Exploring the communicative constitution of imagined futures

For the last virtual data session of 2023 (December 19th), The CCO Data Collective welcomed Isabelle Neufang (PhD student at Copenhagen Business School) to share empirically rich video recordings of meeting and interview interactions taken from her ethnography within the offshore wind industry. Isabelle’s thesis investigates the communicative constitution of a green and sustainable future in the industry, specifically how communicative processes constitute such imagined futures by drawing on a plurality of voices (humans and other-than-humans) that facilitate the long-term caretaking of offshore assets.   

Corporeality, embodiment, and affectivity took center stage within the session, with members of The Collective exchanging rich insights into how, for instance, gestures became crucial to orchestrating the temporal and spatial dimension of risk in relation to imagined futures. Relatedly, members keenly observed how gendered and professional relations became constituted through not necessarily what was ‘said’ but attendees’ bodily movements. Further, the session culminated with a discussion around the benefits and challenges of multimodal analysis and how ‘best’ to present gestural communication when the journals we (seek to) publish in so often privilege the spoken word.

Thank you to everyone for joining this session, all the sessions throughout 2023, and we wish you a relaxing festive break and a happy and healthy 2024!

Best wishes,

Ellen and David