Publications

Abstract: This paper explores the spatial practices of mobile workers focusing on their interactions with technology and place. Using data from interviews with mobile workers and ‘hotdeskers’ we describe how the characteristics of different places impact on the organisation of work. The role of humble office equipment, and co-workers, is explored and in particular how work is reconfigured so as to fit the characteristics of different places. This relationship is reciprocal, in that mobile workers change places, re-appropriating them for mobile work. New technology is specifically important here in that it allows the limited re-appropriation of travel and leisure places such as trains and cafés for work. Temporal structuring also plays a role in mobile work, and while mobile work may be seen as relatively flexible, fixed temporal structures are important for the accomplishment of synchronicity with others. Although focusing on the specific practices of mobile workers, this paper attempts a dialogue with more mainstream social theory, using it impressionistically to explore our data.