| Working on two corpora (guided visits in art centers and medical consultations), we propose an analysis of an interactional phenomenon we call embodied availability. Based on a double single case-analysis and drawing on previous studies on transition sequences in an emic perspective, we identified a common pattern in our data. In the routine course of an activity (medical prescription, guide’s comment), we observe that patient and visitors occur to change their focus, starting talking about a previous activity (diagnosis) or watching another artwork (dance performance). This divergence of orientation initiates a transition towards another activity and temporarily involves the concomitance of two distinct activities. How do the doctor and guide manage the practical problem of realigning their co-participants fluently in a joint activity? We argue that the response to this organizational problem need consists in the accomplishment of an embodied availability. We aim at specifying the fluidity in this process through an analysis of the multimodal participants’ resources: retrospective and projective orientations in the convergence; moves and postural changes (endogenous reorganization of space); artefacts’ manipulation (technico-cognitive engagement). Embodied availability, achieved within the sequential organization and involved in the construction of the interpersonal relation, may have a general analytical relevance as a situated resource. |
