Rob Smith

A call out in the same area, just as we returned to base and were unloading the vehicles. Day turned into night.

A beautiful day for search and evac training in the Bannau Brycheiniog

Still time to submit an abstract to our panel on perception in high-stakes environments (with “high-stakes” being broadly defined - where noticings and “missings” are of consequence for ongoing action). #IIEMCA27 #EMCA

A new article on respecifying stigma - and Goffman’s “language of relationships” - using Sacks’ suicide prevention centre corpus. Can (should!) be read alongside @philhutchinson.bsky.social’s article, and others, in the forthcoming special issue. #EMCA onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

This is such a sensible approach and usefully communicated model. I’d very much like universities to shift to a “justification of use” approach for AI/LLMs in research and, particularly teaching/learning. I won’t hold my breath though…

This is a very disturbing read by Philip Moriarty about the corporate consultants at University of Nottingham, whose "bloodless prime-LLM-grade corporate boilerplate" called Future Nottingham 2 is guiding decision-making - cuts, cuts and more cuts. muircheartblog.wpcomstaging.com/2026/10/07/j...

Join us for an online data session on Friday 9 October with Shan Shan Li, @robinjsmith.bsky.social and @greiffenhagen.bsky.social on negotiating rights to mobility. #EMCA Register here: forms.cloud.microsoft/r/rYVyNa9dJ4

A great couple of days at the British Academy, hearing about a range of research on various aspects of justice system.

Open paper and panel call deadline 23rd October. Tick tick. #EMCA

Interested in Psychology and #EMCA? Have a look at these #iiemca27 panels. ➡️ Mind, Brain and Conduct in EMCA ➡️ EMCA in and as Psychology: Respecification, Inquiry and Application www.iiemca27.org/calls @interactemca.bsky.social

I don't hear any of the AcAdeMIc FReEdOM bros screaming against this blatant - and really, blatant - intervention not only of the state but of a *foreign* state into sovereign matters of a university?

If you are working on practice and perception in high-stakes environments - where timely noticings (or, indeed, “missings”) of interactional and environmental significances are highly consequential - do consider submitting a paper to our panel! www.iiemca27.org/calls #iiemca27 #emca

Honoured that our article on the Chicago School received the 2026 Melvin Pollner Memorial Prize from the #ASA #EMCA Section. Many thanks to my co-authors @robinjsmith.bsky.social, Terry Au-Yeung, Erik Boström & @phdahlphd.bsky.social, and to colleagues who shared their insights with us. t.ly/9A-yH

'What is perhaps remarkable about the Exeter cuts is that they are targeted at some of the university’s most successful departments, many of which turn over a profit even after they have made enormous and increasing contributions to the central university budget.' Read, rage and weep.

Finally recovered from ICA Cape Town! Hosted an awesome pre-conference on discourses of racial inequality and presented my and @francescaorfw.bsky.social book about what @ica-lsi.bsky.social can bring to studies of race and communication! A link to the book!: www.peterlang.com/document/131...

My article "Gender Uptake: Theorizing the Semiotics of (Un)Doing Gender" received the Outstanding Article Award from the SSSP Gender, Sexual Behavior, Politics, and Communities Division AND an Honorable Mention for the Best Paper Award from the ASA Ethnomethodology & Conversation Analysis Section! 🥳

What Reform have successfully done is to make the floor of open racism in England much higher than I have seen it in several years. I don’t know what their peak will be but they have normalised something that I haven’t seen here since the mid-1990s, and that is already dangerous enough.

This was a great event. Excellent papers and discussions in the most amazing setting. Another fine entry in the annual New Developments in Ethnomethodology series. Thanks to the organisers! To Joburg in 2027.

🎉 my employer in the news 🎉 1. narrative being peddled by the university mgmt - "do nothing" vs "do our cuts" - is a false choice that rests on (ahem) "unusual" modelling reverse engineered from surplus targets 2. they need better PR people ("DISAPPOINTED!" youtu.be/y6EDlD_fWn0?...)

This really was great! So much to think about and so lovely to catch up with EM folk.

Just out! Very happy with this one. Combines Goffman and Collins to push interaction ritual theory forward. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Ah - but the real magic happens when the post-it notes get stuck to a piece of A3, and five bits of be-post-it-noted A3 are blu-tacked to a whiteboard, and then people stick stars on them.

we're just doing ELIZA again and again it makes the ACM decision to generate "podcasts for papers" look even more stupid

Here’s a video from the same podcast as linked in my previous post where you can hear the audio too. I love this because it really lays bare how LLMs fool us - but really they’re just slotting words into linguistic patterns that we’re familiar with. Genres like a podcast or LinkedIn post.

A paper on Simmel and Ethnomethodology as non-dualist approaches to foundational issues of subjectivity/objectivity, practice, and social order. With Chiara Bassetti, Erik Boström, Ken Liberman, @jakubmlynar.bsky.social and @dirkvl.bsky.social #EMCA #Sociology link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Ah. www.insidehighered.com/news/tech-in...

Of four free speech cases highlighted here, fully three of them concern self-described "gender critical" academics, while the fourth is a guy opposed to BLM and the concept of strutural racism - if anyone is in doubt about that this is for. www.bbc.com/news/article...

The worldliness of EM phenomena is reintroduced to me as I update a lecture on instructed action. My wife calls up from downstairs. She has all the parts of the IKEA cabinet, but their order is elusive. She can’t find the hammer. I muse on instructions in the midst of making the bloody thing. #EMCA

⏳ Tick tock, tick tock… 2 weeks left to submit to this special issue. @suewiddicombe.bsky.social and I are looking forward to contributions that engage with the theme and push the conversation forward. If it’s on your list, now’s the time to get it over the line 👇 Spread the word!

Out today! A great collection of studies of the organisation of the senses in interaction. Our chapter looks at visual and haptic aspect shifts in an orienteering race. Plenty of other settings and sensings to be found within! #emca #interactionism #sociology www.routledge.com/Sensing-Life...

First time back at the BSA conference in a long while to speak on a panel launching this lovely collection of walking essays. I’ll be speaking briefly on walking as organised practice of care in the search for missing persons. 1600 in room 4.206. @britsoci.bsky.social #sociology #britsoc26

Applications for the ESRC WGSSS postdoctoral Fellowship are now open. If you have recently completed a PhD in the U.K. and are interested in coming to Cardiff to work with me and the small, but lively and lovely, CEEIT research group, do get in touch. wgsss.ac.uk/fellowships/ #EMCA #Ethnography

Such a good couple of days of talking through different approaches to language and interaction in Macau. Highlights were learning about developments in Chinese social and digital media, and drawing from an abundance of positive energy from a special bunch of local and Hong Kong PhDs. #EMCA

And on to Macau for a workshop on EM/CA, discourse, and ethnography. #EMCA

Two days of data sessions and dim sum in Hong Kong.

Many thanks to Andrew Carlin and Marek Czyżewski for inviting me to contribute to the special issue of Przegląd Socjologiczny dedicated to the work of Harvey Sacks. Special issue - part 1: t.ly/GLUVh Special issue - part 2: t.ly/ZI7mP My paper: t.ly/-O1ei #EMCA #HarveySacks #Sociology

The cracks are where the light gets in, and shines out.

Loreen Chikwira of the Kings Fund & I wrote this protocol paper for using Praxeological Analysis and Critical Praxeological Analysis: www.frontiersin.org/journals/psy...

Hello #EMCA community! There's been another Bluesky influx - to find #ConversationAnalysis #DiscursivePsychology #MCA #Ethnomethodology use these Starter Packs. Let me know if you'd like to be added (check you're not there first) and repost this! 1. go.bsky.app/DHMkXcX 2. go.bsky.app/6p8x2UZ

We need a Strava-like app for marking season motivation. Kudos! You’ve marked five essays! Elapsed time: 90mins Grade Adjusted Pace: 3 hours Calories burned/consumed: +300 Recovery time: 1hr

Three short paragraphs, and you've got the whole mind-bending mess that is #UKHE finance & governance neatly laid out. This is why it's all so exhausting: our managers declare there's only one static frame, while we know their framing is part of the issue. 💡 www.hepi.ac.uk/2026/01/10/w...

Website and call for papers for the 2026 EUSSSI conference launched. As reflected in the Symbolic Interaction journal and CfP, welcoming of work in EM/CA related to conference theme. #symbolicinteraction #groundedtheory #emca www.sv.uio.no/iss/english/...