Abstract
In Qualitative Studies of Silence: The Unsaid as Social Action, Murray and Durrheim (Eds.) have compiled an excellent array of interdisciplinary researchers who attempt (and largely succeed) to answer two fundamental questions: “What is the unsaid?” and “What is the unsaid doing (here)?” These two simple questions belie the audacity and enormity of the challenge undertaken. Indeed, all the contributors make clear the difficulty in conceptualizing both what is silence and its repercussions. As the editors note in their introduction, silence is, on the one hand, absence, but, on the other, presence (e.g. the elephant in the room; Zerubavel, 2006: Ch. 3). The dialogic nature of these characteristics underscores the difficulty in identifying silence and the implications they have as they permeate social interactions. Though, at the same time, ironically, one could say that silence is the rule. Remembering, recalling, retelling . . . they are all naturally selective. One cannot remember, recall, retell everything about everything. Silences populate our thoughts, discourse, texts, and monuments. As such, this book and its contributions demonstrate not only the need and pertinence of studying silence but also how to do so empirically.
Given the qualitative and interdisciplinary nature of this book, I feel it is incumbent upon me to disclose my background and/or, perhaps, biases. I am formally trained as a cognitive (psychological) scientist, and while I have conducted qualitative research, my own research focuses on more quantitative/lab-based research whereby we then attempt to push our paradigms into more ecologically valid contexts and materials. Notably, my colleagues and I have attempted to define silence and its instantiations in more quantitative ways (Stone et al., 2012) as well as in more ecologically valid contexts (e.g. public speeches; Stone et al., 2020). Despite this, much of the research discussed throughout this book, in terms of both approach and contexts, is novel to me. Hopefully this further underscores my appreciation for the breadth of disciplines, topics, contexts, and ambition of the contributors.
In the introduction, Murray and Durrheim do an excellent job of setting the stage and providing a framework by which to easily appreciate and consume the forthcoming chapters. Using Apartheid in South Africa, on the one hand, and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, on the other, Murray and Durrheim aptly demonstrate the power of silencing and unsilencing, respectively. In doing so, they make an important point of how language and, in turn, silence are vehicles for wielding power and can do so by three means: social exclusion (e.g. silencing those without power), traces of avoidance (e.g. actively avoiding a topic), and conversational expectations (e.g. what is considered appropriate based on expectations throughout the conversation). Murray and Durrheim, prior to concluding the introduction with an overview of the book, highlight characteristics and, in turn, difficulties of studying silence empirically. Silence is: slippery (i.e. difficult to demarcate); multilayered (i.e. a nuanced, joint endeavor between speaker and listener(s)); and social action (i.e. can help maintain the status quo). It is worth noting that the editors make an explicit point of not organizing the book according to themes. However, in an effort to better synthesize the larger, overarching points the various chapters make, I have attempted to organize my review below according to the themes (though, not mutually exclusive, for example, power tends to permeate through most contributions) I saw fit.
In Chapter 1, Billig and Marinho examine the silences that emerge in the formal rhetoric of Portuguese Parliamentarians during a celebration of the 1974 revolution. Here the authors do an excellent job of highlighting the intersection among political ideologies, maintaining face and allegiance to one’s political party. I found this chapter particularly captivating. While they used the Portuguese government as a case study of how politicians use silence, it became clear to me how such silences are evidently used by US politicians as well as likely by politicians worldwide. Similarly, Schröter (Chapter 9) examines (German) political speech and the use of silence through metadiscourse. Notably, Schröter highlights an irony within modern political discourse: right-wing politicians claim that they are being silenced by the “hegemonic left” when stating politically incorrect statements and that this is antithetical to the value of free speech. Sue and Robertson (Chapter 4) then focus on how institutional (e.g. government) silences maintain racism (e.g. Mexico’s government’s claim that racism does not exist in their country). They “ . . . discuss the broader significance and purpose of race-related silences and the various manifestations of racialized social silence, and then propose strategies for addressing them” (p. 71). Huckin (Chapter 10) also discusses political speech but with a focus on propaganda disseminated via the media. More specifically, the power of “propaganda by omission” (p. 186). To illustrate, Huckin uses US media discourse surrounding North Korea and, interestingly, their silence about the historical antecedents that would help contextualize the current, tense state of relations between North Korea and the United States.
Toerien and Jackson (Chapter 2) explore the types of silences that emerge during a conversation between a patient (their mother) and the doctor. The main takeaway is that conversational analysis provides a meaningful way to identify silences during conversational interactions. The authors found that silences allow for conflicting agendas (between the mother and the doctor) to remain covert (presumably, preventing an overt fight) as well as allow the doctor to avoid providing a diagnosis. While I like the demonstration of conversational analysis and its use in such a unique context, I ultimately was left wanting more. I look forward to their future research along these lines.
While making the point of silence as not just the absence of speech but the presence of non-speech, Zerubavel (Chapter 3) focuses on ways in which silences can be “heard”: hesitation and euphemisms (i.e. pauses in conversation and saying something without saying it, respectively), generics (i.e. avoiding specifics), “it goes without saying” (i.e. the silence about what we take for granted and is assumed to be the default). I found this last silence marker particularly pertinent. It speaks to the unspoken assumptions, especially within a heteronormative society, that subtly help maintain the status quo.
Murray and Lambert (Chapter 5) introduce the method of triangulation to study silences. The authors note that triangulation looks for and values discrepancies across stories and narratives to better understand how and when silences are used. To demonstrate the benefits of this approach, the authors focus on the silences that emerge within households and families in post-Apartheid, paid domestic labor in South Africa (i.e. black worker/white employee), and the undocumented student movement in the United States (i.e. surrounding violence), respectively. Similarly, Fivush and Pasupathi (Chapter 7) discuss how the silences that populate the conversations parents have with their children shape the narratives by which children learn and subsequently tell their own stories and how this varies by the gender of the child (e.g. boys silence emotions when telling stories about their lives). Notably, they demonstrate how such silences have important implications for well-being.
Opotow, Ilyes, and Fine (Chapter 6) describe and examine the intriguing and counter-intuitive silencing that emerges at the intersection of race, disability, and sexuality in the spirit of protecting the defendant of a criminal trial, but which, ironically, ultimately disenfranchise and dehumanize him. Essentially, at the heart of this discussion is power differential: The defendant is viewed as powerless and in need of “protection,” which ultimately leads to silencing him. Relatedly, Coles and Glenn (Chapter 8) emphasize how the meaning of silences is always inflected by a power differential known as “gender.” Here they do not mean gender as more commonly known (i.e. gender identity). Rather, it is an emphasis on power relations and how the unsaid is “gendered” itself. To this end, the authors discuss three broad categories of how silence plays out within gendered power differentials: the masculine unsaid (perpetuates existing hierarchies); the subordinate unsaid (borne from a place of “feminine” disadvantage); and the resistant unsaid (emerges from subordination and attempts to subvert the status quo). Alford (Chapter 11) also speaks about the importance of power dynamics and the emergence of silence. He discusses the years he spent talking with whistleblowers and the attempts by powerful individuals/companies to silence them by making them invisible and inaudible. He succinctly states that his research . . . “is not a study of whistleblowers, but of how organizations act to silence their members” (p. 208).
Winter’s contribution (Chapter 12) stands out as relatively unique to this collection. Most of the contributions in this chapter focus on the silence of themes and topics. Here, Winter focuses on how the use of sound in contemporary museums can distort historical periods, in particular, the Great War. As the author states, “Fake noise is fake history” (p. 234). Artificial sound should be avoided when attempting to convey a past whereby genuine and accurate sounds are impossible/unknowable. Furthermore, the sound of silence may provide the necessary gravitas for events as tragic as the Great War.
Richardson and Allison (Chapter 13) provide “. . . an affective approach to understanding, research and writing the unsaid” (p. 236). In illustrating the benefits of this approach, the authors provide powerful examples of silence surrounding torture and a personal account of the silence surrounding sexual abuse. Unlike many of the prior contributions, but similar to Richard and Allison’s focus on affect, Frosh (Chapter 14) brings a psychoanalytic approach to his work. However, one does not need to fully agree with the principles of psychoanalysis to appreciate his main takeaway: successfully witnessing others (i.e. listening) through active participation allows the speaker to effectively (cathartically?) tell their story, especially surrounding traumatic experiences. Failure to properly witness the speaker intentionally or unintentionally ultimately leads to silencing the speaker and, in turn, maladaptive consequences.
Overall, the present book and its contributions do a tremendous job of illustrating not only the pertinent role silences play in how individuals and groups navigate and understand the past and maintain (or not) the hegemonic status quo, but also a blueprint for future researchers to examine rigorously and empirically something as amorphous as silence.
In the final contribution, Durrheim and Murray (Chapter 15), the volume’s editors, provide an overview of the contributions and the general themes that emerge from the contributions (e.g. collective ideological interests). And while I do agree with the editors that “. . . it would be overly simplistic—and possibly misrepresentative—to sort the chapters according to themes or units of analysis” (p. 14), as I mentioned at the beginning (and frame my review as such), I think the book may have benefited from some moderate, thematic organization. It was, for the most part, only after compiling my notes and writing this review that I began to connect the over-arching themes across these specific contributions/chapters. Regardless, even as a formally trained cognitive scientist, I have no doubts that the methodological and thematic contributions of this book will permeate my thoughts recreationally, theoretically, and experimentally for years to come. I strongly recommend this book for graduate students and researchers interested in better understanding the psycho-social dynamics and outcomes of, not only what is voiced, but what is left silent when individuals negotiate the past.