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Rob Smith

@robinjsmith.bsky.social
665 followers 431 following 158 posts

Professor of Sociology at Cardiff University and Visiting Prof at The University of the Witwatersrand. Ethnography, Ethnomethodology, and MCA, of all sorts of settings including policing, mountain rescue work, and public space.

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Rob Smith @robinjsmith.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
A great couple of days at the British Academy, hearing about a range of research on various aspects of justice system.
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Rob Smith @robinjsmith.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Open paper and panel call deadline 23rd October. Tick tick. #EMCA
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IIEMCA2027 @iiemca27.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Interested in Psychology and #EMCA? Have a look at these #iiemca27 panels. ➡️ Mind, Brain and Conduct in EMCA ➡️ EMCA in and as Psychology: Respecification, Inquiry and Application www.iiemca27.org/calls @interactemca.bsky.social
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Rob Smith @robinjsmith.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
Contributed to this piece on queues and mountains. Two of my favourite things (unless I’m actually on a mountain…). www.thegreatoutdoorsmag.com/opinion/queu...
thegreatoutdoorsmag.com
Is queue-jumping on Snowdon/Yr Wyddfa ever acceptable? Well, yes. I'm a Mountain Rescue volunteer. This is how it's done.
In defence of queue-jumping on Yr Wyddfa/Snowdon: insights from a Welsh Mountain Rescue volunteer & ultra-running professor of social order.
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Jana Bacevic 🌲🌳✊🏴 @unsocialtheory.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
I don't hear any of the AcAdeMIc FReEdOM bros screaming against this blatant - and really, blatant - intervention not only of the state but of a *foreign* state into sovereign matters of a university?
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Rob Smith @robinjsmith.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
If you are working on practice and perception in high-stakes environments - where timely noticings (or, indeed, “missings”) of interactional and environmental significances are highly consequential - do consider submitting a paper to our panel! www.iiemca27.org/calls #iiemca27 #emca
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Jakub Mlynář @jakubmlynar.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
Honoured that our article on the Chicago School received the 2026 Melvin Pollner Memorial Prize from the #ASA #EMCA Section. Many thanks to my co-authors @robinjsmith.bsky.social, Terry Au-Yeung, Erik Boström & @phdahlphd.bsky.social, and to colleagues who shared their insights with us. t.ly/9A-yH
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Rob Smith @robinjsmith.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
Loving the Panel Lead/Co-Lead musical chairs on IIEMCA submission day…! Sounds like there are some fantastic panels being put together, so look out for calls down the line. And there’s the open paper call coming up in September. Hope to see lots of you in Jo’burg next year! #EMCA #IIEMCA27
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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 27/06/2026
'What is perhaps remarkable about the Exeter cuts is that they are targeted at some of the university’s most successful departments, many of which turn over a profit even after they have made enormous and increasing contributions to the central university budget.' Read, rage and weep.
johnheathershaw.substack.com
The Crisis in Britain’s Universities
The cuts that have been proposed at the University of Exeter demonstrates the crisis of purpose in Britain’s universities. Should not universities also be places to prepare for "eternal dwellings"?
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Natasha Shrikant @natshri.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
Finally recovered from ICA Cape Town! Hosted an awesome pre-conference on discourses of racial inequality and presented my and @francescaorfw.bsky.social book about what @ica-lsi.bsky.social can bring to studies of race and communication! A link to the book!: www.peterlang.com/document/131...
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Dr Yuchen Yang @dr-yang.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
My article "Gender Uptake: Theorizing the Semiotics of (Un)Doing Gender" received the Outstanding Article Award from the SSSP Gender, Sexual Behavior, Politics, and Communities Division AND an Honorable Mention for the Best Paper Award from the ASA Ethnomethodology & Conversation Analysis Section! 🥳
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Musa Okwonga @okwonga.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
What Reform have successfully done is to make the floor of open racism in England much higher than I have seen it in several years. I don’t know what their peak will be but they have normalised something that I haven’t seen here since the mid-1990s, and that is already dangerous enough.
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Phil Hutchinson @philhutchinson.bsky.social · 02/06/2026
This was a great event. Excellent papers and discussions in the most amazing setting. Another fine entry in the annual New Developments in Ethnomethodology series. Thanks to the organisers! To Joburg in 2027.
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😶 stuart reeves 😶 @5tuartreeves.bsky.social · 01/06/2026
🎉 my employer in the news 🎉 1. narrative being peddled by the university mgmt - "do nothing" vs "do our cuts" - is a false choice that rests on (ahem) "unusual" modelling reverse engineered from surplus targets 2. they need better PR people ("DISAPPOINTED!" youtu.be/y6EDlD_fWn0?...)
youtu.be
Hercules - DISAPPOINTED! (High Quality)
YouTube video by OddTomato
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Rob Smith @robinjsmith.bsky.social · 01/06/2026
This really was great! So much to think about and so lovely to catch up with EM folk.
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Rob Smith @robinjsmith.bsky.social · 23/05/2026
Easily the most intense rescue I’ve been involved in… Called to a Casualty hanging inverted from top of cliff after falling and left leg catching a tree root. Amazing teamwork from all Central Brecon MRT colleagues to secure, lower, treat, and evacuate. #EMCA #Fieldwork #MountainRescue
Me stood at bottom of cliff, roped to a safety line, looking up at casualty hanging inverted, 30ft up vegetated cliff.
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Anders Vassenden @andersvassenden.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
Just out! Very happy with this one. Combines Goffman and Collins to push interaction ritual theory forward. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
journals.sagepub.com
Between Two Rituals: Face and Effervescence as Moments of Social Life - Anders Vassenden, Nicholas Hoynes, Taylor Price, Iddo Tavory, 2026
Many of the social outcomes and patterns located at the very center of sociological inquiry are grounded in interaction ritual dynamics. Yet, while broadly used...
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Rob Smith @robinjsmith.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
Ah - but the real magic happens when the post-it notes get stuck to a piece of A3, and five bits of be-post-it-noted A3 are blu-tacked to a whiteboard, and then people stick stars on them.
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😶 stuart reeves 😶 @5tuartreeves.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
we're just doing ELIZA again and again it makes the ACM decision to generate "podcasts for papers" look even more stupid
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Jill Walker Rettberg @jilltxt.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
Here’s a video from the same podcast as linked in my previous post where you can hear the audio too. I love this because it really lays bare how LLMs fool us - but really they’re just slotting words into linguistic patterns that we’re familiar with. Genres like a podcast or LinkedIn post.
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Rob Smith @robinjsmith.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
A paper on Simmel and Ethnomethodology as non-dualist approaches to foundational issues of subjectivity/objectivity, practice, and social order. With Chiara Bassetti, Erik Boström, Ken Liberman, @jakubmlynar.bsky.social and @dirkvl.bsky.social #EMCA #Sociology link.springer.com/article/10.1...
link.springer.com
Simmel and Ethnomethodology: Foundational Sociological Issues from a Nondualist Perspective - The American Sociologist
Georg Simmel, despite being a founding father of sociology, is often excluded from the list of the discipline’s principal founders. This neglect of Simmel’s work was perpetuated in ethnomethodology ev...
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Miriam Posner @miriamposner.com · 29/04/2026
Ah. www.insidehighered.com/news/tech-in...
"Part of the agreement that universities enter into when they subscribe to the Canvas platform is that Canvas retains the right to redistribute, to modify, to just simply use in any way it sees fit, content that is uploaded to the platform," Hanlon said.
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Des Fitzgerald @desfitzgerald.bsky.social · 20/04/2026
Of four free speech cases highlighted here, fully three of them concern self-described "gender critical" academics, while the fourth is a guy opposed to BLM and the concept of strutural racism - if anyone is in doubt about that this is for. www.bbc.com/news/article...
bbc.com
New university free speech complaints system to come into force this year
Universities could face fines of £500,000 or 2% of their income if they are found to have failed to protect free speech.
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Rob Smith @robinjsmith.bsky.social · 19/04/2026
The worldliness of EM phenomena is reintroduced to me as I update a lecture on instructed action. My wife calls up from downstairs. She has all the parts of the IKEA cabinet, but their order is elusive. She can’t find the hammer. I muse on instructions in the midst of making the bloody thing. #EMCA
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𝚈𝚊𝚛𝚘𝚗𝚐 𝚇𝚒𝚎 謝雅戎 @xyarong.bsky.social · 17/04/2026
⏳ Tick tock, tick tock… 2 weeks left to submit to this special issue. @suewiddicombe.bsky.social and I are looking forward to contributions that engage with the theme and push the conversation forward. If it’s on your list, now’s the time to get it over the line 👇 Spread the word!
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Rob Smith @robinjsmith.bsky.social · 16/04/2026
Out today! A great collection of studies of the organisation of the senses in interaction. Our chapter looks at visual and haptic aspect shifts in an orienteering race. Plenty of other settings and sensings to be found within! #emca #interactionism #sociology www.routledge.com/Sensing-Life...
routledge.com
Sensing Life: The Social Organisation of the Senses in Interaction
This book showcases the critical contribution that scholarship in the field of social interaction can make to the study of the senses. Centred on an understanding of the senses as interactionally conf...
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Rob Smith @robinjsmith.bsky.social · 09/04/2026
First time back at the BSA conference in a long while to speak on a panel launching this lovely collection of walking essays. I’ll be speaking briefly on walking as organised practice of care in the search for missing persons. 1600 in room 4.206. @britsoci.bsky.social #sociology #britsoc26
Book cover of Walking: A sociological field guide, on a banner outside Manchester University.
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Rob Smith @robinjsmith.bsky.social · 31/03/2026
Applications for the ESRC WGSSS postdoctoral Fellowship are now open. If you have recently completed a PhD in the U.K. and are interested in coming to Cardiff to work with me and the small, but lively and lovely, CEEIT research group, do get in touch. wgsss.ac.uk/fellowships/ #EMCA #Ethnography
wgsss.ac.uk
Postdoctoral Fellowships – Welsh Graduate School for the Social Sciences
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Rob Smith @robinjsmith.bsky.social · 29/03/2026
Such a good couple of days of talking through different approaches to language and interaction in Macau. Highlights were learning about developments in Chinese social and digital media, and drawing from an abundance of positive energy from a special bunch of local and Hong Kong PhDs. #EMCA
Me stood at front a full seminar room, talking through an example of gestalt contexture and switch.
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Rob Smith @robinjsmith.bsky.social · 24/03/2026
And on to Macau for a workshop on EM/CA, discourse, and ethnography. #EMCA
University of Macau letter sculpture in front of campus. A lake, grass and trees, and somewhat grand modern university buildings in background.
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Rob Smith @robinjsmith.bsky.social · 24/03/2026
Two days of data sessions and dim sum in Hong Kong.
Fishing boats in harbour with low rise buildings, sky scrapers and hills of Hong Kong island in the background.
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Jakub Mlynář @jakubmlynar.bsky.social · 14/03/2026
Many thanks to Andrew Carlin and Marek Czyżewski for inviting me to contribute to the special issue of Przegląd Socjologiczny dedicated to the work of Harvey Sacks. Special issue - part 1: t.ly/GLUVh Special issue - part 2: t.ly/ZI7mP My paper: t.ly/-O1ei #EMCA #HarveySacks #Sociology
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Rob Smith @robinjsmith.bsky.social · 17/02/2026
The cracks are where the light gets in, and shines out.
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Phil Hutchinson @philhutchinson.bsky.social · 16/02/2026
Loreen Chikwira of the Kings Fund & I wrote this protocol paper for using Praxeological Analysis and Critical Praxeological Analysis: www.frontiersin.org/journals/psy...
frontiersin.org
Frontiers | Praxeological analysis (PA/CPA) for stigma, health inequalities, and coercion in women’s services
This paper sets out a practical, interview-free protocol for studying how stigma, inequalities, and restrictive practices are done in women’s mental health, ...
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Elizabeth Stokoe @lizstokoe.bsky.social · 20/01/2026
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
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Rob Smith @robinjsmith.bsky.social · 13/01/2026
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
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Liesbeth Corens @onslies.bsky.social · 10/01/2026
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...
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.
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Rob Smith @robinjsmith.bsky.social · 07/01/2026
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/...
sv.uio.no
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 ...
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Rob Smith @robinjsmith.bsky.social · 19/12/2025
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
tinyurl.com
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...
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Des Fitzgerald @desfitzgerald.bsky.social · 15/12/2025
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.
A hand holdint the book "bigfooters and scientific inquiry" by Jamie Lewis and Andy Bartlett.
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Ryan Boyd @ryanboyd.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
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
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SSSI & SI Journal @sijournal.bsky.social · 11/12/2025
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
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Rob Smith @robinjsmith.bsky.social · 11/12/2025
“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.
Barbara Adam stood at lectern to left of PowerPoint slide of “Opening statement”
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Rob Smith @robinjsmith.bsky.social · 08/12/2025
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…
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Rob Smith @robinjsmith.bsky.social · 07/12/2025
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.
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Matthew Hodson @matthewhodson.bsky.social · 05/12/2025
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.
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Maxwell Modell @maxwellmodell.bsky.social · 05/12/2025
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
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Rob Smith @robinjsmith.bsky.social · 04/12/2025
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
Image of Patricia sat at a table, presenting in front of a PowerPoint screen.
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Rob Smith @robinjsmith.bsky.social · 02/12/2025
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
Four handbooks for the Intro to MCA course, fanned out, with WGSSS logoClose up of schedule featuring a “walk to the food market” (a play on Hester and Francis’ “walk to the supermarket” paper)
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Rob Smith @robinjsmith.bsky.social · 02/12/2025
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.
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