Interacting with objects: language, materiality, and social activity

This chapter develops an ethnomethodologically-informed view regarding the sociality of objects, building upon Garfinkel's various descriptions of object constitution. We examine a particular case of diagnostic reasoning produced in the course of carrying out a surgical procedure at a teaching hospital. Our interest is in the methods employed by the surgeons in resolving certain incongruities in the case as it presents itself. Through an occasioned process of inquiry, the case at hand comes to be seen in a new light. This revised clinical picture is the oriented object under consideration here.

On the interactional ecology of objects -- The order of ordering : objects, requests and embodied conduct in a public bar -- Initiating activity shifts through use of appraisal forms as material objects during performance appraisal interviews -- 'I'll jsut see what you had before' : making computer use relevant while patients present their problems -- Objects as tools for talk -- Photo sharing as a joint activity between an aphasic speaker and others -- Organising the soundscape : participants' orientation to impending sound when turning on auditory objects in interaction -- Cultivating objects in interaction : visual motifs as meaning making practices -- Cooking instructions and the shaping of things in the kitchen -- To follow the materials : the detection, diagnosis and correction of mistakes in craft education -- Having a ball : immaterial objects in dance instruction -- Establishing joint orientation towards commercial objects in a self-service store : how practices of categorisation matter -- Artworks as touchable objects : guiding perception in a museum tour for blind people -- Incidental and essential objects in interaction : paper documents in journalistic work -- Envisio…