Becoming Evidence: Extraction and Relational Stabilisation

Research practices increasingly require claims to become recognisable as evidence through forms that are detached, portable, and comparable. I argue that extraction is not the production of data but a mode of stabilisation through which claims emerging from situated inquiry are authorised as evidence. Data emerges through situated inquiry. Claims articulate what that data permits us to say. Through different practices of stabilisation, some claims become evidence, while others contract or are withdrawn. Alongside extractive stabilisation, I develop relational stabilisation as an alternative route to becoming evidence through return, contestation, contraction, and declared conditions, before considering the infrastructural implications for audit and accountability.