From Hutchby, 1996a: 42; ‘H’ is the host, ‘C’ the caller

1977 does not assume that power resides with one group, who can then use it to influence other groups. Instead, he sees power as a set of ever-present possi- bilities which can be mobilised or resisted by social agents individuals, groups, and larger collectivities. Moreover, power is embedded in that set of relation- ships between social agents who may variably exercise or resist power. Foucault thus views power as a set of structured but variable potentials, not a static feature of unchanging relationships between well-defined social groups. This focus on the shifting and contestable relationship between agents in which power can be mobilised and contested chimes with Hutchby’s account of power as fluid and sequentially organised argumentative opportunities and resources. But Hutchby goes on to offer a more challenging argument: that conversa- tion analysis can offer an empirically grounded elaboration of some of Foucault’s ideas. For example, Foucault emphasises the role of discourses in power relations; and he argues that the operation of, and resistance to, power relations through discourses does not just occur on a macro-sociological scale across large social formations, but infuses mundane, everyday activities. But as we saw in the last chapter, there are problems with the concept of discourses, not the least of which is that it invites the analyst to disattend to the detail of social interaction – the very environment in which Foucault says power oper- ates. But conversation analysis is directly concerned to describe the subtlety and intricacy of everyday communicative processes. For Hutchby, then, CA offers a way to explore power in the very infrastructure of sociality: the rela- tionship between turns at talk-in-interaction. Summary • Hutchby studied the mobilisation of power in the allocation of turn types between the participants in calls to talk radio programmes. • He identified a number of practices and devices through which the host seeks to maintain an argumentative advantage over the caller. • His work stands as an illustration of his broader position that conversation analysts should not be reluctant to consider the extent to which their work captures power relations in the analysis of the organisation of interaction. Gender and sexuality: feminism, language and conversation analysis So far we have studied how particular researchers have used conversation analysis to explore power in the organisation of interaction in specific settings, such as the market, and the radio talk show. In this final section, however, we will be looking at debates about the use of CA amongst a community of scholars: feminist researchers interested in the relationship between language, gender and sexuality. CONVERSATION ANALYSIS AND POWER 199