Making Matters Speak in Railway Maintenance

Johan M. Sanne

Chapter 4 in Ethnographies of Diagnostic Work, 2010, pp 54-72 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract In this chapter diagnostic practice is conceptualised as the means to ‘make matters speak’: how practitioners make sense of problems through recognising and ordering significant cues from the material stuff that they investigate (Latour, 2004). The chapter is based upon an analysis of ethnographic data of railway maintenance in Sweden. I focus on technically difficult cases, elucidating railway technicians’ diagnostic work through the concepts of situated learning and heterogeneous engineering. The situated learning perspective has emphasised the use of resources such as storytelling, an intimate knowledge of technology, or the use of various sensory cues in diagnostic work (Barley, 1996; Orr, 1996; Mellström, 2002; Henning, 1998). However, it remains unclear exactly how these resources are combined to solve technical problems. To this end, I draw on the notion of heterogeneous engineering — where various elements are amalgamated in a network that can explain the problem (Law, 1987). I highlight the balance of elements that support and threaten the stability of the network (or explanation) to understand this aspect of diagnostic work.

Keywords: Resistance Metre; Occupational Hazard; Diagnostic Work; Diagnostic Practice; Signal Technician (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-0-230-29693-0_4

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.palgrave.com/9780230296930

DOI: 10.1057/9780230296930_4

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Palgrave Macmillan Books from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().