Mondada2022b
| Mondada2022b | |
|---|---|
| BibType | ARTICLE |
| Key | Mondada2022b |
| Author(s) | Lorenza Mondada |
| Title | Adjusting step-by-step trajectories in public space: the micro-sequentiality of approaching and refusing to be approached |
| Editor(s) | |
| Tag(s) | EMCA, Social interaction, Fleeting interaction, Copresence, Openings, Sequentiality, Sequence organization, Micro-sequential adjustments, Embodiment, Mobility, Sociality in public space |
| Publisher | |
| Year | 2022 |
| Language | English |
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| Month | |
| Journal | Gesprächsforschung - Online-Zeitschrift zur verbalen Interaktion |
| Volume | 23 |
| Number | |
| Pages | 36-65 |
| URL | Link |
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Abstract
On the basis of an empirical study of fleeting interactions in a public space between activists seeking for support for an environmental organization and passersby, this paper discusses some fundamental features that make social interaction possible. These fleeting encounters constitute a perspicuous setting for exploring how various forms of interaction emerge out of copresence in public space, from the most minimal to the more focused, and how possible encounters are prepared well before their openings and mutual engagement. This, in turn, enables a reflection on different forms of sequentiality, based on Schegloff’s distinction between sequential vs. sequence organization, also including specific forms of micro-sequentiality. In particular, I examine the moments that precede or merge with the emergent contact between parties who are not yet fully interacting – moments in which no opening has been completed, no word has yet been produced, and rather subtle continuous embodied adjustments can be witnessed. These adjustments also characterize more focused engagements of the incipient participants to the interaction, in particular their walking trajectories, revealing spatial convergences/divergences and embodying forms of (dis)alignment. I analyze the methodic fine-tuned micro-sequential organization of spatial embodied attunements between parties in pre-openings and openings, and discuss how the sequentiality characterizing embodied responsiveness and adjustments is intertwined within the sequentiality of turns-at-talk. These issues are particularly observable in asymmetric unilateral disaligned social interactions, such as the subset of cases studied in this paper, in which passersby either refuse to be approached or refuse the reason for the approach.
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