“In my view, DMCA 2022 was a strong example of the strengths of the EMCAIL community, and a perfect model of how future meetings in the community should work going forward. It was an innovative and inclusive conference that offered all sorts of creative spaces for interaction and networking while reducing geographical as well as any hierarchical distances across researchers. It created room for exchanges that did not only nurture our research, but also our habits and interests as human beings with training sessions that acknowledged the kinds of barriers that minorities and more precarious academics face, allowing colleagues in distant points of the planet to join the “tribe”, supporting those at the start of their careers, and benefiting from the generosity of senior colleagues who have shared their expertise.
I personally had the massive (and intimidating) privilege of being able to openly share my personal experience as an early-career researcher as part of the plenary “Publishing EMCA Research”, together with Charles Antaki and Jon Hindmarsh. It is a testament to the EMCAIL community that they should trust someone lower in the career ladder like myself to actually be able to help others just by talking openly about my emotional and intellectual challenges in getting to publish, and do so at the same level of more experienced colleagues in front of a full global virtual room. DMCA was also a perfect place for developing communities to make themselves known, and I was lucky to be part of an organised panel on the amazing work done by fellow academics and practitioners doing CA in/on Spanish. As a presenter, I felt wonderfully supported and valued from the very beginning. As a participant, I felt DMCA gave me a space to ask questions, make suggestions, and learn from peers at different career stages, as well as meet casually for virtual coffee and a catch-up. I humbly believe the present and the future of EMCA looks very bright and if DMCA is anything to go by, then we can expect our field to be at the forefront of inclusion, sustainability, innovation, excellence…if we are ready to embrace these values and the kinds of changes and challenges they entail. DMCA rose to the occasion beautifully and I can’t wait for this to become a great tradition in EMCA for decades to come.”
Marina Cantarutti
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“One of the strengths of the EMCA community is the way that it has spread across the globe over the past few decades. And yet it is often the case that members of this very international community are alone or one of only few EMCA researchers in their university. For me, the first DMCA conference was a particular delight because it provided an accessible forum to bring us together. I was able to attend even though it was in the middle of my teaching term, so I slipped out of a class or a meeting, straight into engaging conversations at the cutting edge of EMCA research, on topics ranging from hybrid forms of interactional research in Africa, to studies of interactions with AI. I was also honoured to join Marina Cantarutti and Charles Antaki in a panel to talk about publishing EMCA work, and again, the chance to share questions, ideas, tips and indeed insecurities (!), with so many people was a delight. Often there is a discussion about whether in-person gatherings are better or worse than online conferences. But that is a mistake, as they have very different strengths. In-person conferences should not be the only form of academic gathering, and DMCA provided an impressive template for doing the work to make the online conference work wonderfully well. Thank you to the pioneering organizers for making this happen!”
Jon Hindmarsh
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