Considering Discursive Absence as Resonance

Discourse contains both presences and absences, conveying meaning by what is said and what remains unsaid. Discursive absences make for challenging analysis because the unsaid is slippery by design. This paper looks at questions of rigour (How would you study absence?) and morality (Why would you study absence?) to make a case for qualitative studies of discursive absence. To conduct convincing studies of discursive absence, we propose a compliment to Doise's concept of ‘articulation’ between levels of analysis, namely what we term ‘resonance’. While articulation focuses on how the said can be tracked across levels, resonance focuses on how the unsaid is made meaningful through presences and how discursive absence might echo, interplay with, and reinforce presences and absences on other levels. We provide a ‘quick tour’ of exemplary studies of discursive absence at each of Doise's levels of analysis, demonstrating (1) the diversity of discursive absences occurring at different social levels—intrapersonal, interpersonal, intergroup, ideological and (2) that analysis will profit by paying attention to how discursive absences ‘resonate’ across and between levels, especially ideologically. Attending to the resonance of discursive absences across different levels can reveal the moral grounding for studying the unsaid and develop a more rigorous analysis of discursive absences.