Moving Bodies in Interaction – Interacting Bodies in Motion

This volume presents a new perspective on socially coordinated embodied activity. It brings together scholars from linguistics, interactional sociology, neuropsychology and brain research. It assembles empirical studies of the interaction in sports that draw on recent developments in ethnomethodological conversation analysis, the sociology of practice, interactional linguistics, and cognitive studies. Thinking beyond the individual body, the chapters investigate microscopically the materiality and reflexivity of skilled bodies in motion in different sports ranging from individuals jointly rock-climbing and distance-running to team sports such as rugby and basketball.
Combining theoretical elements from phenomenology and cognitive studies, the volume emphasizes the temporal extension and merging of bodies towards an acting plural body and the situated embeddedness of dynamically interacting bodies in an environment that encompasses organized spaces, objects or other bodies. It thus offers a number of case studies in advanced research in embodied interaction that coalesce in a comprehensive picture of the ways human bodies merge in joint action.

Charles Goodwin, University of California, Los Angeles:
This is a powerful book that will expand the thinking of anyone interested in what it is to be a skilled, knowing human being acting in a world that is also rapidly being shaped by the actions of others. Building from, among other sources, the phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty, it challenges studies of human action that treat language, exchanges of talk, and consciousness as the primary sites for the analysis of human sociality, interaction and intersubjectivity. Sports provides a crucial site for investigating the ability of the living human body to anticipate and co-experience the bodies of others within such strong time constraints that conscious reflection would be an obstacle to the accomplishment of relevant action. Contributors include scholars from linguistics, interactional sociology, neuropsychology and brain research, many of whom are skilled practitioners of the activities they analyze. A great book to move our thinking about the human body, and the forms of sociality that shape our experience of each other, in new, important directions.