13th EMCA Doctoral Network Meeting
University of Liverpool, 5th and 6th June 2023
The 13th EMCA Doctoral Network Meeting will take place in the University of Liverpool over the 5th and 6th June 2023. This is an in-person event for doctoral students who are pursuing research in the allied fields of Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis. In special circumstances, however, we will open spaces to a small number of applicants to participate online, for example, doctoral students on fieldwork/based in universities outside the UK or those with accessibility issues.
We have funds to provide 2 nights accommodation for 20 in-person participants and we will have a delayed start on the 5th June for participants who travel to the venue on the day. A more detailed description of the programme and the venue will be shared in due course, but the 13th EMCA Doctoral Network Meeting will enable you to:
- Meet and engage with peers in a supportive environment.
- Discuss and receive feedback on your project in a format most useful to you (presentation, data session, paper discussion, etc).
- Explore key debates in the field.
- Develop your EMCA skillset.
On the evening of the first day of the meeting, we’re delighted to have Morana Alač, Professor in Communication and Science Studies at UC San Diego, as our first keynote speaker. Morana’s ethnographic studies of scientific laboratories and other settings of technology production and use focus on multimodal and multisensory aspects of ordinary interactional practice. In her keynote, Morana will reflect on how her research brings EMCA into dialogue with other fields of contemporary research, such as science and technology studies, semiotics, and cognitive science, and will discuss opportunities for insight that those lines of dialogue generate.
As part of our programme, we’re also very pleased to have Dr Phillip Brooker as a second keynote on the 6th. Phillip will be talking about his ethnomethodological studies of NASA’s efforts at understanding “Living and Working in Space”, beginning with the Skylab space station program of the 1970s and casting forward to two burgeoning ethnomethodological projects (“Skylab 2049” and “Terra Pi”) which aim to use the insights from Skylab to show and cause trouble with NASA’s ways of defining and measuring “Living and Working in Space” in the context of reignited interests in long-duration missions, space station living and extra-terrestrial settlements, reflecting on the relevance of trouble for EMCA studies and the phenomena those studies seek to render perspicuous along the way.
We look forward to seeing you in Liverpool. If you have any question, please contact Dipanjan.Saha@liverpool.ac.uk or G.Lough@liverpool.ac.uk.
To apply for a place, please email a completed registration form to Dipanjan.Saha@liverpool.ac.uk. The deadline for registration is 31 March 2023. Here is the form:
The 13th EMCA Doctoral Network Meeting is funded by the North West Social Science Doctoral Training Partnership.
Previous meetings
12. Loughborough University, 8th-9th November 2021
Keynote speakers: Charles Antaki (Loughborough University)
23 students participated.
A review of the Loughborough event by Felicity Slocombe and Adrea Bruun can be found on the ROLSI Blog
11. University of Manchester, 20th–21st May 2019
Keynote speaker: Wes Sharrock (University of Manchester) and Patrick Watson (Wilfrid Laurier University)
15 students participated.
A write-up of the Manchester event by Yumei Gan is on the ROLSI Blog
10. King’s College London, 1st-2nd November 2018
Keynote speaker: Dirk vom Lehn (King’s College London)
24 students participated.
A review of the London event by Melissa Bliss can be found on the ROLSI Blog
Another review of the event by Yarong Xie can be found in Issue 27 of the Qualitative Methods in Psychology Bulletin
9. University of Edinburgh, 3rd-4th May 2018
Keynote speaker: Liz Stokoe (Loughborough University)
20 students participated.
A review of the Edinburgh event by Paula Greenlees can be found on the ROLSI blog
8. Newcastle University, 7th-8th September 2017
Keynote speakers: Alan Firth (Newcastle University) and Eric Laurier (University of Edinburgh)
Skills Sessions: Spencer Hazel (Newcastle University): (i) CLAN transcription software and (ii) presenting EMCA findings using PowerPoint and Keynote
28 students participated.
A review of the Newcastle event by Jack Joyce and Marc Alexander can be found on the ROLSI blog
7. Cardiff University, 18th–19th May 2017
Keynote speakers: Richard Fitzgerald (University of Macau) and William Housley (Cardiff University)
13 students participated.
This event included two excellent plenary talks on Harvey Sacks as a practical methodologist and MCA in digital society. As always, the student presentations covered a diverse range of interesting issues and topics, from business-to-business calls and strategy meetings, through to police interviews and language classes. The event also provided an opportunity to explore the possibility of a shared research project for participants to work on between workshops. Reviews of the event by Jack Joyce, Linda Walz and Louise White can be found here: https://rolsi.net/2017/06/01/guest-blog-the-cardiff-emca-doctoral-student-meeting/
The meeting received funding from the Wales DTC and the School of Social Sciences at Cardiff. It was organised by Robin Smith.
6. Loughborough University, 3rd–4th October 2016
Keynote speakers: Paul Drew, Loughborough University
22 students attended.
Our Loughbrough event featured a reading group and a skills session, as well as data sessions, presentations and plenty of opportunities to network and talk to other participants. The reading group focused on ‘Challenges in conceptualizing applied CA findings and communicating them to practitioners’, while the skills session demonstrated Wondershare Filmora (‘a simple film editing software for the technically challenged’). Participants praised the friendly atmosphere and the wide range of activities available.
The meeting received funding from Loughborough’s Centre for Research in Culture and Communication and was organised by Emily Hofstetter, Jessica Robles and Laura Thompson.
5. University of Sheffield, 16th–17th May 2016
Keynote speakers: Dave Calvey, Manchester Metropolitan University, and Ann Wakefield, University of Manchester
17 students attended.
The EMCA Sheffield event included presentations, data and training sessions, reading groups, as well as social and networking opportunities. The data sessions and reading groups were particularly well received.
The event was organised by Helen Cameron, Alex Dennis, Sarah Gelcich and Verónica González Temer. It was sponsored by the White Rose ESRC DTC.
4. University of Manchester, 6th–7th November 2015
Keynote speakers: Wes Sharrock, University of Manchester, and Alex Dennis, University of Sheffield
23 students attended.
The EMCA Manchester event included presentations, data/skills sessions, discussions, as well as opportunities to chat informally and network. The skills sessions and discussions were particularly valued. They included ‘Discursive Psychology’ (Bogdana Huma), and data presentations by Haia Alazaidi, Andreas Reiter, Yoonjoo Cho and Somporn Maneechot. In addition there were twelve individual presentations.
Some participants kindly reviewed the meeting for the Research on Language and Social Interaction blog: http://rolsi.net/guest-blogs/4th-emca-doctoral-network-meeting-in-the-land-of-the-ethnos%E2%80%A8/.
The event was organised by Michael Mair, Hannah Berry, Chris Elsey, Paul V. Smith and Philip Brooker. It was sponsored by the North West ESRC DTC.
3. University of Nottingham, 20th–21st April 2015
Keynote speaker: Ruth Parry, University of Nottingham
26 students attended.
The EMCA Nottingham event included a range of presentations, skills sessions, reading groups and data sessions as well as opportunities to chat informally and network. The skills sessions were a fantastic opportunity for the attendees to share their knowledge and expertise. They included ‘Transcription tips in Microsoft Word’ (Emily Hofstetter), Analysing Body Movement (Lewis Hyland), Using PRAAT (Veronica Gonzalez Temer) and Negotiating NHS Research Ethics (Alison Pilnick, Ruth Parry and Marco Pino).
The Nottingham event included more presentations than at previous EMCA events, and a special mention should go to the presenters for the exceptional standard of work all round. Ruth Parry’s keynote on ‘Systematic Reviewing: a way to get CA findings used in practice and policy’ was a particular highlight, and shed light on both the challenges and the opportunities that collating CA findings can provide and the practical implications this can have in real world settings.
The event was organized by Joseph Webb, Alison Pilnick, Marco Pino, Lewis Hyland and Ruth Parry. It was sponsored by Nottingham ESRC DTC.
2. King’s College London, 27th–28th October 2014
Keynote speaker: Professor Nick Llewellyn, University of Warwick
24 students attended (21 from the UK and 3 from elsewhere in Europe).
The meeting included a strong programme of formal and informal activities. It also introduced some excellent ‘skills sessions’ that were run by current EMCA doctoral students. Emily Hofstetter (Loughborough University) outlined the use of Audacity and Audition for editing sound files. Meanwhile Saul Albert (QMUL) discussed the value of CLAN and Docear when working with video data.
The meeting was organised by Jon Hindmarsh, Francesca Salvadori and Zain Nizameddin. It was sponsored by the King’s Interdisciplinary Social Science Doctoral Training Centre (KISS-DTC) and the Department of Management at King’s College London.
1. University of Edinburgh, 7th–8th June 2014
Keynote speaker: Professor Liz Stokoe, Loughborough University
23 students attended (8 from Scotland, 10 from elsewhere in the UK and 5 non-UK).
Beyond the formal sessions, there was also a walk around Edinburgh and an opportunity for dinner and drinks on the Saturday evening. A detailed review of the event by one of the participants, Saul Albert from Queen Mary, University of London, can be found here.
The meeting was organised by Tim Smith and Eric Laurier and sponsored by the Scottish Graduate School of Social Science Doctoral Training Centre (SGS-DTC).
EMCA Doctoral Network 