Suchman2005
| Suchman2005 | |
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| BibType | ARTICLE |
| Key | Suchman2005 |
| Author(s) | Lucy Suchman |
| Title | Affiliative Objects |
| Editor(s) | |
| Tag(s) | EMCA, identity, invention, materiality, multiplicity, object-centered sociality |
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| Year | 2005 |
| Language | English |
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| Month | |
| Journal | Organization |
| Volume | 12 |
| Number | 3 |
| Pages | 379-399 |
| URL | Link |
| DOI | 10.1177/1350508405051276 |
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Abstract
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 anthro- pology and science and technology studies, I adopt the trope of the ‘af?liative object’ to describe the relational dynamics of association (and disassociation) that characterize the identi?cation of objects and per- sons. This perspective emphasizes the multiplicity of objects within the unfolding and uncertain trajectories of organizational life, as both prob- lem 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
