Co-constructed imagination space: a multimodal analysis of the interactional accomplishment of imagination during idea-development meetings

Abstract

New ideas in organisations are often developed during business meetings and are thus dependent on the local setting and the participants’ abilities to collaboratively ideate turn by turn. Using ethnomethodology and multimodal conversation analysis as its methodological and theoretical framework, this article shows how idea development can be accomplished through the co-construction of a co-imagined space that functions as a resource for participants. This co-constructed imagination space is a theoretical construct which in oriented-to details can be accomplished through (1) organisation of turn-taking during discussions, (2) embodied orientations, and (3) use of local material structures and the environment.

Keywords:

• Imagination space
• semiotics
• multimodality
• creativity
• collaboration
• conversation analysis
• video ethnography