book

Call for Abstracts – Edited Book – “Sensing Life: the social organization of the senses in interaction” #sociology #sssi #emca #interaction #senses

Announcement, book, Call for Papers, Ethnomethodology, sociology, SSSI

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.

Forthcoming “The Routledge International Handbook of New Digital Practices in Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums and Heritage Sites” edited by Hannah Lewi, Wally Smith, Dirk vom Lehn, & Steve Cooke #museums #technology #design #digitalization #interactivity

Announcement, book, interaction, interactivity, museums, Museums, Technology

#digitalization #experience #interaction #interactivity #museums #participation #technology 

The publication of “The Routledge International Handbook of New Digital Practices in Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums and Heritage Sites” edited by Hannah Lewi, Wally Smith, Dirk vom Lehn, & Steve Cooke has been announced for November 15th, 2019. The book includes interviews by Seb Chan (ACMI), Dave Patten (Science Museum London), Rory Hyde (Victoria & Albert Museum, London), and Keir Winesmith (SFMOMA) as well as chapters covering four broad themes: “THE EMERGING GLOBAL DIGITAL GLAM SECTOR”, “ANIMATING THE ARCHIVE”, “DESIGNING ENGAGED EXPERIENCE”, and “LOCATING IN PLACE”.

More information about the Handbook can be accessed on the publisher’s website by clicking the image below (apologies for the steep price!).

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New Practices in Digital Media design in Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums and Heritage Sites Hannah Lewi, Wally Smith, Steven Cooke, Dirk vom Lehn
 

FRAMING INTERVIEWS
Interview with Seb Chan, ACMI Seb Chan, Hannah Lewi and Wally Smith
Interview with Dave Patten, Science Museum London David Patten, Dirk vom Lehn and Wally Smith
Interview with Rory Hyde, V&A Museum Rory Hyde, Dirk vom Lehn and Wally Smith
Interview with Keir Winesmith, SFMOMA Keir Winesmith, Hannah Lewi and Wally Smith
 

PART 1. THE EMERGING GLOBAL DIGITAL GLAM SECTOR
Digitizations, users and curatorial agency within complex global machinic jurisdictions Fiona Cameron
The distributed museum: the flight of cultural authority and the multiple times and spaces of the art museum Andrew Dewdney
The distributed museum is already here–it’s just not very evenly distributed Ed Rodley
Speculative Collections and the Emancipatory Library Bethany Nowviskie
Chinese Museums’ Digital Heritage Profile: An Evaluation of Digital Technology Adoption in Cultural Heritage Institutions Andrew White and Eugene Ch’ng
Hacking heritage: understanding the limits of online access Tim Sherratt
From Planned Oblivion to Digital Exposition: The Digital Museum of Afro-Brazilian Heritage Livio Sansone
Shared  Digital  Experiences Supporting  Collaborative    Meaning-Making  at  Heritage  Sites Sara  Perry,  Maria  Roussou,  Sophia  S.  Mirashrafi,  Akrivi  Katifori,  and  Sierra  McKinney
 

PART 2. ANIMATING THE ARCHIVE
Neither A Beginning Nor An End: Applying An Ethics of Care to Digitizing Archival Collections in South Asia Michelle Caswell and Marika Cifor
Digital Archives in Africa and the Endangered Archives Programme Graeme Counsel
The Alan Vaughan-Richards Archive: recovering tropical modernism in Lagos. Ola Uduku
Museum Crowdsourcing—Detecting the Limits: eMunch.no and the Digitisation of Letters Addressed to Edvard Munch Joanna Iranowska
Digital and hybrid archives: a case study of the William J Mitchell collection Thomas Kvan, Peter Neish and Naomi Mullumby
Preserving Chinese Shadow Puppetry Culture Through Digitisation Tin-Kai Chen
Be Engaged: Facilitating Creative Re-use at the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision Gregory Markus, Maarten Brinkerink, Brigitte Jansen
Cultural Antinomies, Creative Complicities: Agan Harahap’s Digital Hoaxes Alexandra Moschovi and Alexander Supartono
 

PART 3. DESIGNING ENGAGED EXPERIENCE
On Virtual Auras: The Cultural Heritage Object in the Age of 3D Digital Reproduction John Hindmarch, Melissa Terras and Steve Robson
Configuring Slow Technology Through Social and Embodied Interaction: Making Time for Reflection in Augmented Reality Museum Experiences with Young Visitors Areti Galani and Rachel Clarke
Exhibition Design and Professional Theories: the Development of an Astronomy Exhibition Dirk vom Lehn, Kate Sang, Richard Glassborow and Louise King
Meeting the Challenge of the Immoveable: Experiencing Mogao Grottoes Cave 45 With Immersive Technology Jeffrey Levin, Robert, Checchi, Lori Wong, Garson Yu and Edwin Baker
Immersive Engagement: Designing and Testing a Virtual Indian Residential School Exhibition Adam Muller
Hemispheres: transdisciplinary architectures and museum-university collaboration Sarah Kenderdine
Human-Centred Design in Digital Media Indigo Hanlee
Unlocking the Glass Case Peter Higgins
The law of feeling: experiments in a Yolngu museology Paul Gurrumuruway and Jennifer Deger
Henry VR: designing affect-oriented virtual reality exhibitions for art museums Paula Dredge, Anne Gerard-Austin, Simon Ives and Andrew Yip
Website as publishing platform Tim Jones and David Simpson
From Shelf to Web: First Reflections on the O’Donnell Marginalia Project Julia Kuehns
Interpreting the Future Tony Holzner
 

PART 4. LOCATING IN PLACE
What Could Have Bean? A Digital Construction of Charles Bean’s Australian War Memorial Anthea Gunn
Succession: A Generative Approach to Digital Collections Mitchell Whitelaw
Rephotography and the Situating of Then-and-Now Hannah Lewi and Andrew Murray
Hospicio Cabañas: Seeing World Heritage Through Google’s Eyes Cristina Garduno Freeman
The Experience of Using Digital Walking Tours to Explore Urban Histories Wally Smith, Dirk vom Lehn, Hannah Lewi, Katie Best and Dora Constantinidis
Traces—Olion: Creating a Bilingual ‘Subtlemob’ for National Museum Wales Sara Huws, Alison John, Jenny Kidd
Investigating ‘Ordinary’ Landscapes: Using Visual Research Methods to Understand Heritage Digital Technologies and Sense of Place Steven Cooke and Dora Constantinidis
Massive Digital Community Archives in Colombia: An International Partnership Towards Peace Diego Merizalde and Jon Voss
Mapping an Archive of Emotions: Place, Memory and the Affective Histories of Perth’s Riverscape Alicia Marchant
 

Afterword

  

Andrea Witcomb

 

 

#digitalization #experience #interaction #interactivity #museums #participation

‘Institutions, Interaction, & Social Theory’ #sociology #interaction #organization #theory #research

Announcement, book

Earlier this year, Will Gibson (UCL) and I have published a book titled ‘Institutions, Organisation, & Social Theory’ (Palgrave). In the book we explore relationships between ‘institutional scholarship’ and ‘interactionist’ research. A short discussion of the book cn be found on the ‘Work in Progress Blog’.

WIPSociology

 

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New Book: Institutions, Interaction and Social Theory #sociology #sssi #emca #orgtheory

Announcement, book, ethnography, Ethnomethodology, Garfinkel, Goffman

Together with Will Gibson (UCL) I have just published a book titled “Institutions, Interaction and Social Theory” (Palgrave).

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From hospitals and prisons to schools and corporations: no matter how large or seemingly abstract, all institutions are ultimately the result of the actions and interactions of people. In this original and innovative text, Gibson and Vom Lehn show the different ways in which studying people’s own meaning-making practices can help us understand the role of institutions in contemporary society.

Institutions, Interaction and Social Theory takes the reader through the core conceptual foundations of Symbolic Interactionism, Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis. Engaging with a rich tradition in sociological thought, it suggests that interactionist perspectives have remained largely absent in the study of institutions, and how they contrast with and contribute to the broader field of research in institutional contexts.

With chapters on healthcare, education, markets, and art and culture, this text will be of interest to those studying institutions, organisations and work in sociology and in business schools. It will also be valuable for students of social theory interested in interactionism, and in the challenges and opportunities of connecting complex theoretical discussions to real world examples.

 

Notes on Alice Marwick’s (@alicetiara) “Status Update”

book, Book Review, Social Media

I’ve just been reading Walter Kirn’s review of Alice Marwick’s (@alicetiara) excellent book “Status Update“. The review strikes me as odd and off-the-mark. The author seems to have misunderstood Marwick’s book and misconceives ethnography by criticising Marwick for offering anecdotes. Never mind that review though. The book is very worthwhile reading for everybody with an interest in recent development in social media and social networking technologies. Marwick’s focus is not so much the technology itself, i.e. not Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, etc. but the scene that has arisen in the context of these technologies. This scene mainly based in San Francisco, involves people who develop these technologies as well as people who use them for to organise their social lives, online and offline.

The book highlights how the entrepreneurs in their enthusisam for the opportunities offered by social technologies forget or ignore, deliberately or not, the neoliberal ideology that underpins their work and work ethic. The result of this ignorance is an inequality embodied in the observation that the entrepreneurs largely are young, white male. Women are decoration and accessories, “sex objects and secretaries” as Marwick writes. Whilst the media are full of talk about the “social media revolution” Marwick reveals that the members of the tech-community in San Francisco are technology enthusiasts with a business sense that at times makes (some of) them rich. Others who are not technology savvy enough to create their own Facebook-like riches exploit the opportunities offered by social media to become “micro-celibrities”. This status as mirco-celebrity allows some of them to connect with people, offline and online, who otherwise they’d never met. For some the drive to become a micro-celebrity and connect with the really rich and famous, means to reveal events and activities from their private lives, revelations some of them sometimes later regret; for example when being ‘trolled’ and spit out by the audience that for long seemed to love them.

Marwick’s book has variously been reviewed. If you want to check a good review before buying the book check Ravi Mattu’s review in the Financial Times and Finola Kerrigan’s (@finolak) review in Times Higher Education, but ignore Kirn’s in the NYT.