The Social Organisation of Interaction between Shisha Bar Visitors: Multimodal Analysis

The WHO’s (2016) data shows the reduction in the consumption of tobacco products in Russia in the period of 2009–2016. At the same time, shisha bars have started to open on a mass scale in Moscow and other Russian cities. The present paper aims to provide an explanation of this phenomenon by conducting an in-depth study of peculiarities of the organization of interactions between visitors of Moscow shisha bars. The present research also demonstrates the applicability of the practice-oriented approach to studying consumption and therefore contributes to the emerging “practice turn” in consumption studies (Warde, 2014). The empirical base of this research consists of a number of video-recordings of naturally occurring interactions between visitors of a Moscow shisha bar, which is part of a large chain of franchises. These recordings are transcribed and studied using the techniques of multimodal analysis, developed in the frame of ethnomethodology and conversation analysis.