Things at Work

Abstract

Through interviews and field observations, we examine how New York subway workers consume official workplace equipment, particularly how they informally deploy such artifacts towards individual and collective ends. We discuss the ways workers call on artifacts to manage routine concerns of work contexts — physical vulnerabilities, bureaucratic constraints, and difficult persons amongst them. We show how sustained attention to a public infrastructure and its organizational contexts can deepen understanding of humans and machines together as a coherent practical accomplishment.

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