"I Saw You": searching for lost love via practices of reading, writing and responding

Laurier, E. and Whyte, A. (2001) "I Saw You": searching for lost love via practices of reading, writing and responding. Sociological Research Online, 6(1),

Abstract

How do emotions move and how do emotions move us? How are feelings and recognitions distributed socio-materially? Based on a multi-site ethnographic study of a romantic correspondance system, this article explores the themes of love, privacy, identity and public displays. Informed by ethnomethodology and actor-network theory its investigations into these informal affairs are somewhat unusual in that much of the research carried out by those bodies of work concentrates on institutional settings such as laboratories, offices and courtrooms. In common with ethnomethodology it attempts to re-specify some topics of interest in the social sciences and humanities; in this case, documents and practices of writing and reading those documents. A key element of the approach taken is restoring to reading and writing their situated nature as observable, knowable, distributed community practices. Re-specifying topics for the social sciences involves the detailed description of several situated ways in which the romantic correspondence system is used. Detailing the translations, transformations and transportations of documents as 'quasi-objects' through several orderings, the article suggests that documents have no essential meaning and that making them meaningful is part of the work of those settings.

• Item Type: Articles
• Keywords: Actor-network Theory; Documents; Ethnomethodology; Informal Interaction; Memory; Reading; Recognition; Social Practice; Writing
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: UNSPECIFIED
• Authors: Laurier, E., and Whyte, A.
• Subjects: H Social Sciences > HM Sociology; G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > G Geography (General)
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > School of Geographical and Earth Sciences
• Journal Name: Sociological Research Online
• Publisher: Sociological Research Online
• ISSN: 1360-7804
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2001 Sociological Research Online
• First Published: First published in Sociological Research Online 6(1) May 2001.
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced with permission of the publisher.