About IIEMCA27

Conference theme:

New Horizons

Exploring the transformative possibilities of EMCA

approaches

languages

contexts

technologies

While the four key areas are open to interpretation, we hope to see an exploration of: (i) human-machine interaction, (ii) critical EMCA approaches, as well as previously unexamined or underexamined (iii) interactional contexts (iv) and languages.

Keynote Speakers

Four scholars from across the globe will be sharing insights and findings from their EMCA research programs.

Ana Cristina Ostermann

Robin James Smith

Jacki O'Neill

Kevin A. Whitehead

Kevin Whitehead is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Linguistics at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a Visiting Associate Professor in the School of Human and Community Development at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. His research uses ethnomethodological and conversation analytic approaches to study practices through which social categories are used, reproduced and resisted in everyday interactional settings, and on and the intersections of these practices with social problems including racism and violence.

Jacki O’Neill is founding Lab Director of Microsoft Research Africa, Nairobi. An ethnographer by trade, she is passionate about designing technologies which enhance, rather than remove, agency and create sustainable futures. She brings this passion to Microsoft Research Africa where she leads a multi-disciplinary team, combining research, engineering and design to pursue an ambitious research agenda to build more equitable AI. This involves building culturally and linguistically sensitive AI tools and platforms and requires foundational innovation in NLP and African languages, resource constrained computing, generative models and human-computer interaction (HCI). Bringing an ethnomethodological perspective to AI, provides new insight into how we can design better interactions and build the best possible technologies for work, health and society. Dr Jacki has led major research projects in AI, the future of work, financial inclusion and global healthcare. She has >50 peer-reviewed articles, two innovation awards and 16 patents.

Robin James Smith is Professor of Sociology in the School of Social Science, Cardiff University, and Visiting Professor at the University of the Witwatersrand. His studies have primarily pursued the praxeological, co-constitutive, relationship between space, mobility, and perception, and have contributed to the extension of the analysis of categorisation practices beyond person description in talk. His studies have described a wide range of settings, practices, and phenomena including walking, cycling, and running in public space, street outreach with rough sleepers, mountain rescue work, and the impact of visual technology on police accountability in relation to public sense-making. He has published extensively from these studies, and is the co-editor of The Lost Ethnographies, Leaving the Field, On Sacks, and New Directions in Membership Categorisation Analysis.

Ana Cristina Ostermann is a scholar researching and teaching language and social interaction at Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul and a Research Fellow for CNPq in Brazil, while also collaborating in research with colleagues around the world. She has served as Vice-President of the International Society for Conversation Analysis (ISCA) and as President of the International Gender and Language Association (IGALA). As an enthusiastic researcher of social life, her work has been notably interdisciplinary, conducted mainly in institutional settings and with a special interest in themes that address societal needs. The settings investigated include the Brazilian Ministry of Health’s telephone helpline, hospital departments, such as ICU, fetal medicine, genetic consultations, and ultrasound exams, health clinics specializing in gynecology and obstetrics, and women’s police stations. Some of the key analytical themes include agency and resistance related to sexual and reproductive rights, language, gender, and sexuality, as well as decision-making and health literacy. She has also examined the delivery of difficult diagnostic news (including death), reports of gendered violence, and police interrogations. Another segment of her work focuses on linguistic interactional themes, such as responses to polar questions, particles, and, more recently, diminutive morphology in interaction. Her particular attention to naturalistic doctor-patient consultations in Brazil in women’s health clinics launched Ethnomethodological Conversation Analysis as a new method for examining health interactions in the country, and her extensive work in student supervision and mentoring, teaching, and workshop leadership has significantly contributed to the development of the field in Latin America.