Office Places, Work Spaces: An Ethnographic Engagement with the Spatial Dimensions of Work

Authors

  • Robert L. Ordelheide University of Cape Town

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15273/jue.v7i1.8409

Abstract

Have you ever been curious to know more about how people engage with their place of work? This article explores the spaces and places of a scientist‘s academic office. It draws on four weeks of in-depth participant observation, interviews and visual analysis at the University of Cape Town to create an in-depth understanding on how the office, as a thing, shapes behaviour. Theoretically, this paper draws on phenomenological thought, Henri Lefebvre‘s (1991) theory on the social production of space, and Tim Ingold‘s (2000) ideas on the ‘taskscape‘ to analyse the spatial components of work within and beyond the academic office. It argues that the office is far more intricate than just the site of non-manual labour. Indeed, there appears to be a unique way in which the performance of one‘s academic discipline disciplines space.

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Issue

Vol. 7 No. 1 (2017)

Section

Articles

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