ZusammenfassungDer Beitrag expliziert Gütekriterien der qualitativen Sozialforschung. Er geht von der Prämisse aus, dass Qualitätsmerkmale in diesem Segment empirischer Sozialforschung nur unter konsequentem Rekurs auf die spezifischen Funktionsbedingungen interpretativer und rekonstruktiver Verfahren zu bestimmen sind. Fünf Kriterien werden vorgeschlagen: Gegenstandsangemessen ist eine Weise der Herstellung des Forschungsgegenstandes, die das empirische Feld ernst nimmt und Methoden, Fragestellungen und Datentypen einer fortlaufenden Justierungsanforderung unterwirft. Empirische Sättigung reflektiert die Güte der Verankerung von Interpretationen im Datenmaterial. Theoretische Durchdringung markiert die Qualität der Theoriebezüge, in die das Forschen eingespannt ist, und arbeitet an deren Irritationspotential. Textuelle Performanz bezeichnet die Leistung, die Texte als Güte konstituierende Kommunikation gegenüber Rezipientinnen der Forschung zu erbringen haben. Originalitätschließlich ist das Kriterium, an dem die Einlösung des Neuigkeitsanspruchs wissenschaftlichen Wissens zu prüfen ist.

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The author explores materialities as pre-established and co-producing features of criminal proceedings. This is done by discussing courtrooms, files and stories in relation to English Crown Court hearings. The three materialities gain significance in the course of the court hearing, but do not derive from it. They exceed the course of talk-in-court. Once the hearing started, the pre-established materialities can be referred to but not simply modified. Materialities, in this line, provide stability and guidance for the hearing. They facilitate, purify and condense it. However, their temporal separation causes problems for those who run the show. Materialities can be employed but not fully integrated. Unwelcome parts do, at times, disturb, disrupt and complicate the current dealings. ''State problems and solve them in terms of time rather than of space''. 1

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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.