Embodied action and organisational interaction: Establishing contract on the strike of a hammer

In recent years, we have witnessed the emergence of a burgeoning corpus of studies that address institutional interaction and in particular language use and talk at work. The visible and material aspects of organisational conduct and the ways in which sequential organisation, turn transfer and turn design are accomplished in and through the multi-modal, embodied action and interaction, has received less attention. In this paper, we examine a particular form of institutional arrangement, an economic transaction, and examine the ways in which the event is brought to a satisfactory and legitimate conclusion by virtue of the strike of wooden hammer. We consider how the close of sale is foreshadowed by a sequence of action that project the hammer's strike whilst providing successive opportunities for interested parties to contribute to the proceedings. In particular, we explore the ways in which the sequential import of particular activities are differentiated, or established, in the course of their production, and sensitive to the participation or potential participation of certain individuals within the large multi-party gathering of an auction. We consider the implications of the use of this simple artefact for our understanding of language use and interaction in institutional environments and explore its substantive contribution to the analysis of economic behaviour and the operation of markets – in particular the highly contingent and interactional production of value and exchange.

► The contract and its interactional achievement. ► Multi-modal analysis of turn organisation in an institutional setting. ► Analysis of the interactional constitution of the use of artefacts. ► Focussing on the contingent qualities of action.