4.0 Article

Withholding consent How citizens resist expert responses by positioning themselves as 'the ones to be convinced'

Journal

PRAGMATICS AND SOCIETY
Volume 12, Issue 4, Pages 669-695

Publisher

JOHN BENJAMINS PUBLISHING CO
DOI: 10.1075/ps.20032.bur

Keywords

public meetings; challenging questions; contested expertise; withholding consent; conversation analysis; 'weapon of the weak' practice

Funding

  1. Netherlands Organization for Health Research and Development (ZonMw) [50-52200-98-325]

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This paper explores how residents in the Netherlands resist experts' dominance in public meetings by effectively challenging their answers and aiming to be convinced rather than just informed through systematic questioning.
This paper examines public meetings in the Netherlands where experts and officials interact with local residents on the human health effects of livestock farming. Using Conversation Analysis, we reveal a 'weapon of the weak': a practice by which the residents resist experts' head start in information meetings. It is shown how residents draw on the given question-answer format to challenge experts and pursue an admission of, for example, methodological shortcomings. We show how the residents' first question functions as a 'foot-in-the-door,' providing them with a strong basis for skepticism. By systematically challenging the expert responses, the residents exploit the interaction's sequential organization, with the effect that the goal becomes them being convinced rather than being informed. Consequently, the withholding of consent becomes the residents' 'weapon'. Finally, we argue that in an age where expertise is increasingly contested, it is crucial to understand how, and to what end, this contestation may occur.

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