Abstract
In a refrigerated warehouse, workers organize distribution and exchange of frozen seafood by the spatial and temporal arrangement of loads. Using videotapes of workers' activities and interviews, this paper investigates how workers organize space, time and artifacts in the activity of frozen seafood distribution and exchange, and how organized space, time and artifacts systematize workers' multiple courses of actions and give direction to them. Particular attention is paid to how the workers use artifacts such as various documents and computers as part of their practices, because the activity of distribution and exchange in this workplace is regarded as the activity of organizing space and time with various artifacts in multiple contexts. Through the analysis of situated literacy of using artifacts, it was shown that the activity of using artifacts is always embedded in multiple contexts. At the same time, diverse artifacts organize multiple contexts of work. Thus, there is the reflexive interaction between the artifacts and the contexts.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Engestrom, Y. (1996). Developmental work research as educational research.Nordisk Pedagogik., Vol. 16., NR3.
Foucault, M. (1970). The Order of Things. New York: Randam House, Inc.
Goodwin, C. and Duranti, A. (1992). Rethinking context: An introduction.In A. Duranti and C. Goodwin.(Eds.) Rethinking context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Goodwin, C. (1994). Professional Vision. American Anthropologist. 96(3).: 606-633.
Goodwin, C. and Goodwin, M.H. (1996). Seeing as a situated activity: Formulating planes.In Y. Engestrom and D. Middleton.(Eds.), Cognition and Communication at Work., pp. 61-95. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Goody, J. (1977). The Domestication of the Savage Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Garfinkel, H. (1984). Studies in Ethnomethodology. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Garfinkel, H. and Sacks, H. (1970). On formal structures of practical actions.In J. Mckinney and E. Tiryakian.(Eds.), Theoretical Sociology., New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
Hutchins, E. (1990). The technology of team navigation.In J. Galegher, R. Kraut and C. Egido.(Eds.) Intellectual teamwork: Social and technical bases of cooperative work., Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Lave, J. (1988). Cognition in Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lynch, M. (1990). The externalized retina: Selection and mathematization in the visual documentation of objects in the life science.In M. Lynch and S. Woolgar.(Eds.), Representation in scientific practice. Cambridge: MIT press.
Lynch, M. (1991). Method: measurement-ordinary and scientific measurement as ethnomethodological phenomena.In G. Button.(Ed.), Ethnomethodology and the Human Science.pp. 77-108., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Nardi, B.A. (Ed.) (1996.). Context and consciousness: Activity theory and human - computer interaction. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Schmandt-Besserat, D. (1978). The earliest precursor of writing. Scientific American., 238(6).: 38-47.
Star, L.S. and Griesemer, R. (1989). Institutional ecology, 'translations' and boundary objects: Amateurs and professionals in Berkeley's Museum of Vertebrate Zoology., 1907-39. Social Studies of Science. 19.: 387-420.
Street, B.V. (1984). Literacy in theory and practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Suchman, L. (1994). The structuring of every activity. Advances in Japanese Cognitive Science. 7.: 41-57.
Ueno, N. (1995). Resources for organizing collaborative activities. Cognitive Studies: Bulletin of the Japanese Cognitive Science Society. 3(2).
Ueno, N. (1996). Instruments embedded in situation. Language. 25(3). Taishuukan Shoten, Tokyo.(in Japanese)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Kawatoko, Y. Space, Time and Documents in a Refrigerated Warehouse. Human Studies 22, 315–337 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005400920294
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005400920294