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Affiliative ObjectsLancaster University, UK, l.suchman{at}lancaster.ac.uk Through the case of a particular organization devoted to technological research and development, this paper investigates how values of the new operate in what Appadurai (1986) has characterized as the social life of objects. Drawing on previous scholarship in anthropology and science and technology studies, I adopt the trope of the affiliative object to describe the relational dynamics of association (and disassociation) that characterize the identification of objects and persons. This perspective emphasizes the multiplicity of objects within the unfolding and uncertain trajectories of organizational life, as both problem and resource for organization members. The paper examines how object-centered sociality (Knorr-Cetina, 1997) is enacted as a strategic, but also contingent, resource in the alignment of professional identities and organizational positionings.
Key Words: identity invention materiality multiplicity object-centered sociality
Organization, Vol. 12, No. 3,
379-399 (2005) This article has been cited by other articles:
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