Abstract Immersive virtual reality (VR) environments have been considered a promising future platform for collaboration. However, recent research has also identified difficulties in tracking coparticipants’ availability for interaction in them. In this study, we examine how members of a work team establish reciprocity and mutual availability to see and/or hear each other in VR in order to begin their work. In other words, we investigate how these participants establish ‘interactional space’. The data are video- and screen-recorded meetings organized in VR. We use Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis to study the formation of an interactional space through participants’ talk and embodied actions as they unfold moment by moment. Our analysis reveals recurring aspects that participants orient to when establishing an interactional space during arrivals in the same virtual space. The study highlights how mutual access between participants is not merely something that is accomplished but something that must be actively maintained and adjusted in VR. We summarize our observations into a processual model that illustrates the interactional work required to build interactional space in VR.
Kohonen-Aho et al. (2026) studied this question.