LORENZA MONDADA

​Based on interactional linguistics (IL), conversation analysis (CA) and ethnomethodology (EM), this project aims at advancing key contemporary topics in multimodal research interested in the organization of social interaction. It does so by empirically focusing  on a highly original and unique institutional and professional setting and its interactional activities: the forensic laboratory as a site in which bones and other human remains are examined by diverse experts — forensic anthropologists, odontologists, clinicians, and geneticians — in order to reveal the profile and if possible to identify the victim they belong to.

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The forensic laboratory constitutes an exemplary setting in which to explore issues of multimodal organization of talk, embodied actions, sensorial skilled practices, and production of expert knowledge are intertwined. The choice IL, CA and EM to approach these activities enables several complementary foci: A) It enables significant advances in the study of complex multimodal practices, the articulation between sensoriality and knowledge in professional expertise, within activities that implicate original forms of materiality, including human remains; B) It casts light on interactions barely studied until now in EMCA workplace studies: experts in a forensic laboratory examining bone remains, DNA samples and testimonies concerning disappeared persons. Forensic work and actions manipulating dead bodies haven’t yet been submitted to any video analysis until now. C) It enables substantial advances in multimodal IL and CA on interactions in Brazilian Portuguese.

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The project mobilizes, thanks to the SNF (Switzerland) & FAPESP (Brazil) funding scheme, an ideal combination of teams and competences: on the Swiss side, the PI, Lorenza Mondada, is a well-known leader in multimodal EMCA with experience in researching multiple work and institutional settings. On the Brazil side, a multidisciplinary team includes a PI, Fernanda Miranda da Cruz, who is also researching multimodal IL/CA in linguistics, and an associated researcher, Edson Teles, representing the forensic laboratory studied, the Center for Forensic Anthropology and Archeology of the Federal University of São Paulo (CAAF/UNIFESP), specialized in the identification of disappeared political activists during the Brazilian dictatorship of 1965-1988. This collaboration secure access to the field/data, the indispensable expertise for studying them, and the possibility to explore mutual interdisciplinary exchanges. This makes the feasibility as well as the unique originality of the project.

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