Synchronicity

Time, Technicians, Instruments, and Invisible Repair

Bibliographic Data

ID5337530
AuthorsJoeri Bruyninckx (0000-0002-9485-161X, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands, corresponding author)
Year2017
Volume42
Issue5
Pages822-847
Publication date2017-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueScience Technology & Human Values (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0162-2439 • E-ISSN: 1552-8251
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0162243916689137
OpenAlexW2581063994
LanguageEN
Citations received9
References cited51

Sociological studies of work and time have argued that academic temporalities are increasingly rationalized and rendered accountable, resulting in a divergence of planned and experienced time in academic work. Shared research facilities that provide platform technologies to large user pools are no exception to this, as its administrations seek to increase the profitability of limited instrument time. Based on an ethnographic study of three facilities at an American university, this article examines how diverging rhythms are enacted in organizational schedules and instrument work and kept aligned on the laboratory floor. Drawing insights from time studies and repair sociology, I argue that although technologies of time accounting provide powerful templates for action, they become effective only through ongoing "synchronization" work. Synchronization calls attention to discrete techniques and work practices, such as the adjustment of users' bodies, user expectations, or work processes, that technical staff draw upon to resolve slippages between organizational rhythms and the temporal realities of data collection. This analysis suggests that technicians' local and embodied (but also invisible) practices not only affect their own professional roles but also organizational stability and productivity in time-sensitive environments

Business · Economics · Embodied cognition · Epistemology · Ethnography · Political science · Productivity · Profitability index · Public relations · Sociology · Synchronicity · Temporalities · Temporality · Computer Science · Cultural Industries and Urban Development · Engineering · Information Systems Theories and Implementation · Law · Management and Organizational Studies · Psychology

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