Calling the stops in a Dar-es-Salaam minibus: Embodied understandings of place in a drop-off routine  

Oleh:

D’hondt, Sigurd

Jenis: Article from Journal - ilmiah internasional
Dalam koleksi: Journal of Pragmatics: An Interdiciplinary Journal of Language Studies vol. 41 no. 10 (Oct. 2009), page 1962–1976.
Topik: Public transport; Space; Embodied place; Mutual monitoring; Workplace studies; Conversation Analysis
Fulltext: Dhondt_Sigurd.pdf (754.15KB)

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Abstract This paper investigates how verbal interactions, activities and material artefacts are co-articulated with spatial frameworks in the situated practices that make up informal public transportation in an African urban center (Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania), focusing specifically on the verbal interactions inside the cabin by which commuters negotiate their exit. Upon first inspection, these relatively simple exchanges (conductor calls the stop, passengers respond, conductor passes on that information to the driver) can be analyzed as hands-on solutions to organizational challenges particular to this low-tech environment. The analysis of ‘deviant cases’ (in which driver or passengers correct the conductor) demonstrates, however, that this practice of calling the stops requires participants to observe a multiplicity of spatial frameworks. These ‘embodied’ understandings of space are not a forthright derivative of the activity’s material surroundings but are continually (re)produced while the activity is under way. They include: (1) the interior of the cabin, (2) the relative position of the vehicle vis-a`-vis the succession of stops that provides the organizational backbone (and purpose) of the journey, and (3) the space shared with other traffic. One of the outcomes of the analysis, then, is that it is possible for different ‘places’ to be oriented to simultaneously within a single territory.

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