Welcome To The Feminist Conversation Analysis Unit
Director: Professor Celia Kitzinger
Introduction
The Feminist Conversation Analysis Unit was established in Summer 2007 and is based in the new interdisciplinary Centre for Advanced Studies in Language and Communication. The Unit brings together the technical field of conversation analysis (CA), based in the foundational work of Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson, and the social and political concerns of feminism.
The aims of the Feminist CA Unit are:
- to support the development of feminist work within conversation analysis
- to offer a distinctive focus for CA within gender and language studies
- to foster the development of high quality CA, high quality politically-engaged research within CA, and to provide a forum for reflecting on the relationship between CA and our political engagements - including a consideration of politics best achieved by means other than CA
- to use CA to bring about positive social change
- to provide, through regular meetings, a supportive and challenging environment for data analysis and for presenting new work
- to make links with people and groups working in related areas both nationally and internationally, through regular conferences and workshops, invited speakers, exchanges, and an on-line discussion network
- to assist with grant applications, the award of PhD grants and post-doctoral fellowships in the area of feminist CA by providing an institutional 'home' for our work
- to offer short courses on using CA in feminist research