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Conversation analysis and power: examining the descendants and antecedents of social action

Conversation Analysis (CA) tends to adopt an ambivalent attitude to the concept of power. The concept is fundamental in sociology but secondary or even disregarded in CA. A closer look at research and the conceptual foundations of CA however demonstrate significant contributions to theories of power...

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Autores principales: Ekström, Mats, Stevanovic, Melisa
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10282763/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37350853
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2023.1196672
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author Ekström, Mats
Stevanovic, Melisa
author_facet Ekström, Mats
Stevanovic, Melisa
author_sort Ekström, Mats
collection PubMed
description Conversation Analysis (CA) tends to adopt an ambivalent attitude to the concept of power. The concept is fundamental in sociology but secondary or even disregarded in CA. A closer look at research and the conceptual foundations of CA however demonstrate significant contributions to theories of power. In this paper we aim to demonstrate and discuss these contributions, however, also arguing for an expansion of the CA approach in dialogue with sociological theories to engage in the sociological analysis of power as an essential feature of social relationships and social organization. Based on a general definition of power, as the transformative capacities of social agents in virtue of their social relationships, we discuss how power is interactionally achieved and negotiated, but also conditioned by social institutions and structures that extend beyond the contexts of situated encounters. The paper is divided into two main sections. The first section presents central contributions of CA in relation to the distinctions between power over and power to, authority as a legitimate form of power, and deontics as a key concept in the analysis of power. The second section critically considers the tendency in CA to localize power solely to actions in interaction, and to conflate structure and action, which constraints the analysis and explanations of power. We present examples of how analyses of power, grounded in CA, can be extended to account for the dynamics of social structures and realities beyond the interactional encounters.
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spelling pubmed-102827632023-06-22 Conversation analysis and power: examining the descendants and antecedents of social action Ekström, Mats Stevanovic, Melisa Front Sociol Sociology Conversation Analysis (CA) tends to adopt an ambivalent attitude to the concept of power. The concept is fundamental in sociology but secondary or even disregarded in CA. A closer look at research and the conceptual foundations of CA however demonstrate significant contributions to theories of power. In this paper we aim to demonstrate and discuss these contributions, however, also arguing for an expansion of the CA approach in dialogue with sociological theories to engage in the sociological analysis of power as an essential feature of social relationships and social organization. Based on a general definition of power, as the transformative capacities of social agents in virtue of their social relationships, we discuss how power is interactionally achieved and negotiated, but also conditioned by social institutions and structures that extend beyond the contexts of situated encounters. The paper is divided into two main sections. The first section presents central contributions of CA in relation to the distinctions between power over and power to, authority as a legitimate form of power, and deontics as a key concept in the analysis of power. The second section critically considers the tendency in CA to localize power solely to actions in interaction, and to conflate structure and action, which constraints the analysis and explanations of power. We present examples of how analyses of power, grounded in CA, can be extended to account for the dynamics of social structures and realities beyond the interactional encounters. Frontiers Media S.A. 2023-06-07 /pmc/articles/PMC10282763/ /pubmed/37350853 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2023.1196672 Text en Copyright © 2023 Ekström and Stevanovic. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Sociology
Ekström, Mats
Stevanovic, Melisa
Conversation analysis and power: examining the descendants and antecedents of social action
title Conversation analysis and power: examining the descendants and antecedents of social action
title_full Conversation analysis and power: examining the descendants and antecedents of social action
title_fullStr Conversation analysis and power: examining the descendants and antecedents of social action
title_full_unstemmed Conversation analysis and power: examining the descendants and antecedents of social action
title_short Conversation analysis and power: examining the descendants and antecedents of social action
title_sort conversation analysis and power: examining the descendants and antecedents of social action
topic Sociology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10282763/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37350853
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2023.1196672
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