Dispatched Orders and the Cab Driver: A Study of Locating Activities

Psathas, George; Henslin, James M.

doi:10.1525/sp.1967.14.4.03a00090

Cited by 7 publications

(7 citation statements)

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“…While a key responsibility of the paramedic driving is to navigate safely to the scene, the attendant also plays an integral role in the process of getting the ambulance safely to the scene. For example, locating where the actual call is has its own complexities and challenges (see, e.g., Psathas and Henslin ). I often observed the attendant providing navigational support to the driver, sometimes vis‐à‐vis the CAD; the CAD has a built‐in GPS which the attendant, and sometimes the driver, orient to in order to get to the scene successfully.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Driving to Work: The Front Seat Work of Paramedics to and from the Scene

Corman

2017

Symbolic Interaction

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The work paramedics do in the front of the ambulance on their way to and from the scene is central to the safety and well-being of both paramedics and patients. However, most research on paramedics and emergency medical services assumes rather than empirically explores the actual happenings of what paramedics do in the front of their ambulance. In this article, I move beyond this taken-for-granted understanding of front-seat work by taking readers in the front of the ambulance and exploring the hidden work paramedics do on their way to and from the scene. I draw on data from an institutional ethnography into the socially organized work and work settings of paramedics, which included over 200 hours of observations and over 100 interviews with paramedics. This article adds to research on the sociology of work and health and illness by focusing explicitly on how paramedics give meaning to their work setting, the social conditions and relations central to their work practices, and how their work knowledge is actually put into practice. In doing so, I shed light on an ever-important occupational group in health care that has garnered little sociological attention to date.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Driving to Work: The Front Seat Work of Paramedics to and from the Scene

Corman

2017

Symbolic Interaction

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“…In that early work he provided a sketch of the relationship between formulating place and navigation that was taken up later by others in the field. Psathas and Henlin's ethnographies of cab drivers preceded Schegloff's study and is intriguing as a proto-CA ethno-inquiry into 'locating activities' using the case of the dispatch order (Psathas & Henslin 1967). Psathas's later work (1986Psathas's later work ( , 1991 differentiated between 'how to get to' and 'where are you' sequences, the former generally producing complex steps to be followed and the latter often being dealt with through one place formulation.…”

Section: Approaching Semiosismentioning

confidence: 98%

What it means to change lanes: Actions, emotions and wayfinding in the family car

Laurier

Brown²,

Lorimer

2012

Semiotica

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In this paper we examine how the sequential organisation and settlement of disagreements comes to shape, and be shaped by, navigation. Using extracts of in-car interaction, we examine the gestalt of projectable aspects of road travel, car movements and driver-navigator talk. Navigation when accomplished without maps relies on making sense of streets, landmarks and signs, activities that are displayed through passengers and drivers giving directions to each other, alongside embodied references to passing roadside features and the movement of the vehicle. More broadly, 'finding the way' is bound up with the social relationships between passengers-in particular families caring for one another and showing their epistemic and emotional stance on particular matters. To examine this we draw on existing conversation analytic work on epistemics, stance and emotion to explore the potentially argumentative character of direction-giving and direction-receiving and how this comes to be combined with the task at hand.

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“…These single-worker scenes provide a striking contrast to studies by ethnographers of organisations, who are familiar with offices and with watching how teams of workers collaborate, share tasks, and mutually find and solve problems in centres of calculation or coordination (see also Brown, 2001;Harper et al, 2000;Luff et al, 2000;Suchman, 2000). In histories of traveling salesmen (Spears, 1995) and ethnographies of taxi driving (Davis, 1950;Psathas and Henslin, 1967), the lone-agent nature of such work has been highlighted and is not one that has entirely changed for Marge and her kind (even with the benefit of a mobile telephone). (8) Marge is still relatively new to her job, and this prevalent feature of her mobile workplace was an issue for her.…”

Section: Marge At Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Occasionally they used an`A to Z' when they had time to park to check an address and work out a route to get there. Much more common was their voicing of route directions (Psathas and Henslin, 1967; see also Psathas, 1991;Schegloff, 1972) either to themselves or when checking over the mobile telephone with other mobile workers, nonmobile employees In a car park full of pot holes, with a CCTV camera surveying it from above and the blank backs of several buildings surrounding it, Marge is at work. We have called in at one of the bars she visits infrequently.…”

Section: Delivering Thingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Region in the Boot: Mobilising Lone Subjects and Multiple Objects

Laurier

Philo

2003

Environ Plan D

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The sales region may appear as a map you see pinned to the wall if you visit a transnational company at its headquarters to do an interview with one of its managers: a map of key locations where this company's operations are conducted or to which they are directed, perhaps with thick lines drawn to mark its edges and subdivisions. With some delight you think:`Aha! A representation of the company region. Just what I was looking for'. When no one is looking you scan the map for clues, for signs that could be decoded, parts of a hidden ideological construction of space. Then, after hanging around at headquarters for a while, you notice that the members of the company largely ignore the map. They talk a lot about various places, which you realise have pins stuck in them, although often they do not even mention the names on the map but, rather, refer to the names of the people from these places. They talk about personalities, they talk about promotions, they talk about turnover, and they talk about where the company's products go. You found the company easy enough at headquarters, but where, you wonder, is the geography of its region to be found if not on the map? In a tactical manoeuvre familiar to cultural geographers, critical theorists, and sociologists of scientific knowledge, we want to move away from elaborate readings of the map, away from the boardroom overview, down to the ground-level organisational labour required to make the company region happen. We want to shift out of the central office to observe some of the work as it is done by those whose daily business it is to manage a company's region or regions. This shift to find out what happens outside of headquarters is not just about looking for`where the action is' (Goffman, 1969), it also follows a shift in the practices of other service-sector workers (Laurier and Philo, 1998),

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Dispatched Orders and the Cab Driver: A Study of Locating Activities

Cited by 7 publications

References 0 publications

Driving to Work: The Front Seat Work of Paramedics to and from the Scene

Driving to Work: The Front Seat Work of Paramedics to and from the Scene

What it means to change lanes: Actions, emotions and wayfinding in the family car

The Region in the Boot: Mobilising Lone Subjects and Multiple Objects

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