At the junction between subsistence and reference: A pragmatist take on interaction analysis

Abstract

This paper presents a view of interaction analysis that departs from the intersubjectivist assumptions that underlie its ethnomethodological tradition. Adopting a pragmatist perspective, we propose to treat phenomena as being composed of relations; that is, as being constituted by passing through various things and beings. Extending Latour’s work on modernity, we argue that interaction analysts aim to capture social phenomena at the junction between two modes of existence or two manners of passing through others. In the mode of subsistence, social phenomena are (re)produced by continuously passing through new elements. In the mode of reference, social phenomena sustain themselves by going back and forth between various inscriptions. Based on a case study, we show how the movement of subsistence always eludes that of reference, and how analysts can only move along with this movement by limiting their corroboration techniques, both in number and in range. Thus, this paper makes an important contribution to research on language and social interaction, as well as science and technology studies.