Rob Smith

I was thinking about this in a mountain rescue context. It’s immediately recognisable as there’s a resistance to (too many) SOPs. Conversely, a good deal of the “golden rules” aren’t - maybe, can’t - live in written protocols.
As you suggest, that can be found in the “rules” of traffic order too.

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

How the financial problem is described is not neutral. It reflects and reinforces a particular way of understanding what a university is and how it should function. If the financial situation is framed as a classic demand-and-cost problem (i.e., demand is insufficient, prices are constrained, and unit costs are too high), then the university is, implicitly, being treated as a ‘service provider’ operating in a competitive international education market where students are customers. In that frame, the obvious actions are to emphasise tight cost controls and to strengthen output-focused performance metrics, targets and incentives such as promotions based on publications in highly rated journals, income generation or teaching satisfaction scores. If the same financial situation is framed instead as a system-level shock that threatens the conditions under which teaching, research and public service can flourish, then a different picture of the university comes into view: a ‘living knowledge ecosystem’ serving a public mission and facing financial constraints partly beyond its control. Within that frame, the responses appears quite different. Attention turns to protecting core capacities, reducing harm to the most vulnerable parts of the system and working with others to share risks and resources. In both cases, the numbers in the spreadsheets are the same. What differs is the story told about the problem, and the underlying image of the university that story presupposes. At present, the former factory-like framing is the most common. With it, the danger is that, under a narrative of financial constraints, universities take actions that emphasise governance practices that reshape behaviour so deeply that, over time, what remains may still be called a ‘university’, but no longer acts like one.

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...

European Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction Oslo 2026 - Department of Sociology and Human Geography The annual conference of the European Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction will take place from June 16th - June 19th in beautiful Oslo, Norway. This is the main European conference designed ...

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/...

Looks great, Liz! Happy New Year!

On another level it’s about “seeing ethnographically” as well as some of the trained difficulties with doing “mere description”. There’s a dash of EM and Wittgenstein running through it.

Let me know if you’d like a copy.

Teaching Research Methods in Sociology Providing both theoretical and practical strategies for developing engaging and innovative approaches to teaching, expert instructors share their insights into teaching about important topics in the s...

Just published. My chapter is based on resolving the three complaints of the novice fieldworker.

“I didn’t know what to write because”:
1) no one was doing anything!
2) people were doing too much!
3) I didn’t know what to call the thing I was seeing!

tinyurl.com/5n7w84hk

#ethnography #emca

Oof. Don’t we know it. It’s the hope that kills you…

I used the United classic “give it to Giggsy till end of season” in this context just yesterday…

A hand holdint the book "bigfooters and scientific inquiry" by Jamie Lewis and Andy Bartlett.

Delighted to receive this in the post - 'Bigfooters and Scientific Inquiry' by @drjamielewis.bsky.social and Andy Bartlett. This book is in the finest STS tradition of showing how an apparently marginal or obscure scientific practice opens up an entire epistemological world.

There isn't a single problem "solved" by edtech that couldn't be fixed with smaller classes led by well-paid teachers given real academic freedom

It’s tough out there.

The future is already populated.

Symbolic Interaction, Vol.48 No4 is out - it's a special issue on "The (Re)Production and Navigation of Social Asymmetries‐in‐Action" co-edited by Catherine L. Tam @cathtam.bsky.social & Robin James Smith @robinjsmith.bsky.social congratulations, both co-editors and authors #sssi #emca #interaction

The future is not determined but is factual. It is already under way…
The foundation of a future oriented relation of ethics, action, and knowledge.

Barbara Adam stood at lectern to left of PowerPoint slide of “Opening statement”

“Every single moment is implicated in all of time”

A real treat, as usual, to welcome Barbara Adam back to Cardiff. Essential ideas for thinking open futures.

As a result of working through my degree and some of my postgraduate, I can size a suit for someone by eye, measure and pin for tailoring, and know how to measure for a kilt.

Should have written about it. The ethnography would’ve been called
Measurement and Method…

Among our growing list of “other duties” in our job spec, it seems we’re now supposed to be part of the marketing department.
We understand the shifting recruitment landscape, but it’s yet another problem we’re expected to solve by ourselves.
Not to mention the risks that come with the exposure.

Congratulations, Antti! Great news!

2.5 million people with HIV have lost access to life-saving treatment as a result of Trump’s cuts to the global HIV programme.
It’s estimated that this has already resulted in an additional 100,000 AIDS deaths this year.

Awesome talk from Dr Patricia Jimenez at the EMCA Doctoral Network. Patricia did an amazing job at penetrating the question of why we do membership categorisation analysis and how it can help us understand members' situated sense-making practices.

Great data on classrooms and lay definitions of AI

Image of Patricia sat at a table, presenting in front of a PowerPoint screen.

Dr Patricia Jimenez presenting on the uses and troubles with MCA across her projects on members’ sense-making practices. Questions of producing adequate descriptions of occasioned patternings of categorial orders.

#EMCA
#MCA

It’s probably not what you had in mind at all, but McHoul’s PhD/book Telling How Texts Talk is worth a look.

We’re going to get 20 people to do a commentary at the same time

I meant publications from that exact project. They’re very good!

There have been some nice papers from this!

Four handbooks for the Intro to MCA course, fanned out, with WGSSS logo

Close up of schedule featuring a “walk to the food market” (a play on Hester and Francis’ “walk to the supermarket” paper)

All set for three days of Intro to MCA (sponsored by the WGSSS) and a meeting of the EMCA Doctoral Network. Huge thanks to Patrik Dahl for his organisational prowess.

Schedule includes bonus pun for the MCA heads.

#EMCA
#MCA

A great write up on the life and liveliness of the “Manchester” EM Reading Group. As Phil says, it’s rare to find space to really talk and think in modern academia.

I don’t get to go as often as I’d like, but like any favourite place that one has, knowing it’s there makes things a little better.

Via https://www.linkedin.com/posts/spencer-hazel-0941983a_positivereframing-crisismanagement-communication-share-7400921481251082240-W-co?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_android&rcm=ACoAAAPAF-EBGhyjfCnhrAC15qIiuzpKaH4Js_k

Via https://www.linkedin.com/posts/spencer-hazel-0941983a_positivereframing-crisismanagement-communication-share-7400921481251082240-W-co?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_android&rcm=ACoAAAPAF-EBGhyjfCnhrAC15qIiuzpKaH4Js_k

Link to BBC story about under-threat language courses https://bbc.com/news/articles/c8e9d73lwkro

Words matter. Language matters. Languages matter.

@spencerhazel.bsky.social on how universities cut their language degrees, AND stress the importance of language, AND use language poorly and offensively in communicating their decisions ("marketing-infused slop").

#AcademicSky #Universities