Negotiating and Coordinating Multimodal Resources to Build Embodied Choreographies in Civilian Crisis Management Training

Abstract Touch and embodied resources are a focal yet vastly understudied area in human interaction. Drawing on multimodal conversation analysis, this empirical article examines the use of touch and embodied resources in crisis management training. Our empirical analysis builds on the phenomenologically rooted understanding of intercorporeality, and its connection to sensoriality and multimodality in ethnomethodological conversation analysis (EMCA). Our findings show that participants coordinate their joint work through verbal and multimodal resources, and the embodied formation they build functions as a resource in organizing joint work and facilitates joint accomplishment of the activity by providing a shared understanding of the relevant next action. The study complements the body of research on touch and embodied resources by making visible how joint action is coordinated and negotiated moment-by-moment and how the coordination and the resulting formation contribute to collaborative work. The study has relevance for the crisis management training community but also for other working contexts where tactile and corporeal activities and practices are emblematic.