Arrangement of Bodies in/ as Cooperative Work

Abstract

This paper investigates how the arrangement of participants' bodies, talks and activities in particular time and space organize their interactions. The empirical research was done by using videotapes of dispatchers receiving emergency calls in a 119 dispatch center. While one dispatcher (call taker) replies to an emergency call, he and his colleague are able to silently interact with each other. This shows that their actions construct a type of back region and the call taker is embedded within two ‘participation frameworks’: one with the caller, and the other with his colleague.
This analysis shows that these concepts, “region” and “participation framework”, proposed by Erving Goffman, apply to actual settings and that they are organized by the arrangement of the participants' bodies, talks and activities.