Linh Dan Nguyen, Chloe Preece & Dirk Vom Lehn
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.
In light of the publication of the “Special Issue on the Senses in Social Interaction” Will Gibson and I wrote a short piece on interactionism and sensory sociology for Sociology Lens.
Almost exactly 2 years ago Christian Meyer and colleagues organized a conference to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the publication of Harold Garfinkel’s Studies in Ethnomethodology. A link to information about the 2017 conference is HERE.
Human Studies has just been published Special Issue devoted to the Studies anniversary that can be accessed HERE and on the image below.
vom Lehn, D. (2019). From Garfinkels’ ‘Experiments in Miniature’ to the Ethnomethodological Analysis of Interaction. Human Studies, 42(2), 305-326. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10746-019-09496-5
#Garfinkel #ethnomethodology #sociology #interaction #interactionism
In den vergangenen 10 Jahren sind verschiedene Texte zur Analyse von Interaktion erschienen, in deren Zentrum Videoaufnahmen als Daten stehen. Von besonderer Bedeutung sind in diesem Zusammenhang Texte, die sich auf die Ethnomethodologie und Konversationsanalyse stützen. “Ethnomethodologische Interaktionsanalyse” schließt hier und an mein Buch zu Harold Garfinkel an, in dem ich die Entwicklung der Ethnomethodologie als besondere soziologische Einstellung nachzeichne.
“Ethnomethodologische Interaktionsanalyse” bettet die Analyse von Interaktion auf Basis von Videoaufnahmen in den Kontext der Entwicklung der Ethnomethodologie ein und führt die Analyse am Beispiel von Daten, die ich in den Untersuchungsräumen von Optometrikern aufgezeichnet habe, vor. Dabei gehe ich auf Praktikalitäten der Datenerhebung und -analyse und die Transkription von Videodaten ein. Anschließend wendet sich das Buch der Darstellung von Analysebefunden in Live-Präsentationen und in Texten zu. Das Buch ist in der Serie ‘Standards standardisierter und nicht-standardisierter Sozialforschung’, die von Nicole Burzan, Ronald Hitzler und Paul Eisewicht herausgeben wird, bei Beltz/Juventa erschienen. “Ethnomethodologische Interaktionsanalyse” ist als Kindle-Buch und vom 20. August 2018 auch in der gedruckten Version erhältlich.
Together with Saul Albert I am currently working on video-data collected at Lindy Hop Dance workshops for beginners. Our interest is in the nexus between the body and the social, that for long have been kept separated in sociology. In July 2017 we presented a paper titled ‘Beginning to Dance: methods of mutual coordination between novice dancers‘ at the Joint Action Meeting (JAM) held at Queen Mary’s University London. The paper explores how novice dancers are able to make a first step in step with a dance partner, with the rhythm of the music and with the other dancers. Analytically and methodologically the paper draws on ethnomethodology and conversation analysis and the more recent development of video-analysis of interaction (Heath, Hindmarsh & Luff 2010) as well as from the fabulous analysis of Lindy Hop dance lessons by Leelo Keevalik.
Further information information about the project is on Saul’s website on Dance as Interaction.
Publications
Presentations
Together with Will Gibson (UCL) I have just published a book titled “Institutions, Interaction and Social Theory” (Palgrave).
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.
Interaction, Organisation & Technology 