Interspatial subjectivities: engineering in virtual environments
Elizabeth Harrison Keating, Sirkka L. Järvenpää · Social Semiotics · 2011
It is becoming increasingly common for workers to collaborate across continents in technologically-mediated spaces, where geography and time are related in new ways, where visual elements for interpreting the other's actions are reduced, and where quite diverse cultural practices and beliefs are encountered. Phenomenologically, intersubjectivity, or taking the point of view of the other, and imagining oneself in the other's space, requires a new type of work. In this article we discuss two engineering design teams as they orient their actions to the work of building, repairing, and maintaining an “interspatial” subjectivity. We focus on aspects of multimodality, relationships of time, and integration of different local practices and habits, as they are affected by encounters in technologically-mediated space. The engineers are simultaneously building an understanding of the structural space they are creating, as well as how to most effectively transfer or reinvent skills learned as engineer-collaborators.