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'How Matter Matters', Third International Symposium on Process Organization Studies, Corfu : Grèce (2011)

Materiality, Maintenance and Fragility. The Care of Things

Jérôme Denis 1, David Pontille 2, 3

(2011-06-16)

This communication attempts to go beyond a definition of materiality, largely accepted in organization studies, that only focusses on consistency and stability. Drawing on the results of an ethnography of subway signs maintenance it highlights the importance to consider material fragility and vulnerability, particularly in the case of ordering devices. Following maintenance workers helps to understand that the stability of artifacts is not an ontological property but the ongoing result of an exploratory and improvised work that consists in constantly taking care of things and being aware of their material multiplicity.

1:	Laboratoire Traitement et Communication de l'Information [Paris] (LTCI)
	Télécom ParisTech – CNRS : UMR5141
2:	Anthropologie de l'Ecriture/Equipe IIAC
	École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales [EHESS] – CNRS : UMR8177
3:	Institut Interdisciplinaire d'Anthropologie du Contemporain (IIAC)
	CNRS : UMR8177 – École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales [EHESS]

Subject

:

Humanities and Social Sciences/Sociology

Keyword(s): Matter – Fragility – Maintenance – Ordering devices – Artifacts – Care – Subway Signs

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From: Jérôme Denis <>

Submitted on: Thursday, 23 June 2011 16:55:30

Updated on: Monday, 27 June 2011 09:53:24