(Un)Real matters: Toward the making of fabrication studies

The place of truth in public life has garnered a heightened status in recent times. Considerable efforts are underway in popular and academic forums to shore up true beliefs against their identified counterparts. However, the adequacy of such efforts has been a continuing topic of concern. Such lingering worry points to the intellectual and normative need for sustained programmes of research that offer alternative, but generative, foci and agendas. In response, this article poses the question: How do recognised fabrications contribute to social, political and professional life? The term ‘fabrication’ is offered as an umbrella category to refer to claims and representations that, crucially, people mutually regard as false, imagined, fallacious, invalid or otherwise flawed. As will be argued, the sheer pervasiveness of fabrications suggests the need to re-think the starting presumptions evident in contemporary discussions about truth, truth telling and trust.