This was fun! Over the past couple years, I worked with Natalia Ruiz-Junco, Will Gibson and over 30 colleagues on the production of the International Routledge Handbook of Interactionism. The book is currently prepared for publication on May 27th. The electronic version of the Handbook which is much more affordable than the printed book, can already be purchased.

Because we had so much fun cooperating on this book, we are planning our next joint project already. We are currently working on an edited book with the working title “People, Technology, and Social Organization: interactionist studies of everyday life”. A Call for Abstracts with a deadline of May 15th can be accessed here.

Dirk vom Lehn, Will Gibson and Natalia Ruiz-Junco are developing a new co-edited book project with the working-title,
“People, Technology, and Social Organization: interactionist studies of everyday life”.

In light of the increasing importance of technology in all parts of our lives the chapters to be included in the co-edited book will reveal how technology is oriented to and embedded within the social organization of action in a wide range of settings and institutions, such as education, markets, arts and culture, health and social care, media, politics, science and others. In their analyses, the contributing authors will adopt interactionist and cognate perspectives to explore how the meanings of technology emerge and are negotiated within and through action and interaction.


The proposed volume will comprise around 10 empirical chapters from interactionist researchers working in fields such as symbolic interactionism, ethnomethodology, conversation analysis, discourse methods, ethnographic enquiry, video-based methods, and others. Submissions may draw on a diversity of research methods and data sources, and should draw from empirical analyses of interaction.


The co-edited book is primarily aimed at researchers in the social sciences and beyond whose work is concerned with the interplay between social interaction, technology, and institutions.


Submissions should comprise a title and an abstract of no more than 250 words. Abstracts should describe the setting and the technology being studied, the conceptual/theoretical framework (where relevant), the data being analysed, and the key findings and claims emerging from the analysis. The submission should include up to five keywords, the author(s)’ name, institutional affiliation, and contact details.


Please send your title and abstract with the Subject line: People, Technology, and Social Organization, to Dirk vom Lehn (dirk.vom_lehn@kcl.ac.uk) by 15 May 2021. We plan to submit the final manuscript to the publisher in the summer of 2022.