Constructing social identity: Silence and argument in an Arab-Jewish Israeli group encounter

The purpose of this study is to uncover the subtle displays of identity which emerge when groups in macro-conflict interact in a structured setting. This study uses the tool of Conversational Analysis (CA) to examine a videotaped intergroup encounter session of Jews and Palestinians there to discuss “the conflict” in order to come to a mutual understanding. The central question we ask in this paper is how participants in a Jewish and Arab Israeli intergroup encounter collaborate to achieve their respective social identities. Adopting the tool of Conversational Analysis (CA), we examine the encounter's interactions in terms of its microfine conversational features, and show that non-normative gaps in talk (silence) seem to be strategically placed in terms of the unfolding of the discourse. In this paper, we explore silence, as used by members of both groups, to address and reconstruct the true power asymmetry. The microanalysis reveals that the development of the argument and the corresponding gaps in talk are intricately bound up with the construction of the social roles and the orientation of participants to each other. Ultimately we reveal how the two groups, in arguing their respective positions, work to redress existing power asymmetries.