Examine your own data and research context, looking at the ways nexus and discourses shape participants’ bodies. Triangulate your data (i.e., verify your interpretation by checking it with your other data sources) considering differences among your observations, members’ responses to your analysis, and outside reports (e.g., media, research literature, etc.).
1. Look for everyday patterns such as high-frequency practices in routines that could indicate a valued practice in a nexus.
2. Look within the practice at the embodied cues that are expected here:
a. What modes are performed with bodies, and how should these be performed to successfully “pull off” this practice?
b. What markers show that someone is doing it “wrong”?
c. Who is supposed to perform this practice? Who is not?
d. What are the consequences when the practice is performed “incorrectly” or by the “wrong” bodies?
3. Look for accompanying practices that reinforce the nexus:
a. What other practices are expected to be performed whenever this practice is performed?
b. Look closely at practices that seem required but appear to have little relevance for meaning-making. What is the effect of these combinations?
4. Listen to how talk shapes the bodies, what actions are assumed to be common knowledge. Listen for linguistic cues, but remember that these practices are tacit so they often “go without saying.”
5. Look around the practice: What actions does this practice elicit from others?
6. How is the space shaping which practices are possible, where an action is supposed to occur, or whether it can occur at all?