Some phenomena are so common that we don’t notice them. We take them for granted – until they change. The meeting is such a phenomenon. In this project we study how meetings change in a world that increasingly is influenced by digital technology. Changed meeting-practices have consequences, for the workplace as well as for society as a whole, since meetings are central for the performing of democracy. In meetings, people with different backgrounds gather to engage in dialogue, negotiate, agree and set courses of action. Meetings are thus a fundamental feature of organizing.

Social sciences need to contribute to explaining how meeting-practices change. Otherwise there is a risk that the development is driven by technological-optimism, and that important dimensions of established meeting-practices get lost, something that in the long-run even could pose threat to democracy.

In this project we adopt an ethnographical approach by following individuals participating in various meetings in various capacities. In our analysis we focus on three central functions of meetings in the building of community: co-orientation, coordination, and collaboration.

The project fills a knowledge-gap regarding the meeting as a process; enabling a cross-disciplinary discussion about the consequences of changing meeting-practices. This contributes to a more general discussion about which dimensions of meeting-practices are central to community-building – and ultimately to the development of democracy.