Oxymoronic and Sociologically Monstrous?1 Feminist Conversation Analysis

Abstract

The relatively recent surge of interest in feminist conversation analysis within the United Kingdom appears to have been met with a largely positive response. Proponents declare that they “know of no other approach which offers a more viable basis from which to drive social change” (Speer 2005, p. 192), and they envisage in conversation analysis (CA) “exciting possibilities for lesbian and feminist research” (Kitzinger 2000, p. 164). While debates continue about the relative merits of CA over other discursive approaches (e.g., critical discourse analysis; see Hammersley 2003), there has been relatively little published about this emergent, explicitly feminist variety of CA that does not portray the field in a favourable light (although see Wowk 2007 for a notable exception). This article adopts a more cautionary approach toward employing CA to further feminist aims and seeks instead to interrogate the theoretical underpinnings of CA and problematise its application in feminist praxis.