Data collection at height: Embodied competence, multisensoriality and video-based research in an extreme context of work

Coordination, communication and practice in a range of extreme and highly specialised work settings rest upon orientations to sensory resources. For researchers to collect interactional data and to make sense of the embodied conduct of participants in these settings, we therefore argue that particular forms of researcher competence are critical. While the importance of a researcher’s competence in a setting has been widely discussed in ethnomethodology and conversation analysis, the types of embodied competence required to study these settings demand further consideration. Here we spotlight ways in which various types of setting-specific participation and embodied competence have informed (i) our data collection strategies and (ii) our abilities to make sense of the recorded data in a study of rope access work, otherwise known as industrial climbing.