This special issue of the ISCA Newsletter takes us back to Edmonton, Canada, where the University of Alberta hosted ICCA 2026: Diversities, Language, Interaction from 23–29 June. And what a wonderful week it was! The conference brought together 449 delegates from 34 countries, including more than 200 people attending ICCA for the first time, for three days of pre-conference workshops followed by four packed days of papers, panels, posters, plenaries, and conversation. The breadth of the programme was remarkable: 25 workshops, three keynote addresses, a special plenary honouring Emanuel A. Schegloff, and up to twelve concurrent sessions at a time. Just as importantly, ICCA once again gave us the chance to meet old friends, make new ones, continue conversations begun years ago, and encounter parts of our growing field that we might not otherwise have come across.
But, of course, no two people experience a conference in quite the same way. In this issue, we wanted to capture some of those different perspectives through a series of personal, subjective accounts of ICCA from contributors at very different stages of their ICCA journeys. First-timers Alonso Vásquez Kanashiro and Soraya Monticelli, returning attendees Rachel Chen, Burak Tekin, and Anne White, and ICCA “frequent flyer” Candy Goodwin reflect on the conference from their own particular vantage points. Together, their accounts offer a wonderfully varied picture of what it means to arrive at, participate in, and return to this distinctive international community. [Read more…]
We are also delighted to hear from three of this year’s award winners, who reflect on their research, the work recognised by the awards, and what receiving this recognition at ICCA has meant to them. Ada Campagna, recipient of the Best Student Paper Award; Marit Nygård Halvorsen, recipient of the Emanuel A. Schegloff Student Paper Award; and Mojenn Schubert, recipient of the Best Dissertation Award, give us a glimpse not only into the projects behind their awards, but also into the trajectories of emerging scholarship within conversation analysis. [Read more…]
This issue also looks toward one of the rapidly developing areas of our field. Hannah Pelikan, Lynn de Rijk, and Saul Albert report on the first in-person meeting of the EMCA/AI Research Network, held during ICCA 2026. Their contribution reflects on the network’s first opportunity to meet face-to-face and on some of the questions emerging at the intersection of ethnomethodology, conversation analysis, and artificial intelligence. [Read more…]
Finally, this issue marks a transition for the Newsletter itself. After four years as Chair, Verónica González Temer is stepping down from the role, and Guillaume Gauthier will join Sam Schirm as Co-Chair. Over these past four years, Verónica has greatly valued the opportunity to work with the Newsletter team, to develop issues collaboratively, invite contributions from across the ISCA community, and help sustain a space for sharing research, news, reflections, initiatives, and the many other things that connect the community. She is deeply grateful to everyone she has worked with during this time and is delighted to leave the Newsletter in such good hands with Guillaume and Sam.
Verónica González Temer
For now, though, we hope you enjoy revisiting ICCA 2026 through the many different voices collected in this special issue, and that, like us, you find yourself already looking forward to the next one.