention to ow social reality could be appropriately considered te outcome of wat individuals did. hese ac-tions did not draw from any recipe knowledge required to produce te rigt social reality. Instead, tey drew from limited, contingent knowledge, wic best describes te condi-tion under wic individuals go about teir lives. One essential feature of tis action was “repair work”, i.e. wat individuals did in response to te potential interaction breakdown. his is were te conceptual, analytical and empirical truts mentioned above come into play. he idea tat social reality is te contingent outcome of action is a way of claiming tat tere is no social script tat social analysts could uncover to render intel-ligible wat tey see and seek to account for. Social reality is essentially epemeral. Its
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ontological stability is an artefact of our intellectual investment to sustain te illusion tat social reality is ontologically stable. he conceptual trut underlying te idea tat sociology picks up pieces and puts tem togeter again refers to te sociologist’s reliance on discourse to access te object of inquiry. Concepts, not reality itself – watever we may mean by tat – are te only means we ave to claim te ability to speak trutfully about tings beyond us. he problem, owever, is tat concepts are labels wic sociologists use. he object of sociology does not give tese concepts to sociologists. Instead, sociologists concoct tem to place temselves in a position to give accounts of te object. his yields te image of te object as one among many layers of understanding. he sociologist is engaged in te task of negotiating tese layers of understanding by assigning labels to wat is perceptible wile at te same time agonising over te possibility tat te labels migt be inappro-priate or tat tey migt be undermined by te values tat unwittingly went into teir formulation. Knowledge is not just tat wic is intelligible to us. It is also, and in te main, wy we want to know and wat accounts of te world we can produce wit it. In tis sense, concepts are not innocent, and te concepts tat make sociology possible can-not lay any claim to innocence. hey attempt to make an approximation to reality eavily dependent on wat oters can make out of tem. In oter words, we deploy concepts until furter notice, as it were. However, if tis is te case, i.e. we deploy concepts until furter notice, ten ow can we be confident tat wat we elicit makes sense at all? At tis point, te second trut about sociology as picking up pieces and putting tem togeter again acquires relevance. It is analytical in nature and as to do wit ow we can tink of concepts as a grid made of sifting meanings looking for someting to latc on. he work individuals do to make sense of wat oters mean and ow tey mean it is analytical. It approaces meaning as a wole tat one must break down into constituent parts. hese parts combine and recombine in myriad ways, and at every moment in tis process, tey yield new senses. We do not lay bare its true essence wen we break down meaning. We open it up to te possibilities it as to yield new accounts of te world. An analysis tat yields one sole meaning undermines its own purpose. First, it denies reality its diverse nature, for it can only claim validity based on suppressing all oter meanings. Second, it atropies te very point of knowledge production in tat it seeks to confirm wat is known rater tan discover wat is not. It is, of course, true tat we cannot analyse witout a commitment to a basic sense of tings. Yet, acknowledging tat we can go beyond wat we tink we know strengtens our ability to understand ow individuals create te world, wic renders teir actions intelligible. It is ere tat sociol-
VIII
ogy comes of its own as analysis. It breaks down pieces of meaning to put tem togeter again in ways serving te purpose of understanding ow, not wy, tings can be tis way and not anoter. Now, te foundation for all of tis is te commitment to te idea tat wile reality as suc may not exist independently of te conceptual vocabularies we deploy to “retrieve” it, we still ave wat individuals do to go on. his is te empirical level. Sociologists do not observe reality. hey observe individuals going about teir business. Here we see na-ture conservationists, tere we see farmers. hey are not, at least not necessarily, “protect-ing” nature or “securing” teir liveliood, but in some sense tey are. As James Merron powerfully suggests, tey are negotiating wat it means to do te sorts of tings tey do. In te process, tey take steps back and ask temselves weter tey are sure about wat tey tink tey know – and are doing. hey are never done, but wile at it, wat tey do may allow te sociologist to appreciate te emergent properties of action. One suc emergent property is trust tat James Merron skilfully peels free from te competing rep-resentations, providing te broader canvas against wic tey are temselves. Again, to claim tat sociology is about picking up pieces and putting tem togeter again is to acknowledge te contingent nature of wat we take to be social reality. It is to give due importance to te significant work individuals do to find teir bearings in a world tat only becomes possible once tey set out to discover it. James Merron takes us troug te various senses in wic we can deploy te concept of “repair”. Wat I ave retained, owever, is te sense in wic sociological meaning can be fleeting. And if I am rigt in tis unc, as I tink James Merron gives me a reason to believe I am, tis book is a powerful statement of te pats African Studies still need to break to assert its intellectual agenda. It would be fair to claim tat, so far, African Studies as invested ciefly its energy in finding out ow to sustain te illusion of knowledge. In oter words, we ave our favour-ite accounts of wat te world looks like, i.e. its colonial, decolonial or even postcolonial nature. he concepts we deploy give us te certainty we are searcing for, confirming te truism of te sociology of knowledge, according to wic reality boils down to te certainty we ave tat reality exists. We draw from tis certainty to reassure ourselves tat we can rely on accounts of Africa to validate our knowledge and ow we come by it. he concept of repair tat James Merron puts forward in tis book as te potential to violently wake us up from a potential epistemological slumber by demanding tat we take noting for granted and only place our trust in te emergent properties of ow in-dividuals trade representations from wic we derive te meanings conferring autority on us to speak trutfully. his is an invitation to appreciate te extent to wic wat we
IX
