Suchman2005

From emcawiki
Jump to: navigation, search
Suchman2005
BibType ARTICLE
Key Suchman2005
Author(s) Lucy Suchman
Title Affiliative objects
Editor(s)
Tag(s) EMCA, identity, invention, materiality, multiplicity, object-centered sociality
Publisher
Year 2005
Language English
City
Month
Journal Organization
Volume 12
Number 3
Pages 379–399
URL Link
DOI 10.1177/1350508405051276
ISBN
Organization
Institution
School
Type
Edition
Series
Howpublished
Book title
Chapter

Download BibTex

Abstract

Through the case of a particular organization devoted to technological research and development, this paper investigates how values of the ‘new’ operate in what Appadurai (1986) has characterized as the social life of objects. Drawing on previous scholarship in anthropology and science and technology studies, I adopt the trope of the ‘affiliative object’ to describe the relational dynamics of association (and disassociation) that characterize the identification of objects and persons. This perspective emphasizes the multiplicity of objects within the unfolding and uncertain trajectories of organizational life, as both problem and resource for organization members. The paper examines how ‘object-centered sociality’ (Knorr-Cetina, 1997) is enacted as a strategic, but also contingent, resource in the alignment of professional identities and organizational positionings.

Notes