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Oslo: European Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction "Situations, Power, and Persuasion"

16.06.2026

The annual conference of the European Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction will take place from June 16th - June 19th in beautiful Oslo, Norway. This is the main European conference designed to foster interaction, learning, and camaraderie among leading scholars in symbolic interactionism and grounded theory. The conference theme is "situations, power, and persuasion," reflecting important recent trends in scholarship and public life.

University of Oslo`s Department of Sociology and Human Geography will host this event, in association with the Norwegian Microsociology Network.
Time and place: June 16, 2026 – June 19, 2026, Eilert Sundts hus A


The European Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction is related to and supported in part by the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction.

Conference schedule:

Tuesday June 16th: Workshop on Abductive Analysis? with Professor Iddo Tavory & workshop on video analysis for qualitative research with Professor Anne Nassauer.

Wednesday June 17th: Sessions (9:00-4:00)?


Keynote: The Varieties of Interaction Ritual Experience (Prof Iddo Tavory)

Thursday June 18th: Sessions (9:00-4:00)? (conference dinner)


Keynote: The Power of Situations - Interactionist Theory in the Age of Video Data (Prof Anne Nassauer)

Friday June 19th: Sessions (9:00-4:00)


Conference Theme: Situations, Power, and Persuasion

The 2026 European Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction will explore how social dynamics occurring within face-to-face situations influence processes of power and persuasion. Situational power and persuasion are crucial for understanding social phenomena ranging from election campaigns to interpersonal violence, and from recruitment to extremist groups to establishing the existence of new scientific facts. Understanding how someone is persuaded to certain opinions, why they pursue certain courses of actions, and how and why stigmatization occurs requires understanding how power and persuasion operate in situations of co-presence.

This is so because, generally speaking, the capacity to impose one`s will on others or persuade them to ones way of thinking often hinges on having key social skills and situational resources. This applies to relatively egalitarian forms of social interactions such as those between private citizens and in situations in which power is formally inscribed such as organizational hierarchies or encounters between citizens and state representatives like welfare officials, doctors, the police, or teachers. A crucial issue here is how categorial memberships (e.g., gender, ethnicity/race, age, etc.) influence persuasive power in different kinds of social situations and vis-à-vis different audiences.

And even as we focus on power and persuasion within face-to-face situations, we must examine the role of social media and algorithms, which are also key social settings in which people are persuaded and power is exerted. The interface of the face-to-face domain and the virtual world is a topic ripe for interactionist theorizing. For instance, processes of persuasion in the virtual world may stem from lack of situational power within one`s proximate face-to-face social interactions.

As social and political polarization threatens to tear democracies apart and as we witness the rise of new forms of authoritarianism, the topic of power and persuasion in social situations is an area where interactionist sociology can bring its unique expertise to the forefront of the general sociological agenda.

Under a broad interactionist and microsociological umbrella, we invited paper presentations for themes such as, but not restricted to:

Social movements
Political mobilization
Work-life
Love and interpersonal relations
Inter-group relations
Religion
Race and Racism
Professional – client interactions
Stigmatization
Violence
Knowledge production
Urban sociology
Gender relations
Conspiracy theories

Qualitative Analysis Workshops

On June 16th, we will offer two workshops on qualitative data analysis by leading microsociologists. There will be a separate fee of 50€ that will allow you to attend both workshops. These fees will be used to help fund the conference. You can sign up for the workshop when registering for the conference. You do not need to attend the conference to pay for and attend these workshops.

Workshop # 1: Abductive Qualitative Analysis with Iddo Tavory
portrait of a man

Abductive Analysis is an approach to qualitative research that seeks to leverage moments of surprise in the research process. By methodologically and theoretically setting ourselves up to encounter puzzles in our field, we center the creative moment in which explanations are constructed, and aid our attempt to creatively theorize such moments. Following a presentation of some of the main tenets of abductive analysis, we will work through participants` data excerpts as a way to get a concrete sense of the abductive methods in practice.

Workshop # 2: Video Analysis in Qualitative Research with Anne Nassauer
portrait of a womanAnne Nassauer

Symbolic interactionism has long emphasized meaning-making in interaction and the processual organization of social action. Today, the growing availability of video data offers new opportunities to empirically examine these classic concerns as they unfold in real time. This workshop introduces Video Data Analysis (VDA) as a methodological approach for symbolic interactionist research. Combining theory with hands-on analytic exercises using short video sequences, participants will practice identifying meaning-making, interactional, and emotional dynamics. Participants will learn how to move from fine-grained observations to theoretically informed explanations of symbolic interaction across diverse empirical fields.


Author Meets Critics Session

There will also be an author meets critics session for Krzysztof T. Konecki`s new book: A Contemplative Study of the Mind, Emotions, and Body. Series: Studies in Critical Social Sciences, Volume: 330, Leiden: Brill. Link
The image shows the book cover of the book "A Contemplative Study of the Mind"

16.-19. Juni, Oslo, Norwegen
European Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction "Situations, Power, and Persuasion"
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