Interactive meaning constitution and meaning negotiation in asymmetric workplace interactions

When ethnographic and ethnomethodological data is collected at different workplaces across Europe with a focus on people with disabilities, the question arises of how we as researchers approach and understand interactions in this context. In this contribution, we offer a theoretical exploration of interactional asymmetries that arise in the context of workplace interaction between sighted and blind people. We will discuss implications of these asymmetric interactions from two perspectives.<br/>The first perspective deals with asymmetries in access to and sharing of multimodal or linguistic resources (Hirvonen &amp; Schmitt, 2018; Lilja, 2014). The second perspective deals with asymmetries inherent in workplace interactions: Asymmetry may be found in interactions between professionals and lay people (Drew &amp; Heritage, 1992), in different distributions of knowledge amongst colleagues (Drew &amp; Heritage, 1992), or may lead to team competence (Hirvonen, 2024). While asymmetry is prevalent in all social interaction (Enfield, 2011), these interrelated approaches underline the need for an in situ perspective on analysing meaning-making processes as “Sinnherstellung” (Schütz, 1932), when meaning is understood as jointly constructed and situationally evolving (Deppermann &amp; De Stefani, 2024, p. 4). Drawing on examples from video data<br/>of workplace interaction between blind and sighted people, we will present the analysis of three situations in which these different dimensions of asymmetries are made relevant by the participants themselves. Through these cases, we will discuss how participants collaboratively negotiate and share meaning despite or through asymmetries.