Many groups of language-in-interaction researchers have regular meetings at which they look over a recording and share their analytic insights. These data-sessions can be a very useful and productive way of generating ideas, as well as being enjoyable occasions for like-minded researchers to feel part of a community.

Aarhus / Albany / Brisbane / Bristol / Canberra / Columbia / Edinburgh / Groningen / Haceteppe / Hong Kong-Macao / Linköping / Loughborough / Moscow / Newcastle / Odense / Online – RDS / Online – WIDA / Philadelphia / Potsdam / Oulu / Queen Mary / Roehampton / Rutgers / South Australia / Southampton / Spanish Speaking Researchers Worldwide / Tampere / Tufts / UCL / Wellington / York /

If anyone would like to add their group to the list, do please contact us at c.antaki@lboro.ac.uk. [Newer entries appear at the foot of the page.]

• • Loughborough University (UK) Discourse and Rhetoric Group (DARG). DARG meetings are held  in a large, airy seminar room with excellent video and audio facilities, making our lunchtime discussions comfortable as well as enjoyably stimulating.  We meet every Wednesday at 1.00 in term time. Topics and styles range fairly broadly, but looking at recorded data is the basic activity. Follow us on @DARG_sessions and see our archive of interviews, classic data and more at the DARGchive.
  • Rutgers University Conversation Analysis Lab (USA): RUCAL brings together scholars with an interest in understanding the workings of social interaction across a wide variety of social settings and contexts. RUCAL faculty and students examine everyday communicative activities as they are captured in field recordings of naturally occurring interactions. We study talk-in-interaction (in English, Russian, Spanish, Mandarin, and other languages) among friends and family members as well as in institutional settings.
  • Teachers’ College, Columbia University (USA): LANSI. Newcomers often ask: “What should I bring?” or “What do I need to do to get prepared?” Bring yourself and a pen, and that’s all you need for participating in a data session. Typically, we listen to an audio recording or watch a video recording of some naturally occurring interaction, we do so repeatedly, we write about it individually, and we share our analyses collaboratively. Sometimes we agree. Sometimes we disagree. Most of the time, we walk away with a better analytical grasp of what went on in that piece of data than what we would have gotten–initially and individually.
  • Hacettepe University (Turkey): HUMAN. The group holds sessions in the meeting room of the Department of Foreign Language Education, Faculty of Education.
  • UCL (UK) Centre for Applied Action Research (CAIR)  facilitates research and links between groups and individuals undertaking applied research into normal and disordered human interaction, with an emphasis on analysing video or audio-taped naturally occurring conversations that take place in health, social and education settings. CAIR brings together academics and stakeholders from a number of institutions, clinical and education settings, around the UK. CAIR members are particularly interested in the use and  application of conversation analytical methods and practices.
  • Aarhus, Aalborg, Kolding, Odense … (Denmark): MOVIN. Data sessions move around various Danish Universities – the link will take you to a sign-up page for current information. The Aarhus group as especially active.
  • University of Southern Denmark, Odense: SopraCon (Denmark): organizes sessions every semester on a weekly basis, that is every Tuesday from 10.00-12.00.
  • Groningen University (Netherlands)  organises data sessions once every three weeks (ideally. Those sessions are mostly attended by colleagues from the University of Groningen, but researchers from all over the Netherlands and abroad are actively invited to visit and present their data in these sessions as well.
  • Roehampton University (London, UK)  PhD students organize a meeting  about once a month at King’s College, but this is subject to change. We’re predominantly comprised of PhD students working with EM/CA, but non-PhD students are very welcome to attend as well. So far, our members have come from: King’s College, London, University of Exeter, Queen Mary’s University, London, Brunel University, University of Roehampton , London, Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge. For information, please contact Sarah Cantwell.
  • Queen Mary, University of London (UK): The Mile End Data Session is an initiative of the Cognitive Science research group, but encourages researchers from all over Queen Mary (and elsewhere) to come and present interactional data for group discussion and analysis. [Or it used to be! Now in limbo after Saul Albert moved to Tufts University, Boston]
  • University of Bristol, UK, CA Data Session Group meet monthly to discuss mostly institutional data across a variety of health and social care settings. We are a mixture of faculty members, clinical academics and PhD students and offer a warm welcome to all our visitors. Contact: Rebecca Barnes
  • Hong Kong-Macao Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis GroupThe group, formed in 2016, holds regular data sessions hosted across Hong Kong universities and the University of Macao. The group comes from a range of academic disciplines drawing on EM/CA/MCA with a common interest in researching social action. We welcome researchers at all levels and particularly encourage PhD students to come along and join us.
  • Transcript Analysis Group (TAG) Brisbane, Australia.  TAG meets approximately six times each semester, twice a month at each of The University of Queensland, Queensland University of Technology, and Griffith University. For information on Brisbane TAG sessions, contact Nathaniel Mitchell at transcriptanalysisgroup@gmail.com. The Transcript Analysis Group (TAG), was originally founded by Carolyn D. Baker at the University of Queensland; the organising committee for the group now comprises members from three Brisbane universities, including The University of Queensland, Queensland University of Technology and Griffith University. The Transcript Analysis Group has developed a strong analytic focus using the methodologies of Ethnomethodology, Conversation Analysis (CA) and Membership Categorization Analysis (MCA). It’s one of the longest-standing and most active groups in Australia, with members from a range of disciplines, including education, communication, sociology, medicine and psychology. In 2010, in acknowledgement of the diverse range of theoretical interests and skills in transcript analysis, the organisers of TAG initiated a second study group, which shares some members with the original TAG. The second group offers sessions on transcription and transcript analysis, led by experienced members of TAG and open to interested parties.
  • Discourse Analysis Group (DAG) – Australian National University (Canberra) The Discourse Analysis Group (DAG) is an academic interest group and has met fortnightly since 1997. At meetings we analyse data, discuss contemporary issues facing the field Conversation Analysis (CA), and provide collegial support to one another. The Group has been a vital part in the development of ANU graduate students working within CA. More recently, the group has expanded to include graduate students working within other discourse analytic frameworks. Current members include researchers and graduate students from the Australian National University, University of Canberra, and from Charles Stuart University.The DAG has an email list, currently run by Sarah McLaughlin, which notifies members and interested parties of the DAG events. Email Sarah to be added to the DAG list to keep up to date on CA events in Canberra and in Australia.
  • University of York (England) The Centre for Advanced Studies in Language & Communication holds meetings twice a term, bringing together PhD students, researchers and academics from several Departments: Education, Health Sciences, Language & Linguistic Science, Psychology, Sociology, and Social Policy and Social Work. Other weeks during term time, the Interactional Linguistics Lab Group hold data sessions and discussions on CA-related themes. This group consists of staff, PhD students, and others who are interested in linguistics and interaction, mostly from the Department of Language & Linguistic Science. We often have visitors and interested students along.
  • University of Edinburgh (Scotland) Scottish Ethnomethodology, Discourse, Interaction and Talk group (SEDIT) (University of Edinburgh, Scotland). Based on the University of Edinburgh campus, the group has members from across Scotland from psychology, geography, social work, education, HCI and design. There are fortnightly meetings which are predominantly data sessions on a varied set of topics, with occasional reading meetings on recent work in EMCA. In the annual calendar we also organise topic-based data-days and knowledge exchange events with practitioners. Contact Eric Laurier or Sue Widdicombe to be added to the mailing list.
  • Conversation Analysis in Sydney (CAIS) (Australia) is a group of Sydney-based researchers who meet monthly for data sessions and discussion of methods. We come from a range of disciplines and backgrounds but share a common interest in CA and, more broadly, language and social interaction. Researchers of all levels, from students to academics, are welcome to come along and join us. Email cainsydney@gmail.com to be added to the CAIS list and receive information on data sessions and CA events in Sydney.
  • The Colloquium Language Use (University of Potsdam, Germany). The Colloquium Language Use is held weekly during lecture periods at the Research Center Interactional Linguistics at the University of Potsdam (Germany) https://www.uni-potsdam.de/en/ilup/index, typically on Thursdays 12:15-13:45 (CET). It provides an open place for anyone interested in investigating social interaction and language use in interaction (graduate/M.A. students, post-graduates, doctoral students, researchers, etc.). We do data sessions, project presentations, dry-runs of conference presentations, etc., and we love to have guests. So anyone interested is invited to send an e-mail to martin.pfeiffer@uni-potsdam.de, and to join us for individual sessions or on a regular basis.
  • Micro-analysis Research Group (University of Newcastle, England) MARG (pronounced ‘marge’, perhaps confusingly!) began in the School of ECLS way back in spring 2007. At that time, the newly-arrived Alan Firth and Chris Jenks (now of University of South Dakota) decided that the School should take more advantage of the growing team of researchers and students interested in language, discourse and social interaction. Along with Paul Seedhouse and Steve Walsh, the team began to meet on a weekly basis, along with PhD students, to jointly analyse pieces of audio/video data of real life spoken interaction.
  • The talk and interaction seminar at Linköping University, Sweden (SIS) is jointly organized by Child Studies, the Department of Culture and Communications and the Department of Social and Welfare Studies. The seminar is a working forum for talk researchers and focusses on data sessions and presentations of ongoing analytical work. In addition, it features seminar guests from near and far. The meetings take place on Thursdays. As we sometimes discuss research material of a particularly sensitive nature, some meetings will be reserved. This will be clear from the schedule.
  • Data sessions online. The German Online Data Session was formed in 2011 as an online space for (North American) CA researchers working primarily with German data. We meet on Skype for monthly open data sessions of approx. 90 minutes each, in which we analyze German data (everyday and institutional settings) and discuss work-in-progress (any language welcome). Discussions are in English. We welcome researchers at all levels and encourage MA and PhD students working with CA to join the group.   Meeting times vary; we usually agree on a new schedule each December, April, and August. If you would like to participate, contact Emma Betz at embetz@uwaterloo.ca to find out about current meeting times.
  • The Wellington Interaction and Discourse Analysis (WIDA) group is a collaboration of faculty and postgraduate students from the University of Otago University, Wellington (School of Medicine & Health Sciences) and Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand. Our data sessions have a particular focus on interactions between institutional representatives and members of the public, and most involve either healthcare encounters or telephone helplines. However, we have examined data as diverse as conversations between schoolchildren about use of social media, one-to-one instruction in a nanotechnology lab and interviews with refugees and community support workers. Our regular meeting slot is 4pm (GMT+11 – GMT+13) on the second Thursday of the month at the University of Otago in Newtown, Wellington. Non-Wellingtonians are welcome to join us via a Zoom link. For further information, please contact Isobel Ross at isobelaross@gmail.com.
  • Remote Data Sessions (RDS).  PhD students (especially, but others are welcome) meet up remotely for a monthly online data session. The initiative was founded in 2017, emerging from the biannual EMCA Doctoral Network meetings in the UK. We use BigMarker <http://www.bigmarker.com> to host sessions of approx. 90 minutes. Attendance is truly international. Our discussions are in English, and we welcome PhD students with a basic understanding of Conversation Analysis.  Meeting times vary each month (depending on the availability and timezone of the presenter); if you would like more information you can email: <remotedatasessions@gmail.com> or if you’d like to sign-up for a future session / present data you can visit our website: <https://sites.google.com/york.ac.uk/remotedatasessions/home>
  • The Tufts Human Interaction Lab Data Analysis Session is held at 200 Boston Ave, from 3pm-5pm on the last Thursday of each month, with all upcoming dates listed on our website: https://sites.tufts.edu/hilab/events/.  Please subscribe to our mailing list or check our events website for updates and announcements and to receive notifications about any changes to our schedule. All data sessions take place at the Human Interaction Lab, Unit 2580, 200 Boston Ave, Medford MA, 02155 unless otherwise noted. If you have some data to present at the HI Lab data session, please email saul.albert@tufts.edu.
  • University of Oulu (Finland) Complexity of (inter)action and multimodal participation research community (COACT). COACT organises data sessions regularly, usually once or twice a week. In the meetings, somebody usually brings one or two video clips which are analysed in the conversation analytic fashion, focusing on details of talk, embodied action and other multimodal features of social interaction in a diverse array of interactional, social and discursive settings. Additionally, we use the meetings for study circles, presentation dry runs and work-in-progress meetings. Local and visiting scholars are welcome to attend and bring their own data to the meetings.
  • University of Tampere. The Faculty of Social Sciences organises a data-session every two weeks. Faculty, students and visitors are invited to bring their data from a variety of contexts, both institutional and mundane. The group consists mainly of social psychologists, sociologists and linguists but is open for anybody interested in EM/CA regardless of their disciplinary background. Contact: Sakari Ilomäki.
  • University at Albany Data Session Group Our data sessions are opportunities for faculty and students to work together to study how communication gets done and how it works in everyday life.  We work together at each meeting to  produce a close analysis of the details of what gets said, how it gets said, when it gets said in naturally occurring interactions, and what difference those details make –and when we have video, the nonverbal aspects as well. All are welcome to each session no experience necessary, we often have faculty and students from neighboring universities as well as from surrounding states attend our bi-weekly sessions. Dates, Times, and specific building locations of sessions are announced each semester/summer break (when possible). If you’d like to be added to our listserv announcing these meetings please email azemel@albany.edu with the subject line ‘data session listserv’.
  • Moscow. The EMCA_Ru Research Group (Moscow, Russia) is a collaboration of researchers and PhD students, primarily from the Higher School of Economics. The group consists mostly of sociologists, although everyone is invited to join regardless of their disciplinary background. Data sessions are held regularly (every 2-3 weeks), meeting times vary. Visitors are encouraged to bring their data from either mundane or institutional settings, in Russian or English. Each data session focuses on one or several short video or audio recordings. We have analysed interaction in various social settings, e.g. medical encounters, phone conversations, video games, cognitive science experiments, churches, and schools. For more information, see https://www.facebook.com/EMCAruRG/.
  • Philadelphia, USA. ALPACA hosts monthly conversation analytic data sessions in Philadelphia, open to all with a background in CA! We are a group of graduate students and faculty at Penn, West Chester University, and Swarthmore, and we meet for data session on the Penn campus. If you’re local or visiting the city and would like to join us, send an email to Josh Raclaw (email).
  • South Australia. Established in 2018, Conversation Analysis South Australia (CASA) is a special interest group that runs monthly data analysis sessions and workshops with a focus on building networks and capacity in the conduct and translation of ethnomethodology, CA, and related discursive research. CASA comprises students, academics, and academic-practitioners from across South Australia’s universities with diverse interdisciplinary expertise in Psychology, Nursing, Speech Pathology, Creative Industries and Education. New local members are always welcome. Interstate and international visitors to Adelaide are invited to attend individual sessions and/or share their data. Contact Jessica Young (jess.young@flinders.edu.au) for more information.
  • University of Southampton and University of Portsmouth (England) – CA Data Sessions Southampton(CADSS) is a working group of postgraduate researchers and faculty members who provide a supportive, nurturing space for discussion and collaboration on research into naturally occurring and institutionalised interactions. CADSS offers regular data and developmental sessions that take place using the online conferencing platform, Zoom. These sessions are open to anyone with an interest in the study of naturally occurring and institutionalised interactions. We welcome members at all levels of development. For more information about joining us, or for bringing your research to our sessions,  get in touch with Simon Stewart at s.j.stewart@soton.ac.uk. You can also keep up to date by following @CASessionsSoton on Twitter for news about upcoming sessions.
  • Seminario Permanente de Análisis de la Conversación (SPAC). SPAC organizes weekly data sessions and monthly talks and workshops via Zoom. Our data sessions (“observatorio de datos”) take place every Tuesday at 18:00 UTC and are open to anyone interested in doing CA in Spanish. The group brings together CA scholars and enthusiasts from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, Spain, the U.S., among other countries in Europe and the Americas. Check out our calendar for more information about upcoming events. SPAC is a chapter of Conversanalista, an international effort to promote language and social interaction research across Spanish-speaking academia. To join our listserv, send an email to conversanalista@lists.ucla.eduor reach us at conversanalista@gmail.com. You can also follow Conversanalista on Facebook and Twitter.
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