Speaker: Gil Eyal (Professor, Columbia University)
Title: Trust Methods: Accounting for Who, What, When and How to Trust
Abstract: Over the last decade, and especially during the pandemic, trust - in government, in science, in the media - has emerged as a central concern of public, political and academic debate. In this talk, I argue that the tools we have at our disposal to study trust - especially trust surveys and barometers - are inadequate for the task and obscure from view how trusting (and mistrusting) happens as a practical matter. Instead of using surveys to quantify trust, we should study the methods individuals employ in order to draw the line between "blind faith" and responsible, trustworthy trust. Drawing on interviews with Long Covid patients, I will illustrate how they draw this line and accomplish trust in their own research, in other patients, and in doctors.