When is a bed not a bed? Exploring the interplay of the material and virtual in negotiating home-work boundaries

ABSTRACT

Working from home is often associated with possibilities of anytime-anyplace working and with a fusion of work and home. In this empirical paper, we explore how the sociomaterial contexts of home-working define and tether what is possible for home-workers in their negotiations with others. Drawing on qualitative data sets, Wengerian concepts are used by exploring the role of boundary objects and brokering in negotiating temporal and spatial boundaries around and across work and home. The home-workers’ bodies are shown to be the key boundary objects, through which technology objects and furniture objects are sometimes fused. Yet, such fusion is shown to be only temporary, always precariously situated and also mediated by identity-regulating norms and values of home-workers. The contribution of the paper is to highlight the limits of what is technologically possible by emphasising the role of the body and material objects in the home-working context.

KEYWORDS:

• Working from home
• materiality
• virtuality
• boundary objects

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.