Extraordinary Emergencies: Reproducing Moral Discourses of the Child in Institutional Interaction

This report uses audio recorded telephone calls and textual data from an emergency medical services call center to examine the interactional practices through which speakers produce what we call “extraordinary emergencies”, treating the events concerned as requiring moral, as well as medical, attention. Since one of the overarching institutional aims of emergency call centers is to facilitate the efficient provision of medical services, call-takers typically treat reported emergencies as routine events. However, in some instances speakers produce practices that do not contribute toward the institutional agenda of providing medical assistance, thereby treating them as extraordinary cases. These practices occurred recurrently in calls involving reports of emergencies relating to child sexuality, including sexual assaults against children and obstetric emergencies where the mother was particularly young. We discuss the implications of these findings for the situated reproduction of particular moral norms, especially with respect to the category of the child in society

Extraordinary emergencies : reproducing the sacred child in institutional interaction.

This research report examines telephonic and written data from an emergency medical services centre in the Western Cape and seeks to uncover the language practices that speakers use in order to create what I term “extraordinary emergencies”. Since one of the overarching institutional aims of the emergency call centre is that of “preservation of life”, the majority of emergencies are reproduced by emergency call-takers as routine events, specifically for the purpose of managing them most efficiently and thus working towards the institutional aim of preserving life. However, in certain instances, this institutional agenda is temporarily halted or abandoned in favour of a competing agenda, what I have termed the “personal” agenda enacted by the speaker. This personal agenda works to the reproduction of particular norms and values, and speakers are seen as morally accountable for reproducing them. This research report makes use of discursive analytic practices, specifically conversation analysis, as a method by which to highlight subtle and delicate moments in the interaction that recreate the shared value of the “sacred child” in real-time interaction. Keywords: emergency, childhood, sexual assault, conversation analysis, institution

African climate activism, media and the denial of racism: The tacit silencing of Vanessa Nakate

Critical social studies have highlighted the varied methods by which climate activism is reproduced in discourse. This paper examines an incident in which an African youth climate activist, Vanessa Nakate, had her image cropped out of a media photograph taken at the World Economic Forum. Our analysis focuses on three media-based interactions with Vanessa, including two interviews with local (Ugandan) television stations and one interview with a South African broadcaster. Our analysis utilizes discursive psychology (DP) and conversation analysis (CA) to highlight and problematize the discursive and interactional strategies employed by speakers in these interviews. We note three discursive methods by which Vanessa’s activism is challenged: a challenge to her ability to represent ‘African’ climate activists; an undermining of Vanessa’s claim that her exclusion was racially motivated; and a discourse of emotionality as foregrounding irrationality and incompetence. These three discursive strategies serve to delegitimize Vanessa’s larger claim of a racially motivated act, positioning her as a naïve subject acting alone from a point of self-interest. We discuss the implications of our findings for future research in community psychology and African climate activism.

Extraordinary Emergencies: Reproducing Moral Discourses of the Child in Institutional Interaction

This report uses audio recorded telephone calls and textual data from an emergency medical services call center to examine the interactional practices through which speakers produce what we call “extraordinary emergencies”, treating the events concerned as requiring moral, as well as medical, attention. Since one of the overarching institutional aims of emergency call centers is to facilitate the efficient provision of medical services, call-takers typically treat reported emergencies as routine events. However, in some instances speakers produce practices that do not contribute toward the institutional agenda of providing medical assistance, thereby treating them as extraordinary cases. These practices occurred recurrently in calls involving reports of emergencies relating to child sexuality, including sexual assaults against children and obstetric emergencies where the mother was particularly young. We discuss the implications of these findings for the situated reproduction of particular moral norms, especially with respect to the category of the child in society