eprintid: 10102545
rev_number: 8
eprint_status: archive
userid: 695
dir: disk0/10/10/25/45
datestamp: 2020-06-24 16:26:50
lastmod: 2020-06-24 16:26:50
status_changed: 2020-06-24 16:26:50
type: thesis
metadata_visibility: show
creators_name: Pellegram, Andrea Ann
title: The Material Life of an Office
ispublished: unpub
keywords: Social sciences; Culture of an office setting; London
note: Thesis digitised by ProQuest.
abstract: This ethnographic account of a London office seeks to make three contributions to the anthropological debate on organisations, bureaucracy and work. First, it takes an as yet untried methodological approach to the study of this field setting by relying on in-depth observation of material culture. Broad classes of office objects are considered in order to reveal unspoken norms, strategies and ritualised responses of the workers concerning their condition. The first ethnographic chapter considers communication mechanisms, contrasting formal decisions against informal gossip to provide a framework for the later discussion of material culture. The discussion then moves to consider the manipulation of objects and pseudo-objects such as paper, dress, space, furnishings and time. Second, this study provides much greater detail on an aspect of office work that has been raised only briefly in the anthropological literature to date, namely the tension between the individual worker as a bureaucrat as opposed to the individual as an idiosyncratic being. This duality is explained through an examination of contrasting roles and identities that the workers adopt in situationally relevant contexts. Finally, it is a study of power, hierarchy and strategy, making the explicit assumption that whilst power and the ability to control the actions of others normally begins with those holding formal positions at the pinnacle of the bureaucratic hierarchy, influence and manipulations also come from the lowest placed and least powerful workers.
date: 1997
oa_status: green
full_text_type: other
thesis_class: doctoral_open
thesis_award: Ph.D
language: eng
thesis_view: UCL_Thesis
primo: open
primo_central: open_green
verified: verified_manual
full_text_status: public
pages: 287
institution: UCL (University College London)
department: Department of Anthropology
thesis_type: Doctoral
citation:        Pellegram, Andrea Ann;      (1997)    The Material Life of an Office.                   Doctoral thesis  (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).     Green open access   
 
document_url: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10102545/1/10055362.pdf