Shaping epistemic distance: producing and withholding knowledge in market research

This article explores the notion of ‘epistemic distances,’ which are operationalised by acts of showing as well as omitting. It is investigated through practices of market research where researchers aim to overcome a perceived lack or absence of market knowledge. However, such work relies on keeping clients and respondents away from many details of how the research is undertaken. Based on anthropological fieldwork, this article inquires into how the staff members of a market research firm limit what their clients and respondents know. Such study of the role of secrecy and non-knowledge in commissioned knowledge production takes its cue from the anthropology of secrecy and the agnotological study of ignorance. Further, the article draws on spatial imaginaries in constructivist market studies as well as the study of the role of distance and difference in understanding in science and technology studies. The text contributes to the understanding of knowledge making by showing how market research features epistemic as well as relational concerns. These are handled through the active managing of epistemic distances by shaping what involved actors know. The gap between current and desired knowledge is sometimes met only by maintaining distance.