Objects, Bodies and Work Practice

Dennis Day, Johannes Wagner, Dennis Day, Johannes Wagner

• Publisher: Multilingual Matters
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781788924528
• eBook ISBN: 9781788924542
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Workplace Culture
• Index: Business

What role do material objects play in the in-situ, embodied and spatial circumstances of interaction? How do people organize their embodied conduct with regard to such objects, and how is this consequential in and for their work practices? In this volume, contributors focus on these questionsin terms ofconnections between ongoing courses of interaction within work practices, object materiality and mobility in space, bodily movement and manipulation of objects, and language. The chapters in this book address a broad range of settings and actions (including dressmaking, foreign language teaching, international business meetings and forklift driving) where a variety of objects become relevant.

Part 1

The Role of Objects for the Progressivity of Action

1Objects of Agreement: Placing Pins to Progress Collaborative Activity in Custom Dressmaking

Maurice Nevile

Introduction

This study explores materiality and embodiment in social interaction for collaborative work activity. Its setting is custom dressmaking, where the goal is to fit and make a dress for the body of a particular wearer, a dancer, and for particular demands, a competitive dance performance. For data, it uses the video-recording of a fitting session at which three participants, dressmaker (and dress designer), dancer, and dance instructor who works with the dancer, together consider possible alterations to the dress. Extracts examine moments when the dressmaker (hereafter ‘maker’) places a pin into the dress fabric to accomplish collaborative activity for dress fitting. Maker must be satisfied that proposed alterations are agreed upon because he will later work individually to enact them by cutting and stitching, etc., to complete the dress. As a simplest distinction, maker places a pin either after agreement or for agreement. When placing after agreement, maker treats the participants’ contributions as indicating that a potential alteration has been considered and settled. Collaborative activity then moves to a next alteration. When placing for agreement, maker treats the participants’ contributions as not yet settled, and the pin’s placement can prompt further shaping of the dress to try out a possible change. Placing a pin therefore objectifies participation and progress for making the dress.1

We see how pins are handled, placed, moved and attended to, for activities that constitute maker’s work practices to produce the dress. However, the activities of design and making are undertaken not by one individual but by multiple parties working together. Creative endeavor can be appreciated for the many forms of knowledge and skilled practice it requires of an individual, such as choosing and handling raw materials, familiarity with appropriate work tools and having the competence to use them, correctly timing and ordering conduct, and seeing, interpreting and acting upon changes in an emerging product. There is also the guiding sense of satisfaction or even perfectionism of the crafter (Sennet, 2008). However, when creative endeavor is undertaken with others, its outcomes also reflect the varying capacities and contributions of all the participants involved. It can be rich with talk, embodied conduct and material objects, as the participants determine together what they are doing, who is doing what and how it is to be done, in situ and moment-to-moment. The study joins increasing interest in objects and materiality in the organization of naturally occurring social interaction (see collection by Nevile et al., 2014a).

So, while designing and making a dress necessarily includes the individual physical and materia...

Table of contents

• Cover-Page
• Half-Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Contributors
• Objects, Bodies and Work Practice: An Introduction
• Transcription Conventions
• Part 1: The Role of Objects for the Progressivity of Action
• Part 2: Spatial Aspects of Objects in Interaction
• Part 3: Objects in the Service of Preparing for a Possible Future
• Part 4: Objects as Interactional Accomplishments
• Postscript: Thing and Space
• Index