ICCA 2026 Edmonton
Just before summer vacation, Jenny packed her suitcase for one more conference trip. This time she headed to ICCA, which is the largest international conference for conversation analysis. This year it took place in Edmonton, Canada.
I have participated in ICCA twice before, in Loughborough and in Brisbane, so I was looking forward to another fantastic program and joyful encounters with peers. However, I was not looking forward to the travelling part, as I was travelling alone and had three connected flights. The journey was indeed long and tiresome, but I still congratulate myself for choosing the route with the best views. The weather was clear, so I could admire glaciers of Iceland and Greenland as well as the mountains across Canada from above. In fact both of the stops, Reykjavik and Vancouver, seemed so intriguing that I wished I could have stayed there instead of continuing to Edmonton… Especially Vancouver looked amazing. But ICCA was in Edmonton, so I had to be there, too.
I had one whole day before the pre-conference workshop I had signed up for, so I explored the city a bit. I walked to the campus and the center. I visited the Royal Alberta Museum, which displays local history and wildlife. The art museum was unfortunately closed that day, so instead I had a pub lunch in a place where I could watch Portugal’s game in the FIFA world cup. Edmonton city center left me cold; there were no people nor vibe. Even in the large museum I only saw one group of school kids and three other tourists altogether.
After two trips I did not dare use the underground train alone anymore due to the apparent drug problem in the city. So I decided to walk instead, and headed for the Alberta Legislature Building and the Walterdale bridge. Finally, I decided to check out a vintage shop mentioned online, and luckily found an onyx horse statue, perfect for my collection. The look on the taxi driver’s face was quite funny when he loaded my luggage in the car on the day of departure…
The pre-conference workshop I attended was titled ”Applying CA methods to study practical problems in healthcare interactions” and held by Rebecca Barnes and Christopher J. Koenig. It was full day workshop consisting of data sessions, in which we analyzed medication optimization in the contexts of pharmacy and general practice. The problem in optimizing medication is that it is not always clear which symptoms are caused by the medication and to what extent one should tolerate side effects for the benefits. And that is why interaction and negotiation matter. We were divided into groups of beginners and experienced scholars, and it felt nice to belong to the latter nowadays. We had a super smart and funny group, so the day went by in a flash.
In the evening, I had dinner with my dear Aussie friend Sarah White. I met Sarah at a CACE conference in 2015, and this was our third ICCA together. We found a lovely artisan ice cream shop called White Rabbit, where I had the best ice cream of my life (the flavour was called London fog, and it tasted of morning teas of my childhood).
On the first actual conference day there was only a welcome reception in the evening, so Sarah and I took a bus to the West Edmonton Mall in the morning. It is the biggest shopping center in North America, consisting of 800 shops and restaurants, an ice rink, a waterpark, an amusement park, and even a sea lion show. The place solved the mystery of the eerily empty city center: everybody was at the huge mall. In order to celebrate our long-lasting conference friendship, we bought matching denim jackets! I also found genuine western boots for me and my equestrian daughter.
The welcome reception was crowded! I greeted a couple of dozen colleagues, had a couple of cocktail bites, and headed for the hotel to rehearse my presentation. I had considerable trouble with the time difference throughout the trip. I kept waking up, and by 4 o’clock in the morning I felt a desperate urge to get up. Since I don’t nap and did not have time to nap anyway, I just kept on going. As a mother of two I have previous experiences of getting by with little sleep, so I knew I could manage for a while and did not worry too much about it.
The second conference day was kicked off 8.30 in the morning by professor Leelo Keevallik’s (Linköping University) keynote “Situated Syntax” that explored the possibilities to consider syntax multimodally. After the plenary, the program continued with 12 parallel sessions, so there was plenty to choose from! My presentation ”Identifying with traumatic experiences in group therapy” was in the last session of the day at six, but I did my best to appear energetic. I had also brough stickers promoting my project, and I handed them to people I chatted with during the breaks. The second day was the only one I had no company to dine with. The dull side of travelling alone is that one has to find a group to join every day, while people travelling together tend to have plans already.
On the third conference day, the keynote was given by professor Arnulf Deppermann (Institute for German Language & University of Mannheim). Deppermann gave tangible examples on how interactional histories reflect on interaction. In other words, he illustrated how common ground and previous experiences shape the way people interact. Although this is an evident, common sense claim, conversation analytic research has paid surprisingly little attention to the longitudinal aspects of interaction. Since in our project Borderlines of Self we plan to track development over time, I paid close attention to the keynote. Later I went to the panel discussing themes related to death and dying, as I am also involved in a project that studies end-of-life matters. In fact, in the last ICCA, I presented in the death panel.
The conference dinner was held on the third night of the conference at Fairmont Hotel Macdonald. Instead of a seated dinner, we had a cocktail party type of an event with a buffet filled with all kinds of delicious foods. The venue was beautiful, and the outside terrace provided a view over the river valley. In previous ICCA conferences we have had karaoke, disco, and yard games, but this time the whole evening was devoted for mingling. It was nice, but the hungry mosquitos dotted my legs.
On the fourth conference day I was disappointed because of changes in the program. One panel I was looking forward to had been shifted two days earlier, and I did not notice as I was presenting at the time. Another option I had in mind had been shifted from the morning to the afternoon, where I had other plans. I ended up attending a panel on social work, and it was a blessing in disguise: the presentations were super good! I also found a promising contact for a thing that I have left in a drawer for some time! In the evening, I did some souvenir shopping and had a dinner with my Finnish colleagues.
On the last conference day I chaired a session on healthcare interaction. Together with Aija Logren, I also had a presentation ”Longitudinal analysis of negotiations about transitioning from curative cancer care to palliative care”, but we decided that Aija presents it. And my gosh, did she deliver! I was filled with pride and admiration! The admiring feelings continued in the following panel arranged in honor of E. A. Schegloff, where Marit Nygård Halvorsen, who I met on our research visit to Oslo, gave a talk alongside CA gurus and was awarded as the best young scholar! What a blessing it is to be surrounded by so many bright minds!
On the last night I took my new cowboy boots out. Me, Sarah, Marit, Aija, and so many other awesome friends gathered together for tacos and drinks. At first we laughed so hard we cried, and at the end we shed tears again while saying goodbyes. Four years until the next ICCA; see you all in Linköping in 2030!
Written by Jenny Paananen