The intercorporeality of closing a curtain Sharing similar past experiences in interaction

Abstract

<p>Jointly coordinated affective activities are fundamental for social relationships. This study investigates a naturally occurring interaction between two women who produced reciprocal emotional stances towards similar past experiences. Adopting a microanalytic approach, we describe how the participants re-enact their past experiences through different but aligning synchronized gestures. This embodied dialogue evolves into affective flooding, in which participants co-produce their bodymemories of pulling down window blinds to block out sunshine.We show how the participants live thismoment intercorporeally and howmultiple timescales are tied together in gesture, which is both an incarnation of body history and a novel expression of it. Thus, collaborative gesturing is a resource for experiencing together emotions re-enacted frombodymemories. Contributing to our understanding of the intercorporeality of human action, we provide an empirical investigation into how emotions andmultiple timescales are nested in cooperative gestures.Data are in Finnish with English translations.</p>