Embodied and spatial resources for turn-taking in institutional multi-party interactions: Participatory democracy debates

This paper addresses a central topic of conversation analysis: turn-taking organization. It describes a specific turn-taking system, characteristic of an institutional setting involving larger groups of participants. Whereas turn-taking has been widely studied and diverse settings have been considered, from informal everyday conversations to formal institutional interactions, turn-taking organization as it is managed by and within larger groups remains understudied. This paper aims to sketch the systematics of turn-taking practices within political meetings that are part of a participatory democracy project. In these meetings, everybody is expected to contribute ideas, opinions, and proposals; controversial topics, disagreements, and political oppositions are also expressed. The analysis focuses on the practical problems encountered by speakers bidding for turns and by the chairman trying to make the floor accessible. The analysis also examines the methodic and timed mobilization of embodied resources and their local accountability, as recognized and treated as situated by the participants. Systematic practices for pre-selecting, announcing and establishing the next speaker, selecting and queuing multiple next speakers, defending speakership in contexts of persistent overlaps, and managing confrontational exchanges during the debate are described in detail. This description casts light on the way in which ‘participatory democracy’ is locally brought into being.