Abstract
This article elaborates on an ethnographic effort of a workplace design project. Examples and analysis of fieldwork instances are presented with an emphasis on the issue visibility of work in relation to the dynamics of identity among members of a design research group at a university setting. Through further analysis of social interaction instances, the role of actors and space seems to be dynamically influenced by the ‘invisibles’ of a workplace: identity, quality, efficiency, social interactions, limitations, and power structure. Re-framing and mapping give insights to the dynamic and nuanced relationships of the invisibles and thus further challenges the rigid de- contextualization of notion visibility of work. This study has told us that visibility of work is a sensitive issue to the group and thus requires careful understanding of the invisibles. All these are put forth with hopes in a grounded starting point for participatory, user-centered efforts in this workplace design.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/nordes.2005.031
Citation
Sitorus, L.(2005) Drawing lines through the invisibles: Mapping and reframing visibility of work through an ethnographic study, in Binder, T., Redström, J. (eds.), Nordes 2005: In the making, 29-31 May, Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen, Denmark. https://doi.org/10.21606/nordes.2005.031
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Drawing lines through the invisibles: Mapping and reframing visibility of work through an ethnographic study
This article elaborates on an ethnographic effort of a workplace design project. Examples and analysis of fieldwork instances are presented with an emphasis on the issue visibility of work in relation to the dynamics of identity among members of a design research group at a university setting. Through further analysis of social interaction instances, the role of actors and space seems to be dynamically influenced by the ‘invisibles’ of a workplace: identity, quality, efficiency, social interactions, limitations, and power structure. Re-framing and mapping give insights to the dynamic and nuanced relationships of the invisibles and thus further challenges the rigid de- contextualization of notion visibility of work. This study has told us that visibility of work is a sensitive issue to the group and thus requires careful understanding of the invisibles. All these are put forth with hopes in a grounded starting point for participatory, user-centered efforts in this workplace design.