The Indeterminacy of Trust. A Response to Möllering and Esposito’s Commentaries

Authors

  • Gil Eyal Department of Sociology, Columbia University https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7194-3864
  • Larry Au Department of Sociology, The City College of New York https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0642-9134
  • Cristian Capotescu INCITE, Columbia University https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8671-1679

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.1971-8853/20491

Keywords:

Trust, sociological theory, trust surveys, ethnomethodology

Abstract

We reply to Esposito and Möllering by clarifying what we meant by the procedure of “critical reconstruction”. It is not an external critique, because we have carefully followed the logic of trust research. But it is also not easily reconcilable with trust research, as Möllering argues, because we show that by doing so one is led to certain aporias, conundrums, and contradictions that do not permit leaving the concept as we found it. We reject any attempt to found the concept of trust in a theoretical constant such as complexity or irreducible uncertainty, and emphasize the need for an ethnomethodological approach that limits itself to how the actors themselves draw the distinctions between trust and blind faith, trust and mistrust, etc. This commitment is all the more necessary now, when trust research has become part of the very phenomenon it studies.

References

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Esposito, E. (2024). The Dilemma of Trust in the Risk Society: Commentary on Gil Eyal, Larry Au and Cristian Capotescu’s “Trust is a Verb!”. Sociologica, 18(2), 193–198. https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.1971-8853/20108

Eyal, G., Au, L., & Capotescu, C. (2024). Trust is a Verb!: A Critical Reconstruction of the Sociological Theory of Trust. Sociologica, 18(2), 169–191. https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.1971-8853/19316

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Möllering, G. (2013). Process Views of Trusting and Crises. In R. Bachmann & A. Zaheer (Eds.), Handbook of Advances in Trust Research (pp. 285–305). Cheltenham: Elgar.

Möllering, G. (2024). Practice(s) of Trusting. Commentary on Gil Eyal, Larry Au and Cristian Capotescu’s “Trust is a Verb!”. Sociologica, 18(2), 199–208. https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.1971-8853/20450

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Published

2024-10-30

How to Cite

Eyal, G., Au, L., & Capotescu, C. (2024). The Indeterminacy of Trust. A Response to Möllering and Esposito’s Commentaries. Sociologica, 18(2), 209–214. https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.1971-8853/20491

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Section

Comments on Essays