Rights and Responsibilities in Calls for Help: The Case of the Mountain Glade Fire

Abstract

In this article, we examine a corpus of calls occasioned by a single event, the 1990 Mountain Glade Fire in a coastal community on the Pacific Coast, to consider (a) how the distribution of rights and responsibilities are displayed in the talk of callers to the emergency phone line (9-1-1) and call takers (CTs) who receive them and (b) how these are linked to the directionality and action trajectory of such calls. In the case of the Mountain Glade corpus, the organization of emergency calls and the presuppositions and distribution of rights and responsibilities that it institutionalizes was incrementally but systematically altered over the course of multiple calls. In describing the problems encountered by callers and CTs in managing these calls, we note that even in departing from the institutionalized activities emergency telecommunications were designed to facilitate, callers and CTs were not free to disregard its constraints. These observations suggest that the ways in which the organized practice through which an institution is routinely produced and embodied in interaction can be a source of institutional resistance to change. In conclusion, we consider how other events with community wide impact—whether actual or merely potential—may have similar consequences for emergency services such as 9-1-1.