Conceptualization of the “conspiracy of silence” as an aspect of the investigation of social risks

Abstract

The author of the article attempts to implement a “turn to the material” in the analysis of social practices and social risks they generate. Such an approach demonstrates the rejection of the classical subject-object consideration of the issue. Instead, an object-centric approach is proposed, according to which the object comes with the function of an actor in social interaction, which has traditionally been attributed to the subject. The methodology of the object-centric approach used in the article makes it possible to expand in a new way the analysis of the concept of “conspiracy of silence” (E. Zerubavel) – towards its communicative reproduction. The author follows step by step the process of constructing communicative acts that form a kind of multiple ontology of a “conspiracy of silence” around certain events. Thus, exploring the social and political aspects, the article focuses on two trends, say: the “conspiracies of silence”, firstly, can create communicative conditions of the communities solidarity and, secondly, they can create the social risks. The author defends the position that the ontology of the object is not given in the order of things, but it is reproduced in the variety of socio-material practices. As a significant illustration of such position, the author uses the practices of conceptualizing multiple ontologies of the body and the diseases which are negotiated in the investigation of A. Mol, and the symbolic practices of the everyday life coordination (T. Pinch).