7+2: studying the texture of work in a centre of coordination

Abstract

Centres of coordination constitute a privileged empirical reference for STS, due to the constitutive role of the interaction between humans and technologies in this kind of settings. In this paper, we illustrate the complexity of activities in a motorway coordination centre, understanding, at the same time, the ways in which actors move between different information, tasks and (apparently ‘normal’) activities. In particular, we will refer to the analytical dimensions proposed by Suchman (1997) in order to investigate the main work and organizational dynamics in centres of coordination, but also in order to propose two more analytical dimensions which in our case appeared as significantly relevant: that of trust and the body.