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5 - Embodied Trajectories of Actions in Shop Encounters

Giving or Placing Products on or over the Counter

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 January 2023

By
Lorenza Mondada  and
Marja-Leena Sorjonen
Edited by
Barbara Fox ,
Lorenza Mondada  and
Marja-Leena Sorjonen
Barbara Fox
Affiliation:
University of Colorado Boulder
Lorenza Mondada
Affiliation:
University of Basel
Marja-Leena Sorjonen
Affiliation:
University of Helsinki
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Summary

The chapter examines the transfer of the item(s) from the customer’s hands into the hands of the seller. This transfer is a crucial part of many commercial transactions, as the seller must enter the item number into the shop’s inventory system, both to learn the price and to subtract the item from inventory. Exploring data from ‘kiosks’ or convenience stores across Europe, the precise details of this manual transfer of items are examined There are two general methods by which the transfer is enacted: in the first, the customer gives the item directly into the hand(s) of the seller; in the second, the customer places the item on the counter and the seller picks it up. Which method unfolds depends on a variety of factors, including the seller’s physical availability at the moment the customer approaches the counter, the kinds of items purchased, and whether the seller has anticipated the transfer by reaching out their hand, in a shape recognizable as ready to ‘take’. These two methods are seen to reveal the moral and commercial nature of the manipulation of objects, and ultimately of the transaction.

Keywords

convenience storeskiosksmanipulation of objectstransfer of objectsgiving to handplacing on the countermultimodalitymoral nature of manipulation of objectscommercial nature of manipulation of objectsEurope
Type
Chapter
Information
Encounters at the Counter
The Organization of Shop Interactions
 , pp. 144 - 183
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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