Linh Dan Nguyen, Chloe Preece & Dirk Vom Lehn
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1 Introduction by Dirk Vom Lehn, Will Gibson, and Natalia Ruiz-Junco
Abstract
The introduction explains the motivation for this book that is a continuation of a long-standing interactionist concern with the empirical exploration of the uses of technologies in people’s everyday lives. The chapter provides a brief overview of the current debates about technology in interactionist sociology. It discusses how technology supports the emergence of and features in, social relationships, how different members of the interactionist “family” – symbolic interactionists, social constructionists, and ethnomethodologists – explore the interweaving of technology with interaction, and how recent technological developments have encouraged studies of online identities, online communities, and online communication as well as the impact of the use of technology on issues such as power and social hierarchies and the formation and negotiations of identity. The chapter ends with a brief summary of the content of the book.
Part 1 Power and Control
2 Being Family and Friends to Abused Women – A Qualitative Study of Digital Media in Intimate Partner Violence by Susanne Boethius and Malin Åkerström
ABSTRACT In research on intimate partner violence, most studies focus on those who are abused. In thischapter, we focus on how families, friends, relatives, and employers of abuse victims interactthrough the use of smartphones, social media platforms, apps, and other internet-connecteddevices. We discuss how digital technology is integrated into the lives of domestic abusevictims and their social networks: friends, relatives, family, and coworkers. Digital technologyhas increased the reach of abuse in close relationships, extending the troubles beyond theborders of the couple immediately involved and providing new ways and opportunities forperpetrators to be present even when physically absent.
3 News, Sex, and the Fight Between Corporate Control and Human Communication Online by Michael Dellwing
Abstract
Centralization, decentralization, hobbyism and monetization have been in perpetual conflict over dominance on the internet for decades. Two domains stand in the center of this fight: news and sex. While sex was long a domain of hobbyist interaction, news was long a domain of centralized, corporate aggregation. Today, subversive use of existing monetized services blur the lines, like decentralized news content on youtube channels as well as nude content on hub sites or onlyfans, which retain decentralization at the expense of introducing monetization.
These seemingly distant fields are connected: we are witnessing a fight over corporate and centralized control of online spaces, fought with weapons of moral panics. Corporate and state actors show increasing hostility against all forms of decentralized online spaces, using the narrative of “disinformation” to delegitimize and create moral panics over decentralized actors in news and using the narrative of “exploitation” to create moral panics over hobbyist sexual interaction. The former fight has led to demonetization and algorithmic hiding of decentralized news on YouTube; the latter has felled sex- and body-positive online nudity spaces, notably Tumblr in December 2018. In turn, remaining hobbyist corners of online sex spaces show increasing hostility against monetized online sex, which is in large parts infighting between different non-corporate actors, and acts as a diversion from the larger subversive power of online sex. Ground zero for this fight is the r/gonewild subreddit, a mainstay of informal nude self-presentation on reddit. The chapter reconstructs the topography of these conflicts by both reconstructing the moral panics.
4 Terminal Violence: Online Interactions and Infra-Humanization by Simon Gottschalk
Abstract
Combining hypermodern theory and symbolic interactionism, I use vignettes of routine interactions with terminals and with others through terminals to critically examine five of their interrelated features: (1) solicitations overload, (2) the mobilization for instantaneity, urgency, and visibility, (3) digital labor exploitation, (4) ontological disruptions, and (5) silencing. These features require users to adjust their emotional dispositions and mental habits, and those adjustments foster infra-humanization. Whereas infra-humanization is typically explained as an interpersonal process that originates in human agents, the vignettes illustrate that it can also be an intrapersonal experience that originates in non-human ones. In the conclusion, I suggest the need to develop the concept and experience of infra-humanization as a perspective that can help us to critically examine the effects of terminal interaction and resist them.
5 Summing Up the Criminal Case Online David Wästerfors
Abstract
Online engagement with criminal cases is often interpreted in either punitive or crowdsourcing terms, but interactonist and ethnomethodological analyses can disclose other and more fundamental aspects. This chapter looks closely at a particular practice among posters on the Swedish platform Flashback: that of summing up the discussion ‘so far’. To sum up is a delicate and vulnerable act of rhetoric in this setting, often requested to create order but also criticized for resulting in errors, thereby seen as deflecting rather than reflecting what has been posted previously. By the help of Garfinkel and Sacks’ conceptualization of ‘formulations’ – a common way for conversationalists to comment on and demarcate their actions within an ongoing conversation – the chapter exemplifies the indexical, reflexive and accountable character of online summaries in the Flashback community. Even though summaries can be viewed as a cleansing and ordering device, they might as well expand rather than end the discussion. The author argues that interactions around summaries of crime cases illustrate the online sleuthing culture and how its internal social control as well as meaning production constitute an online setting.
Part 2 Identity and Community
6 Organizing Subcultural Identities on Social Media: Instagram Infrastructures and User Actions by J. Patrick Williams and Samuel Judah
Abstract
This chapter contributes to interactionist scholarship on the intersection of social media and identity through exploring aspects of contemporary subcultural identification on Instagram. Focusing on the straightedge subculture, we pay close attention to users’ productive and consumptive behaviors as embodied in vernacular visual culture. Our particular interest is in how the subcultural and the technological are intertwined in people’s everyday practices. To study this, we focus on the observable vernacular practices through which subcultural identities are made recognizable and intelligible by others through interactions on Instagram. We first describe how Instagram’s infrastructure affords users’ identity expressions, as well as researchers’ analysis of them, through metapictures. We then look at posts as actions that portray subcultural identities visually through photos, narratively through captions, and hypertextually through hashtags. Our focus on action highlights the discursive and constructed nature of subcultural identities.
7 A Queer Kind of Stigma by Christopher T. Conner and Sarah Ann Sullivan
Abstract
Using a multi-sited multiple methods qualitative research design (including participant observation, in-depth interviews, and analysis of dating profiles) we explore the popular gay dating app “Grindr.” This paper examines how users engage in stigma management techniques in the online world, and how some members reproduce the stigmatization process through their interactions. We also find new forms of stigma that exist within the app through the use of blocking and non-responses—users who were found undesirable preferred being blocked rather than ignored, due to the lack of information provided by those who chose not to respond. Moreover, while Goffman’s (1963) concept of stigma calls for us to consider how groups manage their stigmatized identities, his analysis of the concept does not explore in-group stigma of those already stigmatized. This paper extends the concepts of homonormativity showing how users reify the concept through a cultural system erected on hierarchies of sexual capital. As other scholars have argued, this process also exemplifies how toxic techno cultures are produced in digital environments through a complex relationship between user interactions and app structure (Massanari 2015). Finally, this paper extends Goffman’s theory of stigma by showing how users make sense of the structural constraints of the app and navigate stigma in the digital world.
8 Symbolic Separation: The Amish and 21st-Century Technologies by Corey J. Colyer, Rachel E. Stein, and Katie E. Corcoran
America’s strict Anabaptist communities (such as the Amish) remain a curiosity in the twenty-first century. Their commitments to modesty and technological simplicity mark them counter-cultural, drawing curious onlookers. This chapter considers how members of these strict Anabaptist communities use, reject, and adapt certain technologies to conform with cultural expectations. By regulating technological practice, these communities establish “cultural fences” (Kraybill 2004; Kraybill, Johnson-Weiner, and Nolt 2013). This chapter examines how Amish (and members of other Plain Anabaptist communities) embrace or reject technology. We argue that these dynamics follow the principles of negotiated order (Strauss 1978; Maines 1982). Drawing on Donald Kraybill’s (2001) suggestion that The Amish “negotiate with modernity,” we show how adopting, rejecting, and adapting technology establish symbolic boundaries of Amish identity.
Part 3 Practices and Technology
9 Receiving Phone Calls During Medical Consultations: The Production of Interactional Space for Technology Use by Aleksandr Shirokov, Iuliia Avgustis, and Andrei Korbut
Abstract
Receiving and making calls requires participants to coordinate phone’s use with different ongoing activities. This is especially relevant in institutional settings such as doctor–patient interaction since the participants have a particular task at hand. Upon hearing a call or feeling the mobile phone’s vibration, neither patients nor doctors pick up the phone immediately. They systematically wait for the end of the turn or use various methods depending on the interactional environment to finish their or other’s turn and only then answer the call. In this chapter, we explore how doctors and patients are jointly producing slots for answering the incoming call. Our data consists of 151 video recordings of consultations with various medical professionals collected at a private clinic in Moscow, Russia, in 2018–2019. Data are analyzed using the method of Conversation Analysis. We outline a certain pattern in the way phone calls are handled in medical consultations: doctors tend to initiate the suspension of the conversation with patients and transition to the telephone conversation during their turns.
10 Non-Talking Heads: How Architectures of Digital Copresence Shape Question-Silence-Answer-Sequences in University Teaching by Kenan Hochuli and Johanna Jud
Abstract
This chapter focuses on question-answer sequences in online university teaching. We analyze how lecturers and students organize both individual and interactional conduct after a question has been asked but no answer has been given yet for two different configurations of interaction on digital videoconferencing platforms: One is the “face wall” of Zoom, where participants find themselves in a situation of polyexponation, i.e., a technically increased possibility of mutual perception. The other is Adobe Connect, a platform on which the lecturer communicates auditorily while students use the “chat” function to communicate. The analysis demonstrates how the ways in which participants establish and negotiate copresence within these environments create a different kind of conditional relevance for responding to each other’s contribution. Whereas silent students remain invisible on Adobe Connect, participants on Zoom become noticeable as non-talking heads on the face wall. This chapter’s analysis of short video sequences offers a detailed insight into the unfolding of what has become everyday human interaction in online environments. The data are in German with an English Translation.
11 The Role of Cursor Movements in a Screen-Based Video Game Interaction by Lydia Heiden, Heike Baldauf-Quilliatre, and Matthieu Quignard
Abstract
In a computer-mediated interaction, when participants are not physically co-present, certain resources are no longer available for interaction while others appear, according to the affordances of the technological environment. In this study, we investigate one particular digital tool, the cursor, in the context of a shared interface where cursor movements are visible to one co-participant. We show that the cursor is not only used to “interact” with the digital environment (via clicks) but that cursor movements, which cannot be interpreted by the machine, are oriented towards the co-participants and may have interactional functions. We describe three different kinds of these movements (straight pointing movement, swaying/circling movement and “moving away”) which, depending on who is doing them and in which sequential position they occur, contribute to the sequential organization of the interaction: as a display of attention, as a device for turn-holding/turn-claiming/leaving the floor or as a particular resource in argumentation.
12 Problems with the Digital Public Encounter by Daniela Boehringer
Abstract
The “public encounter” (Goodsell 1981) in the welfare state has massively changed over the past decades. In many cases, it is unnecessary to meet face-to-face with ‘street-level bureaucrats’ (Lipsky 1980) to manage social matters such as unemployment, because self-service applications are ready to hand. How citizens use these applications and how they are “made at home” in the everyday (Sacks 1992) still needs to be uncovered. This question will be considered from a conversation-analytic perspective. The website with job offers run by the German Public Employment Service (PES) is an example in this regard. After describing the website and the features of its use, the paper analyses real-time video data of members searching for a job on that site. The main focus of analysis are the moments of irritation and how the users manage them, are the paper concludes with reflections on the (new?) nature of the digital public encounter.
13 Smartphone Tooling: Achieving Perception by Positioning a Smartphone for Object Scanning by Louise Lüchow, Brian L. Due, and Ann Merrit Rikke Nielsen
Abstract
People have been using tools for thousands of years. These practices of “tooling” have been described as having a “mechanical effect” on an object (e.g., chopping wood). In this chapter we propose that tooling may also have an “informational effect”. To make this argument we explore how visually impaired people (VIP) carry out physical shopping in grocery stores using their smartphones and the SeeingAI application (app). Using a smartphone for scanning means using it as a tool, hence the chapter title “smartphone tooling”. The data consists of a collection of cases in which a VIP is using the smartphone and app to scan products, and the app then provides audible information. The chapter is based on video ethnographic methodology and ethnomethodological multimodal conversation analysis. The chapter contributes to studies of tools and object-centred sequences by showing how VIPs achieve perception of relevant object information in and through a practice we suggest calling “positioning for object scanning”. This is configured by three distinct actions: 1) aligning, 2) adjusting, and 3) inspecting. Studying the practices of VIPs enables us to establish new understandings about the accomplishment of spatial relations between body, object, and technology in situ, without visual perception. This research contributes to EM/CA studies of perception as practical action, visual impairment, and object-centred sequences.
Part 4 Reflections on Interactionist Studies of Technologies
14 Where Next for Interactionist Studies of Technology? by Dirk Vom Lehn, Will Gibson, and Natalia Ruiz-Junco
Abstract
In the concluding chapter, the editors of the book reflect on the chapters and their contribution to interactionist theory and method, and provide some suggestions for future directions of interactionist research. They highlight that the studies reported in this book continue the traditions of enquiry and critique regarding established views of technology and its relationship
to society. They also point out that the studies make use of novel, often image-based and video-based research methods to explore technology in everyday life. In summary, they argue that interactionism continues to provide a critical set of approaches for the study of technology in everyday life.
In this article, we offer some observations on the international standing of communicative constructivism (CoCo), as discussed in scholarship published largely in German over the past decade (e.g., KELLER, KOBLAUCH & REICHERTZ, 2013; KNOBLAUCH, 2019a [2016]; REICHERTZ, 2009). We seek to explain why, in our view, CoCo has not thus far had a noticeable influence on academic discourse in international, particularly Anglo-American, sociology. Amongst others, we highlight issues regarding the name that was picked for the perspective and regarding the literal translation of German CoCo terminology into the English language. We also point to some theoretical and methodological choices that have made it difficult to link CoCo to interactionist sociology in general, and to ethnomethodology and ethnography in particular, i.e., perspectives that we are closely aligned with. We conclude with a summary of our observations and a few suggested steps communicative constructivists might consider taking to broaden and diversify the appeal of their program beyond German speaking sociology.
#communicative #constructivism #constructionism #ethnography #ethnomethodology #focusedethnography #sssi #interactionism #videography
Mobility – Short List
Asimakopoulos, Stavros, and Alan Dix. ‘Walking: A Grounded Theory of Social Engagement and Experience’. Interacting with Computers 29, no. 6 (1 November 2017): 824–44. https://doi.org/10.1093/iwc/iwx014.
Becker, Carol. ‘The Art of Crossing the Street’. Art Journal 58, no. 1 (1999): 10–15.
Broth, Mathias, and Lorenza Mondada. ‘Delaying Moving Away: Place, Mobility, and the Multimodal Organization of Activities’. Journal of Pragmatics 148 (July 2019): 44–70. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2019.05.013.
———. ‘Walking Away: The Embodied Achievement of Activity Closings in Mobile Interaction’. Journal of Pragmatics47, no. 1 (2013): 41–58. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2012.11.016.
Broth, Matthias, and Frederik Lundstrom. ‘A Walk on the Pier. Establishing Relevant Places in a Guided, Introductory Walk’. In Interaction and Mobility: Language and the Body in Motion, edited by Pentti Haddington, Maurice Nevile, and Lorenza Mondada. Berlin: DeGryter, 2013.
Brown, Barry, and Eric Laurier. ‘Maps and Car Journeys: An Ethno-Methodological Approach’. Cartographica 4 (2005): 17–33.
Brown, Barry, Eric Laurier, Hayden Lorimer, Owain Jones, Oskar Juhlin, Mark Perry, Daniele Pica, et al. ‘Driving and “ Passengering ”: Notes on the Ordinary Organization of Car Travel’. Mobilities 3, no. 1 (2008): 1–31.
Carlin, Andrew P. ‘Navigating the Walkways: Radical Inquiries and Mental Maps’, n.d.
Cosley, Dan, Jonathan Baxter, Soyoung Lee, Brian Alson, Saeko Nomura, Phil Adams, Chethan Sarabu, and Geri Gay. ‘A Tag in the Hand : Supporting Semantic , Social , and Spatial Navigation in Museums’. Technology, 2009, 1953–62.
De Stefani, Elwys. ‘Rearranging (in) Space: On Mobility and Its Relevance for the Study of Face-to-Face Interaction’. In Space in Language and Linguistics, edited by Peter Auer, Martin Hilpert, Anja Stukenbrock, and Benedikt Szmrecsanyi, 434–63. DE GRUYTER, 2013. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110312027.434.
De Stefani, Elwys, and Lorenza Mondada. ‘Encounters in Public Space: How Acquainted Versus Unacquainted Persons Establish Social and Spatial Arrangements’. Research on Language and Social Interaction 51, no. 3 (3 July 2018): 248–70. https://doi.org/10.1080/08351813.2018.1485230.
Deppermann, Arnulf. ‘Intersubjectivity and Other Grounds for Action-Coordination in an Environment of Restricted Interaction: Coordinating with Oncoming Traffic When Passing an Obstacle’. Language & Communication 65 (March 2019): 22–40. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langcom.2018.04.005.
Deppermann, Arnulf, Eric Laurier, and Lorenza Mondada. ‘Overtaking as an Interactional Achievement: Video Analyses of Participants’ Practices in Traffic’. Gesprächsforschung 19 (2018): 1–131.
Due, Brian, and Simon Lange. ‘Semiotic Resources for Navigation: A Video Ethnographic Study of Blind People’s Uses of the White Cane and a Guide Dog for Navigating in Urban Areas’. Semiotica 2018, no. 222 (25 April 2018): 287–312. https://doi.org/10.1515/sem-2016-0196.
Drury, John, and Elizabeth Stokoe. ‘The Interactional Production and Breach of New Norms in the Time of COVID-19: Achieving Physical Distancing in Public Spaces’. British Journal of Social Psychology 61, no. 3 (2022): 971–90. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjso.12513.
Foster, Susan Leigh. ‘Walking and Other Choreographic Tactics: Danced Inventions of Theatricality and Performativity’. SubStance 31, no. 2 (2002): 125–46. https://doi.org/10.1353/sub.2002.0028.
Goffman, Erving. Behavior in Public Places. Notes on the Social Organization of Gatherings. New York and London, 1963.
———. Relations in Public. Microstudies of the Social Order. New York: Basic Books, 1971.
Haddington, Pentti. ‘Leave-Taking as Multiactivity: Coordinating Conversational Closings with Driving in Cars’. Language & Communication 65 (March 2019): 58–78. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langcom.2018.04.003.
Haddington, Pentti, and Tiina Keisanen. ‘Location, Mobility and the Body as Resources in Selecting a Route’. Journal of Pragmatics 41, no. 10 (October 2009): 1938–61. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2008.09.018.
Hall, Tom. ‘Footwork: Moving and Knowing in Local Space(s)’. Qualitative Research 9, no. 5 (1 November 2009): 571–85. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468794109343626.
Hall, Tom, and Robin James Smith. ‘Stop and Go: A Field Study of Pedestrian Practice, Immobility and Urban Outreach Work’. Mobilities 8, no. 2 (1 May 2013): 272–92. https://doi.org/10.1080/17450101.2012.659470.
Hester, Stephen, and David Francis. ‘Analysing Visually Available Mundane Order: A Walk to the Supermarket’. Visual Studies 18, no. 1 (1 April 2003): 36–46. https://doi.org/10.1080/14725860320001000056.
Karamouzas, Ioannis, Brian Skinner, and Stephen J. Guy. ‘Universal Power Law Governing Pedestrian Interactions’. Physical Review Letters 113, no. 23 (2 December 2014). https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.113.238701.
Laurier, Eric, Magnus Hamann, Saul Albert, and Elizabeth Stokoe. ‘Guest Blog: Walking in the Time of COVID-19’. Research on Language and Social Interaction – Blog (blog), 5 May 2020. https://rolsi.net/2020/05/05/guest-blog-walking-in-the-time-of-covid-19/.
Weilenmann, Alexandra, Daniel Normark, and Eric Laurier. ‘Managing Walking Together: The Challenge of Revolving Doors’. Space and Culture 17, no. 2 (May 2014): 122–36. https://doi.org/10.1177/1206331213508674.
Laurier, Eric, and Barry Brown. ‘Rotating Maps and Readers: Praxiological Aspects of Alignment and Orientation’. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 33 (April 2008): 201–21. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-5661.2008.00300.x.
Lloyd, Michael. ‘Getting by: The Ethnomethods of Everyday Cycling Navigation’. New Zealand Geographer n/a, no. n/a. Accessed 14 August 2020. https://doi.org/10.1111/nzg.12274.
Marsh, Peter, and Peter Collett. ‘Patterns of Public Behavior: Collision Avoidance on a Pedestrian Crossing’. In Non-Verbal Communication Interaction and Gesture, edited by Adam Kendon, 199–217. The Hague: Mouton, 1981.
Merlino, Sara, and Lorenza Mondada. ‘Crossing the Street: How Pedestrians Interact with Cars’. Language & Communication 65 (March 2019): 131–47. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langcom.2018.04.004.
Mondada, Lorenza. ‘Commentary: Being Mobile, Talking on the Move: Conceptual, Analytical and Methodological Challenges of Mobility’. In Space in Language and Linguistics, edited by Peter Auer, Martin Hilpert, Anja Stukenbrock, and Benedikt Szmrecsanyi, 464–70. DE GRUYTER, 2013. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110312027.464.
———. ‘Talking and Driving: Multiactivity in the Car’. Semiotica 191 (2012): 223–56.
———. ‘Walking and Talking Together: Questions/Answers and Mobile Participation in Guided Visits’. Social Science Information 56, no. 2 (2017): 220–53. https://doi.org/10.1177/0539018417694777.
Petri, Jakub. ‘The Forgotten Art of Walking. Toward Intra-Active Geography of an Urban Landscape’. Journal of Aesthetics & Culture 14, no. 1 (31 December 2022): 2156437. https://doi.org/10.1080/20004214.2022.2156437.
Ryave, A. L., and J. N. Schenkein. ‘Notes on the Art of Walking’. In Ethnomethodology, edited by Roy Turner, 265–74. Middlesex: Penguin, 1974.
Smith, Robin James, and Tom Hall. ‘Mobilities at Work: Care, Repair, Movement and a Fourfold Typology’. Applied Mobilities 1, no. 2 (2 July 2016): 147–60. https://doi.org/10.1080/23800127.2016.1246897.
———. ‘Pedestrian Circulations: Urban Ethnography, the Mobilities Paradigm and Outreach Work’. Mobilities 11, no. 4 (7 August 2016): 498–508. https://doi.org/10.1080/17450101.2016.1211819.
Vergunst, Jo Lee, and Tim Ingold, eds. Ways of Walking: Ethnography and Practice on Foot. 1st edition. London New York: Routledge, 2016.
vom Lehn, Dirk. ‘Configuring Standpoints: Aligning Perspectives in Art Exhibitions’. Bulletin Suisse de Linguistique Appliquée 96 (2012): 69–90.
———. ‘Withdrawing from Exhibits: The Interactional Organisation of Museum Visits’. In Interaction and Mobility: Language and the Body in Motion, edited by Pentti Haddington, Lorenza Mondada, and Maurice Nevile, 65–90. March. Berlin: de Gryter, 2013.
Watson, Rod. ‘The Visibility Arrangements of Public Space: Conceptual Resources and Methodological Issues in Analysing Pedestrian Movements’. Communication & Cognition 38, no. 3–4 (2005): 201–27.
Sensing Life: the social organization of the senses in interaction
Co-edited by
Will Gibson (University College London), Natalia Ruiz-Junco (Auburn University), and Dirk vom Lehn (King’s College London)
This edited collection aims to continue the advances in scholarship of the senses as interactional phenomena and experiences. Our aim is to bring together contemporary empirical research that looks at how the senses are used in interaction, showcasing the broad range of concepts and methodologies through which they can be examined.
In the past decade or so interactionist researchers have been increasingly interested in the role of the senses in social interaction (see e.g., Vannini, Waskul and Gottschalk 2012). A special issue of the journal Symbolic Interaction in 2021 brought together studies that examined sensorial practice, focusing on diverse areas including everyday acts such as cheese and coffee tasting (Mondada, 2021; Fele and Liberman, 2021) through to the professional work of nurses (Grosjean, Matte, and Nahon-Serfaty, 2021) and race car testers (Salvadori and Gobo). These collected papers marked an important development in the empirical examination of communication about the senses, showing how talk, gesture, gaze, material artefacts and other aspects of the physical environment can be mobilised to make the senses accountable to others. The introduction to this special issue (vom Lehn and Gibson, 2021) pointed to several interrelated features of sensorial praxis which the papers helped to bring into focus. The intersection between different sensorial experiences; the entwinement of the senses with cultural resources and practices; their contextually situated nature and the multimodal, structured but also serendipitous form of expression.
The proposed volume aims to continue these lines of analysis by inviting contributions from a multiplicity of approaches, including symbolic interactionism, ethnomethodology, Conversation Analysis, and cognate areas from Discourse Studies and multimodal inquiry. To balance the strong EMCA theme represented in the 2021 special issue we are particularly keen to encourage papers from symbolic interactionism or that use ethnographic methods. We are interested in papers that examine conceptually and empirically the uses of the senses in ‘making something happen’, which might be in an institutional or non-institutional context.
We welcome tentative expressions of interest and are happy to explore the fit of possible research papers with the above theme.
An abstract of no more than 400 words should be submitted by email to Will Gibson, Natalia Ruiz-Junco, and Dirk vom Lehn (SensesInteractionism@gmail.com). Although the deadline has passed on 2 May 2023 we are still accepting abstract submissions.
Bibliography
Fele, Giolo, and Kenneth Liberman. 2021. ‘Some Discovered Practices of Lay Coffee Drinkers’. Symbolic Interaction 44, no. 1: 40–62. https://doi.org/10.1002/symb.486.
Gibson, Will, and Dirk vom Lehn. 2021. ‘Introduction: The Senses in Social Interaction’. Symbolic Interaction 44, no. 1: 3-9.
Grosjean, Sylvie, Frederik Matte, and Isaac Nahon-Serfaty. 2021. ‘“Sensory Ordering” in Nurses’ Clinical Decision-Making: Making Visible Senses, Sensing, and “Sensory Work” in the Hospital’. Symbolic Interaction 44, no. 1: 163–182. https://doi.org/10.1002/symb.490.
Mondada, Lorenza. 2021. ‘Orchestrating Multi-Sensoriality in Tasting Sessions: Sensing Bodies, Normativity, and Language’. Symbolic Interaction 44, no. 1: 63–86.
Vannini, Philip, Dennis D. Waskul, and Simon Gottschalk. 2012. The Senses in Self, Society, and Culture. London: Routledge.
Salvadori, Francesca Astrid, and Giampietro Gobo. 2021. ‘Sensing the Bike: Creating a Collaborative Understanding of a Multi-Sensorial Experience in MotoGP Racing’. Symbolic Interaction 44, no. 1: 112–133. https://doi.org/10.1002/symb.529.
Wiggins, Sally, and Leelo Keevallik. 2021. ‘Enacting Gustatory Pleasure on Behalf of Another: The Multimodal Coordination of Infant Tasting Practices’. Symbolic Interaction 44, no. 1: 87–111. https://doi.org/10.1002/symb.527.
Hopefully, by the end of the year or at the latest by Spring 2023 “The Anthem Companion to Harold Garfinkel” co-edited by Philippe Sormani and myself will be published with Anthem Press. It’s currently due to be published in March 2023.
CONTENTS
List of Illustrations
Introduction Rediscovering Garfinkel’s ‘Experiments’, Renewing Ethnomethodological Inquiry
by Philippe Sormani and Dirk vom Lehn
Part I: Exegesis
Chapter One Garfinkel’s Praxeological ‘Experiments’
by Michael Lynch
Chapter Two The Continuity of Garfinkel’s Approach: Seeking Ways of ‘Making the Phenomenon Available Again’ through the Experience and Usefulness of ‘Trouble’
by Clemens Eisenmann and Anne Warfield Rawls
Part II: ‘Experiments’
Chapter Three Lay and Professional Competencies: Linking Garfinkel’s Tutorial Exercises to a Study of Legal Work
by Stacy Lee Burns
Chapter Four Bargaining on Street-Markets as ‘Experiment in Miniature’
by Dirk vom Lehn
Chapter Five Notes on Galileo’s Pendulum
by Dušan I. Bjelić
Chapter Six Disruptures of Normal Appearances in Public Space: the Covid19 Pandemic as a Natural Breaching Situation
by Lorenza Mondada and Hanna Svensson
Chapter Seven Gender as a Scientific Experiment: Towards a Queer Ethnomethodology
by Luca Greco
Chapter Eight Breaching and Robot Experiments: Continuing Harold Garfinkel’s Spirit of Experimentation
by Keiichi Yamazaki and Yusuke Arano
Chapter Nine Dealing with Daemons: Trust in Autonomous Systems
by Jonas Ivarsson
Part III: Implications
Chapter Ten Experimenting with the Archive? Performing Purdue in Paris, an Instructive Reprise
by Yaël Kreplak and Philippe Sormani
Chapter Eleven Rereading Galileo’s Inclined Plane Demonstration
by Kenneth Liberman, in conversation with Harold Garfinkel
Postface ‘Experiments’ – What Are We Talking About? A Plea for Conceptual Investigations
by Wes Sharrock
Notes on Contributors
Index of Names
Index of Subjects
The introduction to “Introduction to “The Routledge International Handbook of Interactionism” edited by Dirk vom Lehn, Natalia Ruiz-Junco, and Will Gibson (2021) can be downloaded below.
Soeben ist mein Aufsatz/Review Essay zur exzellenten Übersetzung von Harold Garfinkels ‘Studies in Ethnomethodology’ in der Soziologischen Review erschienen.
vom Lehn, D. (2021). Ethnomethodologie: von marginalem Forschungsprogramm zu soziologischem Klassiker. Review Essay zu Harold Garfinkel, ‚Studien zur Ethnomethodologie‘, herausgegeben von Erhard Schüttpelz / Anne Warfield Rawls / Tristan Thielmann, übersetzt von Brigitte Luchesi, Frankfurt/New York: Campus 2020, 386 S., gb., 24,95 € Original: Harold Garfinkel, ‘Studies in Ethnomethodology’, Englewood Cliffs/NJ, Prentice-Hall 1967, 304 S. In Soziologische Revue, vol. 44, no. 4, 2021, pp. 518-531. https://doi.org/10.1515/srsr-2021-0069
Brigitte Biehl and I have continued our exploration of “atmospheres” by examining how spaces and their atmospheres are dynamically produced through people’s action and interaction. Our analysis is based on studies at a museum and a techno club that due to the global pandemic was transformed into an art exhibition. The research was published in the book “The Metamorphosis of Cultural and Creative Organizations” edited by Federica De Molli and Marilena Secco.
Atmospheres as dynamic configurations: The case of a museum and a techno club by Brigitte Biehl & Dirk vom Lehn
Abstract: Organizational spaces and museum exhibitions are often designed to encompass people with a given atmosphere that encourage particular behavioural and cognitive responses. In a leisure context such as techno clubs, people are given the opportunity to have experiences that are site-specific standing in a particular a nightlife tradition. Similarly, in museums people encounter objects and artefacts displayed to allow them to have an aesthetic experience. In our chapter, we will draw on Gernot Böhme’s aesthetic theory, developing his notion of atmosphere and aesthetic work. We explore how spaces and their atmospheres are dynamically produced through people’s action and interaction. Our investigation will consider atmospheres as ongoing, as continually produced and transformed through people’s “aesthetic work”, i.e. actions, movements, and embodied interaction influenced by their moods, emotions and energy, as well as their memories and past experiences. Based on our analysis we will argue that leisure and cultural experiences arise within the spaces and atmosphere that people co-create through their presence and activities. We draw on examples from the cultural and creative industries: the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and Berghain techno club in Berlin, which during the global pandemic in 2020 was transformed into an art exhibition “Studio Berlin” in co-operation with Boros art foundation.
Table of Contents
Preface Antonio Strati
1. Cultural and creative organizations’ space: An introduction
Federica De Molli and Marilena Vecco
Part I – Aesthetic
2. Atmosphere in cultural organisations: A circumplex model of affective atmospheres
Christian Julmi
3. Atmospheres as dynamic configurations: The case of a museum and a techno club
Brigitte Biehl (Biehl-Missal) and Dirk vom Lehn
4. Creative spaces in higher education
Tatiana Chemi
5. ‘Being t/here apart-together’: Co-creative work(ing) in bodily-digital ‘inter-places’
Wendelin Küpers and Stephan Sonnenburg
Part II – Symbolic
6. Organizational spatial transformation: The case of the un-festival
Grant Hall and Ruth Rentschler
7. The spatial production of festivals: Ritualization, liminality and performativity
Leonore van den Ende
8. Artistic space: Painting and the making of space
Eleonora Montagner and Alvise Favotto
9. Museum spaces and changes
Graham Black
Part III – Instrumental
10. Space technologies and cultural organizations
Daniel Ericsson
11. The regional context in entrepreneurial finance of cultural business: Urban versus rural space for creative and cultural entrepreneurship
Elmar D. Konrad and Max Höllen
12. Community-driven cultural spaces and the COVID-19 pandemic
Matina Magkou, Laura Huret and Vincent Lambert
13. The expansion of virtual spaces of superstar and star museums during the COVID-19 lockdown
Anne Gombault and Oihab Allal-Cherif
14. Future perspectives for research on creative and cultural sectors using a spatial approach
Federica De Molli
Over 20 years ago, in 2000, Franz Breuer, Jo Reichertz and Wolff-Michael Roth started a FQS debate on the “Quality of Qualitative Research.” In past contributions to this debate a wide range of issues has been discussed, such as various qualitative techniques of collecting or analyzing data, or the application of such methods within different disciplinary and institutional contexts. Since its beginning, the call for contributions to this debate has remained unchanged, while academic discussions surrounding this topic have changed substantially. The questions that were raised originally—What is “good” science? What are “good” social sciences? What is “good” qualitative social research? What are the criteria and standards for such evaluations?—are still relevant today and will continue to provide a baseline for future contributions, however, an update of the call for this FQS debate may be in order.
In the past, qualitative researchers have fought hard for acceptance and recognition of their work; this battle has largely been won. Today, in most social science disciplines (perhaps with the exception of psychology), qualitative epistemologies, theories, and methods are used and taught as “mainstream” science alongside their quantitative counterparts. Most university colleagues, students, and administrators have fully accepted their legitimacy and utility. While this is excellent news, it does not mean that debates about the “quality” of qualitative research have been, or should be, abandoned. Today, such debates take place in multiple contexts of discourse in which the “quality” of qualitative research is understood and treated in very different ways.
Despite long-standing discussions about the quality of qualitative research, still no agreement has been reached about a catalogue of criteria that would serve to guarantee its value across the myriad contexts in which it is used today, similar to the classical, canonical standards that exist for quantitative scholars. In fact, we must broaden our understandings of what qualitative research is, and how it is practiced, while we continue to ask questions about its “quality.” The many issues and questions raised above may serve to re-invigorate discussions about the “Quality of Qualitative Research” in this FQS Debates, in alignment with current developments and concerns. As internal and external conditions for qualitative research practice have changed, a new engagement with the original issues, we hope, will invite new participants, raise new questions, and will lead to new insights within this worthwhile “Quality” debate. A reconfigured international FQS debate team eagerly awaits your submissions.
This is a Call without a deadline.
For questions, please contact the Section Editors: Franz Breuer, Paul Eisewicht, Margarethe Kusenbach, Jo Reichertz, Dirk vom Lehn, e-mail: deb_quality@qualitative-research.net
Interaction, Organisation & Technology 