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In:Multiactivity in Social Interaction: Beyond multitasking
Edited by Pentti Haddington, Tiina Keisanen, Lorenza Mondada and Maurice Nevile
[Not in series 187] 2014
► pp. 33–76

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The temporal orders of multiactivity

Operating and demonstrating in the surgical theatre

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Published online: 4 September 2014
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https://doi.org/10.1075/z.187.02mon
This chapter deals with multiactivity as the participants’ coordination of concurrent activities in which they are involved at the same time. Drawing on ethnomethodology and conversation analysis, and considering time as both a crucial dimension for defining the phenomenon and an important source of variation within it, the chapter focuses on different temporal orders characterising multiactivity and offers a systematic account of their organisation. Although this conceptualisation of time is based on a careful examination of how surgeons manage multiactivity in the operating room, the temporal orders identified in this way address general issues concerning the temporal and sequential organisation of concurrent courses of actions.
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