Tessera
Folgen

Lars E.F. Johannessen

@larsjohannessen.bsky.social

Sociologist and Prof. in Knowledge, Expertise and Professions at Oslo Metropolitan University • Fellow at Center for Cultural Sociology, Yale University • Digital culture • Qualitative methods • Theorizing • Microsociology • STS

409 Posts3120 Follower887 Folgt
Lars E.F. Johannessen@larsjohannessen.bsky.social · 8mo ago

It's that time of year: The Winter Seminar of the Norwegian Sociological Association. We're on a mountain, people are happy (mostly) and drunk (most of the time), and I even got to go skiing this morning. A much needed break from everything else in the world!

Selfie of me skiing in incredibly cold conditions
xX💖🌹Xx_dolly_Angelic_xX🌹💖Xx@dollyangelic.bsky.social · 12mo ago

i've only skimmed this so far but it looks really interesting. comments on things i've raised in the past regarding EMCA's relation to autism that need addressing. but i saw this endnote (first pic) and would like to use it as a prompt to re-up my own EMCA work on autism (the other three pics).

Bildscreenshot of the abstract of my paper in Disability Studies Quarterly. Text reads: "Autism, Autonomy, and Touch Avoidance Abstract Touch is an important component of many social experiences for many people. Autistic children commonly avoid social touch more than non-autistic peers. It is generally thought that this is due to autistic individuals experiencing hyper- or hyposensitivity of touch. While this is undoubtedly the case at least some of the time, studies of touch and autism have often involved decontextualised experimental settings or post-hoc reports on touch by autistic people or their common social interactants (i.e., parents). As such, there is very little research that looks at social touch in interactions involving autistic people and studies how it naturally occurs and how it is managed in the moment. Using multimodal Conversation Analysis, I analyse a collection of cases of social touch in the form of parents' cuddles or embraces with their autistic children. I demonstrate here what these cuddles can look like, how they can unfold over time with both autistic children and their parents mutually participate in building intimate sensorial moments. I also show more problematic moments where the child resists, abandons, or misunderstands a cuddle from their parent (or attempt to secure one) demonstrating that, in these cases, the trouble for the autistic children was not touch sensitivity but the prioritisation of courses of action that social touch would impede. As such the children display that the social touch is avoided or negatively evaluated due to its social nature, not its physical/sensational one. In demonstrating this I argue that not everything that might look like a sign of sensory difference is one. Keywords: Autism, Conversation Analysis, Touch, Embodiment, Action"screenshot of the name and abstract of my paper in Journal of Interactional Research in Communication Disorders. the title is "Autistic children's explanations of their own behavior". Text reads: "Abstract Purpose: This article reconceptualizes theory of mind (ToM) and perspective-taking as a practical accomplishment in social interaction, and analyzes how, and when, autistic children produce explanations of their behavior in ways that address how other people do, or may, understand it. Method: Three families with autistic children collected video recordings of themselves interacting at home. From 5 hours of video, a collection of 45 instances of accounts produced by autistic children was made, transcribed, and subjected to conversation analysis. Results: Accounts occurred in both initiating and responsive turns. Accounts produced in initiating turns addressed the potential characterizations of this and themselves their interlocutors might make. Their accounts in second position addressed actual characterizations in interlocutors’ preceding turns. As well, two of the children produced accounts which constructed their behavior as the result of internal causes. Discussion and conclusion: These analyses demonstrate the children's practical reasoning about how other people observe, recognize, and understand their behavior. Despite autism being linked to difficulties with ToM and perspective-taking, these autistic children manage perspective-taking through the provision of accounts in multiple sequential positions. These findings challenge the emphasis on ToM deficit based explanations of autism, while suggesting a stronger research focus on local, situated perspective-taking in social interaction."screenshot of the abstract for my paper in Research on Children and Social Interaction. The title is "Deontics at Bedtime". Text reads: "Abstract Directive trajectories are common in parent–child talk as parents attempt to engage their children in household activities. Previous research on families with autistic children has reported that parents have difficulty engaging their children in household activities. The current study analyses the strategies a parent utilizes in negotiating an activity contract with their autistic child. The analyses show that the parent negotiates stances towards autonomy, category-membership-tied activities and social obligations, as well as used embodied conduct. The analyses also show how the child is sensitive to these strategies and actively participates in the directive trajectory. The findings show that both parent and child are active co-constructors of the social relationship in directive trajectories and that the child can strategically counter the variety of directive resources the parent uses."
Lars E.F. Johannessen@larsjohannessen.bsky.social · last yr.

✨ New publication ✨ Face-to-face is often treated as the “gold standard” of interaction. My new article shows how autistic sociality complicates this view, revealing alternative ways of connecting. Available open access in Symbolic Interaction: #sociology #anthrosky #autism #neurodiversity

SSSI & SI Journal@sijournal.bsky.social · last yr.

New on Early View: "Rethinking Face-to-Face Interaction: Lessons from Studies of “Autistic Sociality”" by Lars E. F. Johannessen doi.org/10.1002/symb... #sssi #sociology #interactionism #autism #sociality

Rethinking Face‐to‐Face Interaction: Lessons from Studies of “Autistic Sociality”

Face-to-face interaction is a foundational concept in microsociology. This article surveys the social experiences of autistic people, who are commonly known for having a strained relationship with in...

doi.org

Lars E.F. Johannessen@larsjohannessen.bsky.social · last yr.

✨ New publication ✨ Face-to-face is often treated as the “gold standard” of interaction. My new article shows how autistic sociality complicates this view, revealing alternative ways of connecting. Available open access in Symbolic Interaction: #sociology #anthrosky #autism #neurodiversity

Rethinking Face‐to‐Face Interaction: Lessons from Studies of “Autistic Sociality”

Face-to-face interaction is a foundational concept in microsociology. This article surveys the social experiences of autistic people, who are commonly known for having a strained relationship with in...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Lars E.F. Johannessen@larsjohannessen.bsky.social · last yr.

It's finally here: the second annual meeting of the Norwegian Microsociological Network! This year we're in Trondheim, with Gary Alan Fine and Iddo Tavory as special guests. The drinks reception is over; now we have two full days of talks to look forward to 🤠

Nice water view at 10 pm in Trondheim
Lars E.F. Johannessen@larsjohannessen.bsky.social · 2y ago

This is too good to be true <3 "Many qualitative methodological approaches are already very vibey [...] In this article, I reflect on these approaches and outline some vibes-based methods. I discuss how vibes-based methods help us consider and work with the generative ambiguities of social life."

Vibes-based methods - Ash Watson, 2025

Vibes are having a moment and academics seem increasingly serious about understanding whatever the vibe is. Many qualitative methodological approaches are alrea...

journals.sagepub.com