Knowing is a situated activity. Adopting a practice-based approach, this article describes a workplace characterized by technologically dense practices as a setting in which human actors and technological objects work “together.” The case of remote cardiological consultation is paradigmatic of how information and communication technologies (ICT) enter workplaces and reshape them as “systems of fragmented knowledge:” that is, learning settings in which people, symbols, and technologies work jointly to construct and reconstruct understanding of social and organizational action. Working at a distance, therefore, requires the acquisition of skills relative to the mobilization of fragmented knowledge, and the latter's alignment into a fully-fledged work practice. Knowing-in-practice is accomplished by discursive practices: Framing and postscripting, as practices that generate a “space” of signification for the subsequent action; footing, as the dialectic that enables people to align themselves within a predetermined frame and disrupt its coordinates; and delegation to the nonhuman, as the ability of humans to delegate the performance of clinical practice to nonhuman systems, which come to be regarded as active subjects within the remote consultation

Bruni, A., Gherardi, S., Parolin, L. (2007). Knowing in a System of Fragmented Knowledge. MIND, CULTURE, AND ACTIVITY, 14(1), 83-102.

Knowing in a System of Fragmented Knowledge

PAROLIN, LAURA LUCIA
2007

Abstract

Knowing is a situated activity. Adopting a practice-based approach, this article describes a workplace characterized by technologically dense practices as a setting in which human actors and technological objects work “together.” The case of remote cardiological consultation is paradigmatic of how information and communication technologies (ICT) enter workplaces and reshape them as “systems of fragmented knowledge:” that is, learning settings in which people, symbols, and technologies work jointly to construct and reconstruct understanding of social and organizational action. Working at a distance, therefore, requires the acquisition of skills relative to the mobilization of fragmented knowledge, and the latter's alignment into a fully-fledged work practice. Knowing-in-practice is accomplished by discursive practices: Framing and postscripting, as practices that generate a “space” of signification for the subsequent action; footing, as the dialectic that enables people to align themselves within a predetermined frame and disrupt its coordinates; and delegation to the nonhuman, as the ability of humans to delegate the performance of clinical practice to nonhuman systems, which come to be regarded as active subjects within the remote consultation
Articolo in rivista - Articolo scientifico
system of fragmented knowledge, organizing, knowing, dicoursive practice, practice based approach, situated activity, dicoursive alignment, knowing in practice
English
2007
14
1
83
102
none
Bruni, A., Gherardi, S., Parolin, L. (2007). Knowing in a System of Fragmented Knowledge. MIND, CULTURE, AND ACTIVITY, 14(1), 83-102.
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/10281/6416
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