1 November 2018

New article: Passing Glasses. Accomplishing Deontic Stance at the Optician

Brian Due and Johan Trærup have published a new article in Social Interaction Vol 1 No 2: Passing Glasses. Accomplishing Deontic Stance at the Optician.

View the article

Passing an object is an everyday action with which most people are familiar. It involves the detailed organization of the body within a spatial and material setting. One place where objects are continuously passed is the optician. Based on more than 700 hours of video recordings of 11 Danish opticians, this article shows how passing glasses is accomplished in an institutional context where the optician is interactionally constructed as responsible for securing the safe passing and avoiding the (problematic) drop. The paper contributes to EMCA studies on passings by showing how these actions may display deontic responsibilities, and how the passings are accomplished mainly by the optician using a specific grip, relying on tactile experiences, constantly monitoring the customer behaviour, and embody anticipating the next actions.