Kevin Whitehead

Kevin Whitehead is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), where he directs the Conversation Analysis Lab. He also holds a Visiting Associate Professor position at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa.

• Primary Affiliation: UCSB Sociology Department
• Secondary Affiliation: University of the Witwatersrand
• Lab: Conversation Analysis Lab

Education:

• Ph.D., University of California, Santa Barbara

Whitehead's research focuses on the micro-dynamics of race and racism through ethnomethodological and conversation analytic frameworks. His work examines:

• How racial categories are produced/reproduced in everyday talk
• Violence emergence in institutional and public interactions
• Membership categorization practices in policing and South African contexts
• Conflict resolution mechanisms in video-recorded encounters
• Identity negotiation through interactional resources

His methodological contributions include:

• Integrating conversation analysis with discursive psychology
• Advancing membership categorization frameworks
• Using video recordings as primary data
• Developing interactional theories for institutional settings

Key publication trends show:

• 2025: Co-authored books on categorization practices and psychological science applications
• 2024: Research on emergency service interactions and comedy as anti-racist tool
• 2023-2020: Studies on police encounters, self-presentation, and post-apartheid categorization

Teaching: Courses in

• SOC 136A/236: Analysis of Conversational Interaction
• SOC 136C/236C: Social Categories in Interaction
• SOC 185E: Introduction to Ethnomethodology
• SOC 274: Language, Interaction, and Social Organization