Interaction and the living body

Following Goffman (1963), research on embodied interaction in the tradition of conversation analysis has largely approached embodiment as visual conduct. This paper addresses aspects of embodiment, surfacing in interaction episodes in an auto-shop, that resist such an approach, including embodied knowledge and kinesthetic experience, and discusses a variety of approaches that offer alternative views of the human body. These include phenomenology, Philosophical Anthropology, and neuroscience, among others. The question is raised how a rigorous, observational methodology of interaction analysis can be married to a holistic conception of the human body.