Interpretative repertoires, conversation analysis and being critical

This chapter summarizes the 'Death and furniture' paper's argument in relation to some of the main issues that motivated its writing. Discursive psychology developed in an environment where scientific practice was becoming an object of study alongside other social phenomena. Relativism is social science par excellence: it does the job of questioning the assumptions that permeate different social practices, including its own. Realists use the furniture argument to suggest that, independent of any description, there is an objective world. The Death argument has an ontological side that links directly to the Furniture argument: it suggests that only a fool could deny the occurrence of death, disaster, misery, tragedy. Death and furniture argument contributes to a general discussion of ontology and epistemology and lays the ground for a discursive psychology philosophy of respecification and reflexivity. Finally there is a central point to understanding the commitment to relativism for discursive researchers exploring social issues.