ABSTRACT
The material world, in one shape or form, always mediates human activity. People never act in a vacuum or some sort of hypothetical universe of doing but always with respect to arrangements, tools, and material objects (Engestrom, 1990). Even an idea generates value for the individual because it has material-objective force in terms of its consequences in the social world (Strauss, 1993). “Object[s]” write Bowker and Star (1999, p. 298), “include many things—stuff and things, tools, artifacts and techniques, and ideas, stories and memories—objects that are treated as consequential by a community members (Clarke & Fujimura, 1992).” This is sometimes hard to recognize because objects indeed have the power that they do because of the taken-for-granted state in which that exist in a given community. For example, in an academic setting such words as assistant, associate, and full are objects that have tremendous force in our social interactions because that have consequences on hiring, grant writing, student mentoring, and status. As we struggle to describe the importance of these words to those who have never been in an academic setting, we begin to recognize that they have the force that they do because of their accepted, but taken-for-granted state within our own community.
