“Is that an Asian thing?”: Co‐constructing category‐bound attributes in interaction

Using conversation analysis and discursive psychology, this paper examines how members of the Asian category co‐construct shared experiences and attributes associated with the category in the U.S. context. Analysing sequences of interaction from podcasts advertised as centring around Asian American experiences, I identify a set of practices recurrently adopted by participants in generalising about commonalities shared by Asian members, which include mitigations, interrogatives, parenthetical inserts and various category‐related repair practices. Through a detailed qualitative analysis, I demonstrate the delicate and methodical interactional work done by participants in managing the tension between constructing shared attributes/experiences and acknowledging differences within the Asian category, while also dealing with potential interactional issues associated with generalizing. This paper contributes to a better understanding of how shared meanings associated with social identities are collaboratively negotiated and (re)produced, in addition to offering a detailed account of the practices involved in category‐based generalizing in interaction.