What Does “Resistance” Actually Look Like? The Respecification of Resistance as an Interactional Accomplishment

Abstract

In this introductory article to the special issue on Resistance in Talk-in-Interaction, we review the vast body of research that has respecified resistance by investigating it as and when it occurs in real-life encounters. Using methodological approaches such as ethnomethodology, conversation analysis, and discursive psychology, studies of resistance “in the wild” treat social interaction as a sequentially organized, joint enterprise. As a result, resistance emerges as the alternative to cooperation and therefore, on each occasion, resistant actions are designed to deal with the sequential and moral accountabilities that arise from the specifics of the situation. By documenting the wide array of linguistic, prosodic, sequential, and embodied resources that individuals use to resist the requirements set by interlocutors’ prior turns, this article provides the first comprehensive overview of existing research on resistance as an interactional accomplishment.

Resisting wh-questions in business coaching

“…In the analysis of wh-sequences displaying resistance, consideration was given to the relative strength of the resistive responses in terms of whether the progressivity of the ongoing course of action was suspended or not and whether clients performed resisting while or without responding ( Humă et al, 2023 ). We found practices that can be attributed to the previously established category of ‘moving against’ or ‘opposing’, in which clients resist or “push back against” ( Humă et al, 2023 ) the question constraints by overtly disagreeing with presuppositions, or the plain asking of a (wh-)question thereby (actively) opposing or blocking the smooth progression of the wh-questioning sequence. Subtypes include ‘refusing to answer’, ‘complaining’ and ‘disagreeing with the question’s agendas or presuppositions’.…”

“…This yielded a collection of 82 wh-questioning sequences containing all practices of resistance on the active/passive or explicit/implicit continuum; this also included ‘no response’, ‘minimal acknowledgement’, ‘initiating (other-)repair’ and ‘accounting (for not answering)’, which function as ‘moving away’ or ‘withdrawing’ practices. However, since these phenomena have already been dealt with extensively in existing conversation analytic literature (see Muntigl, 2023 or Humă et al, 2023 for a recent overview), they will not be further discussed in the present work. Table 1 presents the distribution of the all resistive sequences according to the coaching process and session.…”

“…Our approach to resistance is in concert with Humă et al (2023) , who view this phenomenon as an interactional accomplishment. Humă (2023) has identified varying, yet related conceptualizations of resistance with respect to a narrow vs. broad focus.…”

Resistance in Business-to-Business “Cold” Sales Calls

“…Dispreferred responses such as refusals and rejections are often delayed, mitigated, and can contain appreciations and accounts (Schegloff, 2007). These responses are one of the vehicles for accomplishing resistance because they impede the completion of the ongoing course of action and thus frustrate the progressivity of the interaction (see also Humă et al, 2023). 1…”

“… 1. For an alternative conceptualization of resistance that draws on empirical conversation analytic research see Humă et al (2023). …”