From Breaches to Breachers

Abstract

This article offers a development of Garfinkel’s (1984) breaching experiments. The discussed breaches are not artificially staged to provoke a reaction, instead they occur naturally in the context, in this case the design field. Also, the focus shifts from the breaches to the people enacting them, the breachers. Three examples of breachers are compared, enabling a deepened understanding of what they have in common, what sets them apart, and what they reveal about the prevalent conditions of the context in which they occur. From a position of in-betweenness/ “mellanförskap”, breachers illuminate blindspots and push the boundaries of what questions are possible to ask in their respective fields. Not only breaches, but also breachers offer valuable friction, building norm awareness that is a premise for norm criticism and ultimately norm creativity.

Keywords

• Blindspots
• breaches
• breachers
• in-betweenness
• 'mellanförskap'
• norms and values