At the Heart of Activity, as Close as Possible to Presence

Special Report: Subject and Action in the Digital Age
By Albert Piette
English

For several years, the sociology of work has been studying“multi-activity”, that is, situations in which a person carries out several actions and attends to different objects simultaneously, so that his or her attention and engagement are fragmented. This type of object requires detailed observation and description. Above all, to meet the demands of multi-activity itself, a beneficial shift of focus may take place: from action to presence. The article aims to launch a discussion with several sociological theories, in order to highlight three necessary principles – simultaneous plurality, laterality, singularity – from the perspective of an anthropology of presence, which is basically an existential anthropology. Based on the schema of “reposité”, it also proposes two phenomenographic descriptions of instances of presence: driving a car, and looking for an object. For the latter, it describes an exercise to measure intensities of presence, in order to establish the levels of tranquillity, familiarity, foreignness and tension in the situation. From the point of view of the lukewarm dimension of human presence that combines activity and passivity, the conclusion re-examines the relevance of sociological theories of action.

Go to the article on Cairn-int.info