Living Truth: A reading in social and sociological hermeneutics

231 Pages·2014·1.68 MB·English

Living Truth:
A reading in social and sociological hermeneutics

Ashley Barnwell

A thesis in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy

School of Social Sciences
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
2014
THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES
Thesis/Dissertation Sheet
Surname or Family name: Barnwell
First name: Ashley Other name/s:
Abbreviation for degree as given in the University calendar: SOCA9000
School: Social Sciences Faculty: Arts and Social Sciences
Title: Uving Truth : A reading in social and sociological hermeneutics
Abstract:
In social theory, as in everyday life, we are faced with the question of how to account for the seemingly unaccountable complexity of lives that are
not all of one piece with methods that are similarly dissonant. Drawing attention to such a representational challenge, this thesis explores the
ethical, sociological, and political dimensions of both social and academic truth· telling and verification practices. Focusing on questions of method.
and the recent turn from critique to affect theory specifically, this study parses out underlying questions about how we determine what will and will
not qualify as a complex field, a proper genre, or an affective impulse; as well as how these decisions work to shape and produce particular
realities.
To foreground the living contestation that animates questions of truth, the thesis opens with a case study about veteran imposture, the Stolen
Valour Act. and public debates about who has the right to claim particular life stories. Autobiography hoaxes are routinely read as a breach of the
line between fact and fiction, however, as this chapter illustrates, they also draw out underlying social conflicts about authorship and propriety and
alert us to the dynamism of seemingly rigid genre laws. Building on this investigation into social authorship, chapter two tracks the ongoing
disciplinary irresolution in the sociology of literature, and discovers that scholarly projects seeking to address the ideological rift between felt and
factual truths are similarly unsure about what constitutes authentic represen tation.
Dilating upon this intriguing parallel, the final three chapters offer a sustained analysis of the affective turn's theoretical and methodological
directives, which propose that in order to tease out the nuances of experience we must discard methods of close reading, judgement, and truth·
seeking, to take up new. affect-oriented, experimental practices. Together, these chapters examine whether such a shift can alleviate critical
exclusion, or i f it continues to circumscribe which methods can hold intellectual and practical value. Through a series of close readings, this thesis
reframes recent methodological manifestos not as appeals for newness, or hope for solutions. but as a continuation of debates about discipline,
methodology, ethics, and the nature of veracity.
Declaration relating to disposition of project thesis/dissertation
I hereby grant to the University of New South Wales or its agents the right to archive and to make available my thesis or dissertation in whole or in
part in the University libraries in all forms of media, now or here after known, subject to the provisions of the Copyright Act 1968. I retain all
property rights, such as patent rights. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis or dissertation.
I also authorise Univers;ty Microfilms to use the 350 word abstract of my thesis in Dissertation Abstracts International (this is applicable to doctoral
theses only).
J~J<~ J~I·:t ..... . .
Signature Witness Date
FOR OFFICE USE ONLY Date of completion of requirements for Award:
ORIGINALITY STATEMENT
'I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and to the best of my knowledge it
contains no materials previously published or written by another person, or substantial
proportions of material which have been accepted for the award of any other degree or
diploma at UNSW or any other educational institution. except where due acknowledgement
is made in the thesis. Any contribution made to the research by others. with whom I have
worked at UNSW or elsewhere, is explicitly acknowledged in the thesis. I also declare that
the intellectual content o f this thesis is the product of my own work, except to the extent that
assistance from others in the project's design and conception or in style, presentation and
linguistic expression is acknowledged.'
Signed .......... ·IJ>..c:::.~~~~......::::;.........-:-:
Date ............. ~~ . .;.<;.j.~l.~ .................... .
Abstract

In social theory, as in everyday life, we are faced with the question of how to account for the
seemingly unaccountable complexity of lives that are not all of one piece with methods that
are similarly dissonant. Drawing attention to such a representational challenge, this thesis
explores the ethical, sociological, and political dimensions of both social and academic truth-
telling and verification practices. Focusing on questions of method, and the recent turn from
critique to affect theory specifically, this study parses out underlying questions about how we
determine what will and will not qualify as a complex field, a proper genre, or an affective
impulse; as well as how these decisions work to shape and produce particular realities.
To foreground the living contestation that animates questions of truth, the thesis opens
with a case study about veteran imposture, the Stolen Valour Act, and public debates about
who has the right to claim particular life stories. Autobiography hoaxes are routinely read as a
breach of the line between fact and fiction, however, as this chapter illustrates, they also draw
out underlying social conflicts about authorship and propriety and alert us to the dynamism of
seemingly rigid genre laws. Building on this investigation into social authorship, chapter two
tracks the ongoing disciplinary irresolution in the sociology of literature, and discovers that
scholarly projects seeking to address the ideological rift between felt and factual truths are
similarly unsure about what constitutes authentic representation.
Dilating upon this intriguing parallel, the final three chapters offer a sustained
analysis of the affective turn’s theoretical and methodological directives, which propose that
in order to tease out the nuances of experience we must discard methods of close reading,
judgement, and truth-seeking, to take up new, affect-oriented, experimental practices.
Together, these chapters examine whether such a shift can alleviate critical exclusion, or if it
continues to circumscribe which methods can hold intellectual and practical value. Through a
series of close readings, this thesis reframes recent methodological manifestos not as appeals
for newness, or hope for solutions, but as a continuation of debates about discipline,
methodology, ethics, and the nature of veracity.

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Acknowledgments

During the process of writing this thesis I have been supported and encouraged by mentors,
colleagues, and friends. Most importantly, I thank my supervisor, Vicki Kirby, for her faith in
my argument. It is difficult to convey the extent of my gratitude to her – she has taught me to
think and to write. But, more than this, she has inspired me to be curious about the world, to
be loyal to my questions, and to make intellectual work a vocation. The unwavering acuity,
richness, and honesty of her supervision has been invaluable.
I am also grateful to my co-supervisor Helen Pringle, Melanie White, Ursula Rao, Andrew
Metcalfe, Dominic Fitzsimmons, Jamie Roberts, and Peta Hinton for their time, reading
suggestions, and professional mentorship over the past few years.
My colleagues and friends in the Post-graduate Research Lab have supported me in ways
both big and small. In reading and writing groups my fellow students have offered me
valuable insight and feedback. But I was equally nourished by squandered office hours spent
swapping recipes, secrets, and favourite albums. Patricia Morgan, Michelle Jamieson, and
Florence Chiew have been peer mentors to me – sharing their wisdom and working methods.
I am also grateful for the friendship and daily presence of Will Johncock, Rosemary Grey,
Maia Gunn Watkinson, Emilie Auton, Yvette Selim, Rebecca Pearse, Anisha Guatam, Jac
Dalziell, Rhonda Sui, Ele Jansen, Zoe Baker, Ozzie Etminan, and Scott McBride. Special
thanks to Lorraine Burdett for her humour and proofreading skills.
During the final stage of this project I was supported by a summer scholarship at the National
Library of Australia, generously funded by John and Heather Seymour. On the edge of Lake
Burley Griffin I found the solitude and space needed to draw together the final threads of my
thesis. I am very grateful to the NLA for this opportunity.
Finally, my greatest debt is to my family for their excitement about and pride in my efforts;
my dear friend Moira McKenzie for her warmth and interest; and to Joseph Cummins for his
daily care, his intellectual provocations, his stoic advice, his honesty, and his love.

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Contents

Abstract i
Acknowledgments ii
Introduction 1

I. Telling the Truth: The Complicity of Social Authorship 10
II. Reading Life’s Literature: A Question of Method 36
III. Evidence in Flux: Verifying Affect 76
IV. The Crisis of “Non-Representation” 124
V. Ordinary Paranoia: An Everyday Hermeneutics of Suspicion 162

Conclusion 191
References 204
Warnings about relativism to the contrary, truth is still what
most of us strive for. Partial and insecure surely, and something
slightly different from ‘the facts,’ but truth nonetheless: the
capacity to say ‘This is so’.

Avery F. Gordon,
Ghostly Matters: Haunting and the Sociological Imagination,
(2008, 20).

Despite my intense desire to know the truth, however partial or
incomplete, I am forced to recognise that the process of finding
the story continues to change the story. As I advance into the
territory of recovery, I can’t trust even myself. That may be the
hardest lesson of all.

Nancy K. Miller,
The Things They Saved: Pieces of a Jewish Past,
(2011, 26).
Introduction

As the first thing the reader reads, yet the last thing the writer writes, an introduction often
masks a period of coalescing and uncertainty with the clarity of hindsight. But the truth of a
project’s evolution is often less organised and precise. An intellectual exploration, though
perhaps considered, methodical, and already informed with a unique signature, may not
always be aware of its own impetus or goal. As Rebecca Solnit writes in her book about the
social life of stories, The Faraway Nearby (2013), “We think we tell stories, but stories often
tell us” (4). Questions about where authorial intention originates and how it works are central
to this thesis, and thus by way of introduction it seems appropriate to give a brief account of
how the motivations and direction of this particular project developed.

When I began writing this thesis it was to be about memoir and autobiography
hoaxes. I was fascinated by public arguments about what makes a story true, and what is
socially accepted as evidence in different contexts. My questions were about the everyday
methods we use to decide what is valuable or genuine in both personal and public life. For
example, if someone transgresses the rules of genre, perhaps using non-fiction to present a
fiction, why does it attract moral outrage in some cases, yet at other times public applause?
Why are facts important to people in some instances but not in others? Furthermore, how
does society deal with its conflicts about what verifies or authenticates a truth? These
questions informed the first stages of my research.

However, when I started to think about my own methods – forms of sociological
reading – the focus of this thesis took an unexpected turn. Faced with the matter of how to
identify or position my questions in reference to existing traditions and conversations, the
very ‘genre panic’ I was examining in public life became central to my own project. Rather
than clarifying the question of how people determine what is true, I found that debates about
scholarly methods, even at the cutting edge of interdisciplinary work, were also governed by
questions about what should and should not qualify as an authentic account. Must a story,
first and foremost, have emotional resonance or a verifiable foundation? Do people care
about the political assumptions that underpin particular forms of rhetoric, or are they more
interested in the pragmatic affects of public discourse? In addition, what do we do with the
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inconsistencies and contradictions that arise and threaten to unhinge the representational
practices we often rely upon to make life, with all its irresolvable complexities, workable? All
of these questions were further complicated, rather than resolved, by the method proposals I
read.

Confronted by this parallel between academic and public life, I discovered that my
deliberations about which genre to use were not simply my own, but the very stuff of the
social and sociological imagination. Hermeneutic processes of interpreting and creating
meaning are vital, yet unsettled, in both scholarly and common life. In our everyday dealings
we struggle with how best to represent ourselves in a way that is true to our sense of self, but
also intelligible to others. We downplay or omit things in certain contexts but emphasise
these same attributes in other forums. Similarly, when we explain our work to people, the
focus of what we do, the example we choose to give, is slightly different depending on who is
asking, and where, and when. There is not one clearly prescribed, fail-safe way to give
account. Our words and actions are shaped and edited in a volatile social arena where the
very determinants that guide us - rules and conventions about what is proper and preferred -
are also in flux. Yet, in a fascinating complication, we pursue an accurate and reliable way of
finding and telling the truth nonetheless. Even as we participate in the changing demands of
social life, we desire, and often need, a foundational explanation that sets things out with
clear identities and relational patterns, like chemicals in a periodic table with known
properties and reactions.

Delving into this puzzle, my thesis, which began as a sociological study about public
truth-telling, therefore extends into arguments within the social sciences and humanities
about how to engage with ordinary life. Importantly however, while it intervenes in existing
discussions about how to most authentically represent social being, this study steers away
from choosing which method is finally and exclusively the most veracious. Rather, it
meditates upon how and why we make such decisions, and what these appraisals tell us about
how we value and use truth, facts, and evidence. This thesis explores why we invest certain
ways of explaining something with more authority, valour, or reverence than others, and if
our commitment to certain modes of representation limits the scope of what can be
recognised or revealed. It is interested in how our subscription to certain genres, to set
identities with recognisable characteristics, creates important forms of social cohesion but
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