This article is an exploration of John Shotter's suggestion to approach social inquiry as a ‘craft’. To take this suggestion seriously calls for making visible the specific ‘skills’ that conjure social inquiry into being, as craft. For this reason, the article presents small vignettes—drawn from the author's practice of supervision of researcher-practitioners—that elucidate some of the turbulent passages that social researchers learn to negotiate, as they ‘acrobatically’ stretch themselves to eavesdrop on the messy trails of world-making activity they are thrown into, as they participate in a social milieu. From waiting at awkward thresholds that do not announce an agenda; to approaching mis-takes as occasions for bringing experience to articulation; to registering the pregnancy of silences that meet language at its edge. Just like Joyce's masterpiece Finnegans Wake brings into visibility the work that readers must perform to engage with its messy text, so this article argues that social inquiry as craft involves becoming skilled in various heuristic moves, through which social worlds can be listened into articulation.

中文翻译：

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窃听：社会探究的技巧

这篇文章是对约翰·肖特 (John Shotter) 的建议的探索，即将社会探究视为一种“工艺”。要认真对待这个建议，就需要使唤起社会探究的特定“技能”成为可见的工艺。出于这个原因，这篇文章提出了一些小插曲——取自作者对研究者-从业者的监督实践——阐明了社会研究人员学会谈判的一些动荡段落，因为他们“杂技”伸展自己以窃听混乱的踪迹当他们参与社会环境时，他们被投入到创造世界的活动中。从不宣布议程的尴尬门槛等待；将错误视为将经验带入表达的机会；记录与语言边缘相遇的沉默的孕育。Finnegans Wake将读者必须执行的工作引入其凌乱的文本中，因此本文认为，社会探究作为工艺涉及熟练掌握各种启发式动作，通过这些动作可以倾听社会世界的声音。