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Although it is broadly acknowledged that democratic politics should operate through the public competition of binding positions, the careful development of these positions is commonly neglected. Providing ethnographic analysis of the work of staff advisers in parliamentary groups, the paper explores the invisible work invested into these competing positions. We argue that the invisibilization of work serves to accomplish a central tenet of democratic political discourse: the demonstration of resonance between constituents and elected politicians. The latter may be assisted by – but must not depend on – non-elected staff. Against this 'sacred' premise of representative democracy, the paper shows that and how political positions are based on invisible work and the work of invisibilizing. Building on laboratory and workplace studies, we specify the shape and function of invisibility by contrasting studies on invisible work in the natural sciences, in case law, and in party politics. In these instances, invisible work serves different discursive objects-in-formation: scientific facts, legal cases, and binding positions. Understanding invisible work, thus, leads us to consider different constitutive relevancies. In turn, these serve to specify established concepts in STS, such as 'controversy,' to better distinguish the day-to-day conduct of natural science from that of politics or law.

Although it is broadly acknowledged that democratic politics should operate through the public competition of binding positions, the careful development of these positions is commonly neglected. Providing ethnographic analysis of the work of staff advisers in parliamentary groups, the paper explores the invisible work invested into these competing positions. We argue that the invisibilization of work serves to accomplish a central tenet of democratic political discourse: the demonstration of resonance between constituents and elected politicians. The latter may be assisted by – but must not depend on – non-elected staff. Against this 'sacred' premise of representative democracy, the paper shows that and how political positions are based on invisible work and the work of invisibilizing. Building on laboratory and workplace studies, we specify the shape and function of invisibility by contrasting studies on invisible work in the natural sciences, in case law, and in party politics. In these instances, invisible work serves different discursive objects-in-formation: scientific facts, legal cases, and binding positions. Understanding invisible work, thus, leads us to consider different constitutive relevancies. In turn, these serve to specify established concepts in STS, such as 'controversy,' to better distinguish the day-to-day conduct of natural science from that of politics or law.

Politisch sind Menschen, Themen, Dinge, Aktivitäten oder Institutionen. So breit gestreut wie das Politische, so breit gestreut sind auch die möglichen Gegenstände und Gegenstandszuschnitte der politischen Ethnographie. Mit der politischen Ethnographie bezeichnen wir ein ethnographisches Forschungsprogramm, das wir im folgenden Beitrag konturieren.

This report was written by the organizers of the workshop "Accounting for Combat-Related Killings," which took place at the Goethe University Frankfurt in July 2014. Scholars from Israel, the United Kingdom, the United States,, Canada, and Germany came together to present and discuss case studies on the discourse practices involved in accounting for combat-related killings in different national and transnational contexts. Intending to reflect on the methodological skills needed to analyze newly available process data, the workshop brought together scholars using different methodological approaches (here mainly ethnomethodology and critical discourse analysis). In regard to the global trend towards increasing numbers of so called permanent, asymmetric, small, and permanent wars, the report turns to concepts, methods, and empirical findings that foster understandings of the difficulties war generates at social, cultural and political levels as well as the manner in which these predicaments are negotiated, denied, or deflected. The report summarizes the workshop by presenting the papers in a specific order, beginning with accounting in combat, followed by tribunals of accounting, and finally the sedimentation of accounting in cultural representations.

Der Bericht fasst die Ergebnisse der Tagung "Accounting for Combat-Related Killings" zusammen, der im Juli 2014 an der Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main stattgefunden hat. Diskursforscher/innen aus Israel, dem Vereinigten Königreich, den USA, Kanada und Deutschland präsentierten hier Fallstudien zur (umkämpften) Herstellung demokratischer Rechenschaft für Tötungen in Kampfhandlungen. Das Zusammenbringen unterschiedlicher Ansätze (hier v.a. der Ethnomethodologie und der kritischen Diskursanalyse) zielte auf eine methodologische Reflexion im Lichte neu zur Verfügung stehender Diskursdaten. Mit Blick auf die weltweit steigende Zahl militärischer Kampfhandlungen im Rahmen sog. kleiner, permanenter und asymmetrischer Kriege widmet sich dieser Bericht Konzepten, Methoden und empirischen Analysen zur kulturellen Aufarbeitung militärischer Tötungen. Dabei werden die Konferenzbeiträge im Hinblick auf ihre zeitliche Distanz zum diskursiv bearbeiteten Kampfgeschehen geordnet: von der interaktiven Herstellung eines operativen Feldes im Kampf (accounting in combat), über demokratische Verfahren der Aufklärung/Legitimierung (tribunals of accounting), bis hin zu Formen des kulturellen Gedächtnisses (sedimentation of accounting in cultural representations).URN: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs1502239 ; This report was written by the organizers of the workshop "Accounting for Combat-Related Killings," which took place at the Goethe University Frankfurt in July 2014. Scholars from Israel, the United Kingdom, the United States,, Canada, and Germany came together to present and discuss case studies on the discourse practices involved in accounting for combat-related killings in different national and transnational contexts. Intending to reflect on the methodological skills needed to analyze newly available process data, the workshop brought together scholars using different methodological approaches (here mainly ethnomethodology and critical discourse analysis). In regard to the global trend towards increasing numbers ...

This report was written by the organizers of the workshop "Accounting for combat-related killings", which took place at the Goethe University Frankfurt in July 2014. Scholars from Israel, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, and Germany came together to present and discuss case studies on the discourse practices involved in accounting for combat-related killings in different national and transnational contexts. Intending to reflect on the methodological skills needed to analyze newly available process data, the workshop brought together scholars using different methodological approaches (here mainly ethnomethodology and critical discourse analysis). In regard to the global trend towards increasing numbers of so called permanent, asymmetric, small, and permanent wars, the report turns to concepts, methods, and empirical findings that foster understandings of the difficulties war generates at social, cultural and political levels as well as the manner in which these predicaments are negotiated, denied, or deflected. The report summarizes the workshop by presenting the papers in a specific order, beginning with accounting in combat, followed by tribunals of accounting, and finally the sedimentation of accounting in cultural representations. (author's abstract)

The authors contrast two political inquiries in light of Luhmann's system theory of procedure. The article asks whether and to what extent these inquiries can be considered as procedural systems, meaning as distinct frames of action that generate specific meanings and relevancies. Starting from the micro-sociological analysis of interactions in the British "Hutton Inquiry" and the European Union's "CIA Inquiry" the authors reconstruct the specific functionalities of each with regard to their different ways of engaging and enabling self-referential processes of communication, knowledge production, and decision-making. As a system, each merges these three processes into a consistent, relatively strong or weak procedure, but they do so to different degrees. Overall, the article encourages a sociological understanding of the procedural mechanism as well as an empirical qualification and variation of system-theoretical assertions. ; Die Autoren nehmen zwei groβe politische Umfragen zum Anlaß, um zu erkennen, ob sie als prozedurale Systeme im Sinne der Luthmannschen Theorie begriffen werden können, d.h. als Handlungsrahmen verschiedener Interpretationsansätze und mit besonderen Konsequenzen. Der erste Fall ist die englische Umfrage " Hutton ", der zweite die CIA Umfrage der europäischen Union. Eine microsoziale Arbeit fördert die Handlungsweise der einen und anderen zu Tage : Aufbau interner Kommunikationprozesse, Wissenserarbeitung und Entscheidungsfindung. Am Kreuzpunkt der drei Prozesse entsteht in jedem der beiden Fälle ein kohärenter, mehr oder wenig starker Wirkungsmechanismus, mit unterschiedlichen Ausmaßen. Letzterer sollte sowohl soziologisch als auch auf seine empirische Befähigung und als Variante systemtheoretischer Aussagen begriffen werden. ; Prenant deux grandes enquêtes politiques, les auteurs se posent la question de savoir si elles peuvent être considérées comme des systèmes procéduraux au sens de la théorie de Luhmann, c'est-à-dire des cadres d'action bien distincts porteurs d'interprétations et de conséquences spécifiques. L'un des cas se situe en Angleterre « l'enquête Hutton », l'autre « l'enquête CIA » dans l'Union européenne. Un travail microsociologique rapporte les manières de fonctionner de l'une et de l'autre aux modalités de construction des processus internes de communication, de la production de connaissances et de la prise de décision. Il ressort que chacune produit bien, au carrefour de ces trois processus, une procédure cohérente, plus ou moins forte et qui fait à quelque degré système. ; Peer Reviewed

Inside the offices, paper-workers produce and combine documents. Their desks are covered with paper: with files, bundles and briefs. And the production goes on. Solicitors dictate notes, secretaries type letters, and the legal clerks compile sets of evidence. It is exactly through these paper-trails that things are set into motion for the day in court. The analysis of courses of mobilisation provides some potentials for a cross comparative perspective. Crucial here is the hypothesis generating inventiveness of the researcher. Beyond case-related story-telling, there is the need to create analytical devices that open up the micro-perspective. The data logs suggested above are just a starting point on the way to formalisation and generalisation. It remains the most challenging task to change from the single-case perspective to a cross-case or even cross-cultural perspective. Tracing mobilisation is by no means a new approach in social science or discourse analysis. Many of the ideas presented here stem from the empirical work done in interactionist ethnography, ethno methodology and Actor Network Theory. Here, I would like to finish with some observations on the significance of this research methodology for socio-legal studies. How can it profit from this perspective? The proposed research design, first of all, implies a critical reflection on socio-legal studies and its dominant research foci. How is it that either talk or text, either the drama in court or the rules of the books occupied sociolegal attention? Does one, in the text-book manner, need to declare the primacy of either oral or written language in legal discourse? The analysis of mobilisation allows one to transcend these debates. Despite the affinities with workplace studies, ethno methodology, and Actor Network Theory, the analysis of mobilisation is not identical to these fields of research. Tracing mobilisation does not directly aim to grasp the social organisation of the law firm, the solicitor's workplace, or the legal apparatus. It, moreover, focuses neither solely on local events, nor on the institutional talk. But what then does it offer? As I understand it, tracing mobilisation makes accessible representational projects in their socio-material course. The course includes various sites and layers of social praxis such as accumulative file-work, extended correspondence, or relatively self-driven events. This multi-sitedness directs the formation of legal discourse, and the involvement of subjects and objects. As a micro-sociologist, I was firstly interested in how court hearings are interactively accomplished. (text extract)

Der Autor beschränkt sich in seinem Beitrag auf die "handwerkliche" Frage, wie ein universelles Instrumentarium situativ gehandhabt wird und welche praktischen Probleme es bei seiner Anwendung gibt. Das untersuchte Instrument ist der Pass als Identitätsdokument. Im Mittelpunkt der Ausführungen stehen die vom Autor beobachteten Identitätsprüfungen, die jeweils um eine Passvorlage gruppiert sind. Dabei werden aussagekräftige Situationen analysiert, wobei der Handlungsfluss in vereinzelte Handgriffe des Verwaltens zergliedert wird. Grundlage dieser Studie ist eine Ethnographie einer ostdeutschen Ausländerbehörde, in der der Autor 1993 sechs Wochen den Amtsbetrieb begleitet hat. Nach einer Beschreibung der Situation der Antragsannahme werden verschieden Aspekte des Passes näher analysiert: der Pass als Identitätspapier, der Pass als Identifizierungsvorlage sowie die Nutzungsweise des Passes. Weil Text und Körper nicht identisch sind, erhält der Pass seine Funktion, eine persönliche Identität zu belegen. "Er muss, um die Identität vorführen zu können, gleich einem Werkzeug oder einer Formel, im Bedarfsfall gekonnt durch die Teilnehmer benutzt werden." (ICD)

To grasp criminal courts as truth spots, one needs to go beyond their symbolic applications to consider their interactional and epistemic implications. In this study, the authors compare the English Crown Court, German District Court, and U.S. State Court as "places on display" and as "places denied." These perspectives comment on the courts in light of their different interaction orders and their different positions in knowledge processes. For the latter, the authors utilize Knorr's taxonomy of laboratory—experiment relations. The article arrives at one basic distinction: the procedural replacement of trial hearings by deal-oriented plea bargaining in the U.S. context. In contrast, the English and the German courts involve a preference for trial hearings and for fully developed cases, which, however, does not forbid but encourage forms of trial-oriented plea bargain.

Das Jahrbuch Soziale Interaktion bietet dem Forschungs- und Denkstil des Symbolischen Interaktionismus im deutschen Sprachraum eine Plattform. Seit den 1970er Jahren liegen die entsprechenden Referenztexte von George Herbert Mead, Herbert Blumer, Erving Goffman oder Anselm Strauss in Übersetzung vor. Auch sind in den letzten fünfzig Jahren eine Reihe von davon angeleiteten Untersuchungen entstanden, aber vom Entstehen einer Forschungslandschaft kann in der deutschsprachigen Soziologie keine Rede sein. Hierzu will diese Publikation ihre Dienste leisten. Der Inhalt Mit Beiträgen von Heinz Bude, Michaela Pfadenhauer, Paul Eisewicht, Tilo Grenz, Thaddeus Müller, Helge Peters, Markus Wiencke. Die Zielgruppen Studierende und Dozierende der Soziologie Die Herausgebenden Dr. Heinz Bude ist Professor für Soziologie an der Universität Kassel. Dr. Michael Dellwing ist wissenschaftlicher Assistent am Lehrstuhl Makrosoziologie der Universität Kassel. Dr. Thomas Scheffer ist Professor für Soziologie an der Goethe-Universität in Frankfurt am Main. Dr. Sebastian Scheerer ist Professor für Soziologie an der Universität Hamburg