HumanSPACE

Studies 22: 315–337,

, TIME 1999.
AND DOCUMENTS IN A REFRIGERATED WAREHOUSE 315
© 1999 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

Space, Time and Documents in a Refrigerated Warehouse

YASUKO KAWATOKO
Daito Bunka University, 3-20-15-302 Toyotamaminami, Nerimaku, Tokyo 176, Japan

Abstract. In a refrigerated warehouse, workers organize distribution and exchange of frozen

seafood by the spatial and temporal arrangement of loads. Using videotapes of workers’
activities and interviews, this paper investigates how workers organize space, time and artifacts
in the activity of frozen seafood distribution and exchange, and how organized space, time
and artifacts systematize workers’ multiple courses of actions and give direction to them.
Particular attention is paid to how the workers use artifacts such as various documents and
computers as part of their practices, because the activity of distribution and exchange in this
workplace is regarded as the activity of organizing space and time with various artifacts in
multiple contexts. Through the analysis of situated literacy of using artifacts, it was shown
that the activity of using artifacts is always embedded in multiple contexts. At the same time,
diverse artifacts organize multiple contexts of work. Thus, there is the reflexive interaction
between the artifacts and the contexts.

Introduction

Order is, at one and the same time, that which is given in things as their
inner law, the hidden network that determines the way they confront one
another, and also that which has no existence except in the grid created by
a glance, an examination, a language; and it is only in the blank spaces of
this grid that order manifests itself in depth as though already there, waiting
in silence for the moment of its expression.
(Preface XX. Foucault: 1970)

Organizing storage and distribution of various products is considered to be

basic and pervasive in everyday activities. Vast ranges and types of artifacts
have been created historically and utilized in the activities of storing and
distributing products in order to organize the complicated flow of products
systematically and to make the properties of the organized order accountable.
Major artifacts such as numbers, writing systems, records, and money have
their origin in the activities of storing and distributing, whether they are
organized by a bureaucratic system, or by a social system of commercial
activities. Thus, the typical instance of artifacts and their use can be observed
in workplaces for distribution and exchange.
The activity of storage and distribution is regarded as the activity of
organizing space and time with various artifacts in multiple contexts. The
316 YASUKO KAWATOKO

artifacts such as numbers, writing and records are used as resources for
organizing space and time, and yet these artifacts are shaped and embedded
in organized space and time. In this research, I focus on the use of artifacts
such as documents, computers, a blackboard, and palettes as resources for
spatiotemporal organization in a refrigerated warehouse. Conversely, since
that spatiotemporal organization represents a way of distribution and exchange,
as described in detail later, I also pay attention to the arrangement of space as
a resource for organizing activities of distribition and exchange.
Before going into the details of the use of artifacts in a refrigerated
warehouse, let us look at the history of artifacts embedded in activities of
storing and distributing products.
According to Schmandt-Besserat (1978), in Uruk, a Sumerian city-state in
Mesopotamia, such matters as business transactions and land sales had already
been recorded on specially-prepared clay surfaces by the last century of the
fourth millennium B.C. Some of the terms that appear most frequently in Uruk
tablets are bread, beer, sheep, cattle and clothing. However, the Uruk texts
were not the first records human beings produced. Long before the Uruk texts,
some sort of recording system using clay tokens of various distinctive shapes
had been developed in western Asia. The tokens were supposed to be used
for keeping track of storage and allocation of food, or accounting and recording
in the exchange of exotic products and raw materials.
The tokens system was used without significant modification until late in
the fourth millennium B.C. for more than 5000 years. After a long period of
time, as seen in the Uruk texts, the growth of cities brought a new recording
system based on writing. The Mesopotamian agricultural economy advanced
remarkably. Also, with a drastic increase in the population of Iraq and Iran,
urban centers with many inhabitants close to the earlier village settlements
began to appear. Craft specialization and the beginnings of mass production
appeared at that time. With the rise of cities and the development of large-
scale trade, the recording system was pushed onto a new track. Merchants
would have had to note not only production but inventories, shipments and
wage payments, and to preserve records of their transactions. As a result, the
evolution of symbolic objects into ideographs led to the rapid adoption of
writing all across western Asia. In this stage, records were actually integrated
into the activity of organizing exchange and distribution. Records worked as
artifacts for the social arrangement of space and time for combining people
and products.
The search for the antecedents of records by Schmandt-Besserat indicates
that writing, records, and documents used to be the artifacts created by
commercial activities rooted in an agricultural economy. From the beginning,
they were embedded in the activities of organizing exchange and distribution.
Thus, we can see the typical feature of literacy in the practice of exchange
and distribution where people use records and documents.
 SPACE, TIME AND DOCUMENTS IN A REFRIGERATED WAREHOUSE 317

Street (1987) analyzed the ‘commercial’ literacy developed in fruitgrowing

villages in Iran during the 1970s. He illustrates that the villagers developed a
recording system fitted to various types of transactions both for their own
records and for their interactions with others through the activities of growing
fruit and distributing them. He describes villagers’ transactions as follows:

In the shops, flour mills, etc. men reckoned their accounts in school exercise
books. The layout of these was often precise and conventional; a page might
be allotted to each separate deal; columns would be neatly lined down the
page for sections of the account, with indications for weights, money etc.;
space would be designated for signatures. Similarly, as items were weighed
into a store, the ‘tajers’ (dealers) would record them in the appropriate
section in their notebooks in such a way that the specific prices and
quantities and the final totals and the way that they were arrived at were
clear to both parties. They would then sign their agreement to the deal. When
the account was finally settled a cheque would be passed over which the
recipient could use to pay off accounts that had been run up on the strength of
such pieces of paper and the parties would over-sign the page and cross through
it. The cheque given to the producer would be used against other deals and
against shop credit, apart from simply banking it. (Street: 1984, 172)

According to Street, literacy is developed only through one’s participating in

the practice in which the specific documents are embedded, and in which the
specific social relationship, such as commercial partnership, is organized.
Street’s analysis of literacy in Iranian villages indicates that documents are
embedded in the specific commercial practice. They then become resources
for the constitution of the new commercial system where distribution and
exchange are more systematically organized. He suggests that those artifacts
only make sense by being used in the specific practice.
Street’s study on ‘commercial’ literacy challenges the conventional premise
that one of the main functions of reading and writing is characterized as its
process of “decontextualization”, as shown in Goody’s description that “the
written form such as lists in Sumerian tablets represented a significant change
not only in the nature of transactions, but also in the ‘modes of thought’ that
accompanied them.” (Goody: 1977, 81 ). Street’s description of ‘commercial’
literacy suggests ways in which research on literacy might develop in the
future. However, even in Street’s study, there is not enough analytical focus
on actual situated practice that makes up literacy. He does not show what kind
of documents the participants read in the situated transactions, or how these
documents are embedded in the specific practice of organizing space and time.
To advance the research on ‘literacy embedded in practice’, it is necessary to
examine more concretely what kind of artifacts, not only documents but other
resources, are actually arranged and used in specific practice.
In this study, I describe practice at a workplace as mutually and diversely
constituting multiple contexts and as reciprocally making them intelligible.
318 YASUKO KAWATOKO

The activity of distribution and exchange in a refrigerated warehouse can be

regarded as methodic and skillful practice whereby workers establish the order
of the flow of loads and make it mutually intelligible with various resources.
The activity whereby workers produce and manage the setting of organized
distribution and exchange is identical with workers’ procedures for making
this setting ‘accountable’ (Garfinkel, 1984).
This practice emerges, typically, as organization of space and time in
storerooms such as spatiotemporal arrangement of loads. Organizing space
and time in storerooms is embedded in the context of distribution and exchange
of frozen seafood. At the same time, that spatiotemporal arrangement of loads
can be regarded as a kind of description of the flow of frozen seafood. This
description will be a constituent part of the flow of frozen seafood it describes,
in endless ways and unavoidably, it elaborates the flow of frozen seafood and
is elaborated by it, exactly as Garfinkel and Sacks (1970) pointed out in the
case of organization of talk.
The workers in the refrigerated warehouse use various artifacts such as
documents, computers, a blackboard and palettes in order to organize the
distribution and exchange. These artifacts are juxtaposed to each other, and
they mutually constitute each context for reading and searching each artifact.
In the use of various artifacts, each one reciprocally organizes and elaborates
the other.
In short, the circumstances of distribution and exchange, the arranged space
and time, and the artifacts, such as documents, mutually elaborate each other
and constitute a reflexive relationship. In the following sections, I examine
how the workers in a refrigerated warehouse use artifacts such as various
documents, computers, palettes, and a blackboard as part of their practice, and
how they accomplish the social order of distribution and exchange through
the organization of space and time with those various artifacts.

Flow of Loads and Flow of Work in a Refrigerated Warehouse

Flow of Frozen Seafood

Uroko Refrigerated Warehouse is located in K city which is a large city in the

western part of Japan. The business of Uroko warehouse is the storage,
distribution and exchange of frozen fish and shellfish such as salmon, tuna,
cuttlefish, shrimp, scallop, crab, and other types of fish. The process of selling
frozen seafood at the central wholesale market involves complex interactions
between types of workers (Fig. 1).
Fresh fish is sold at ports to first-order wholesalers. The wholesalers freeze
about seventy percent of the fresh fish immediately after they purchase it.
Because the Japanese seafood market is quite large and any type of fish is
 SPACE, TIME AND DOCUMENTS IN A REFRIGERATED WAREHOUSE 319

expected to be available on the market at any season. The first-order

wholesalers store the frozen fish until they are ready to sell it in the central
wholesale market. So, they send it from the ports to a refrigerated warehouse.
Uroko Refrigerated Warehouse addresses the transactions in multiple ways.
In many cases, the warehouse ships the frozen fish to second-order wholesalers
in response to the orders from the first-order wholesalers. There are some cases
where only the title of the owner of the frozen fish is transferred to the new
owner, leaving it in storage. In the case where the frozen fish will be used as
processed materials which are boiled down or dried up, the warehouse ships
it to the processing factories directly. In any case, the Uroko Refrigerated
Warehouse deals with the loads of frozen seafood that are the ones which are

Figure 1. Flow of frozen seafood.

320 YASUKO KAWATOKO

owned by wholesalers, not by retailers.

There are different types of orders sent from wholesalers to the warehouse.
One type is called “input order” or “load order”, the other is “output order” or
“remove order”.
An “input order” is sent to the field office of Uroko Refrigerated Warehouse
by fax or telephone about 7 or 10 days before the load is actually carried into
the warehouse (Fig. 2). The field office is located in the center of the
warehouse, around which there are seventeen cold storerooms. The field office
is similar to the ‘centers of coordination’, “which are characterizable in terms
of participants’ ongoing orientation to problems of space and time, involving
the deployment of people and equipment across distances, according to a
canonical timetable or the emergent requirements of rapid response to a
time-critical situation”, described in Suchman’s (1993) research on the Airport.

Figure 2. Input order

 SPACE, TIME AND DOCUMENTS IN A REFRIGERATED WAREHOUSE 321

In the field office, when the workers receive an input order, they write down
the contents of it on the blackboard. Then they roughly make a plan where to
put the incoming load based upon that blackboard information.
After the load arrives at the warehouse and it is arranged in a certain place,
the in-loading document for it is put in the computer and registered. The load
put in storage is kept there until its owner requests withdrawal. There are some
cases where the original locations of loads are changed while they are kept in
storage. For example, some loads placed deep in a storeroom are rearranged
to the front row for the sake of extracting them quickly to meet the demand of
the market, or some loads are transferred to some other place in order to make
space for forthcoming, large loads.
There are two kinds of “remove order”, large and small (Fig. 3). The large
lots are sent from the warehouse to processing factories. The remove orders
for the large lots are usually made several days before the loads are actually
taken from the warehouse. The small lots are sent to the central wholesale
market. The remove orders for the small lots, are produced at the time of
transaction between wholesalers in the market, early each morning.
When the workers in the field office receive a remove order from a
wholesaler, they immediately search the list of loads owned by that wholesaler.
Then they put the content of the order in the computer and make out the
“load-out-order-form”. They hand it over to a worker whose job is to retrieve
the order from the storerooms. On the platform, a truck driver is waiting to
take the load to the central wholesale market, or some other destination.

Flow of Work and the Central Wholesale Market

The business of the Uroko Refrigerated Warehouse is closely connected with

the central wholesale market. The market opens at three o’clock in the morning.
The remove order for the goods to be sold in the market on a particular day is
sent to the warehouse the day before. Those goods are collected from each
storeroom and put in the preparation room until twelve midnight when a truck
comes to transport them to the market.
From three to five o’clock in the morning, when business starts in the
market, remove orders continuously arrive from customers. All the nighttime
workers are very busy responding to those orders. After five o’clock in the
morning, the peak hours of out-loading are over, but some remove orders
continue to come up till eight o’clock in the morning. Meanwhile, some of
the goods which were bought in the early morning market, arrive at the
warehouse for storage. Thus, during these hours, the in-loading work is run
parallel to the out-loading work.
After eight o’clock, the daytime workers focus on the shifts from the market
to the daytime lots which are carried into the warehouse on a large scale. In
322 YASUKO KAWATOKO

search for database/input orders/

print out load-out-order-form

Figure 3. Remove order

addition, the large lots transported to the factories for processing are put out
in the daytime. In the intervals between in-loading work and out-loading,
daytime workers rearrange the placement of goods and make space for coming
loads in the storerooms.

Three-Shifts System for Sharing Roles

The work in the warehouse is divided into three shifts: a daytime shift, a nighttime
computer shift, and a nighttime load-handling shift. All the fifteen workers take
turns working these three shifts every other week. The working hours are divided
up between the nighttime shift from 1:30 to 8:00 in the morning and the daytime
shift from 7:30 in the morning to 5:00 in the evening. The workers who are on the
daytime shift arrive at around 7:30 in the morning, take over nighttime workers’
duties, hold a meeting to plan the schedule of the day, and start working.
 SPACE, TIME AND DOCUMENTS IN A REFRIGERATED WAREHOUSE 323

In the nighttime shift, there are two types of person in charge. One is a
computer operator, the other is a load-handler. A computer operator receives
remove orders rushing to the field office, puts their contents in a computer
to draw up load-out-order-forms, and hands them to loadhandlers. A
load-handler brings load-out-order-forms to the storeroom and brings the
loads out.
The division of labor in this workplace is not fixed at all. For example,
Mr. N, one of the chief workers, works a nighttime computer shift during
the first week of April, a daytime shift in the second week, and a nighttime
load-handling shift in the third week. Mr. N explained the reason for these
changes as follows: “if you always work with a computer without doing field
work such as loading goods in and out, you will not be able to read the
computer screen properly and to understand the meaning of the numerical
information appearing on the screen.” His statement proves that it is essential
for the workers to catch the actual flow of loads from the activity of
in-loading and out-loading, in order to grasp the meaning of numerical
information or hidden information among numbers on the screen.
For example: if a computer operater grasps the loading situation that an
owner holds two loads of the same article which were put in storage at
different dates, his way of searching the computer data base to make up a
load-out-order-form will be quite different from that of an operator who does
not grasp it. This kind of loading information can be easily caught through
the field work of in-loading and out-loading. The operator who does not
grasp the actual situation of in-loading and out-loading may retrieve the
ordered goods from the latest in-loaded lot against an implicit rule of “first
put in, first put out” fixed between owners and the warehouse. This will
become a cause of trouble.
As in the instance of Mr. NK, the same person is in charge of both the
computer-shift and the load-handling shift in this workplace. In a sense, the
system of overlapping divisions of labor itself does not only keep trouble from
occurring, but facilitates the literacy in practice.
In addition to those three shifts, two women workers take charge of
receiving input and output orders coming in the daytime, as well as managing
some other office tasks.

Locations of Loads Shown by “ Addresses”

The Uroko Refrigerated Warehouse has seventeen cold storerooms including

ultra-low temperature rooms (–55°C.). Each cold storeroom is subdivided
into 50 to 60 “addresses”. The location of each load is shown by its address.
Address numbers are actually printed on the floor. However, they have
become obscured by the action of continuous comings and goings of folk
324 YASUKO KAWATOKO

lifts. Each address holds three or four palettes, and three palettes can be stuck
on top each other. Each palette carries 50 to 70 cartons of goods. (See Fig.
4)
If 100 cartons of red salmon are loaded into the number 26 cold storeroom,
and placed in the number 45 space, then the address of the load is recorded as
“26–45”, and this number is logged in the computer. When the owner of this
load asks them to remove 10 cartons of red salmon from the 100 cartons, a
computer-shift worker searches the address of this load on the computer, and
writes it on the load-out-order-form. A person on the load-handling shift finds
the address, “26–45” on the form, goes to room 26, and takes 10 cartons of
red salmon from the load occupying the number 45 space.

Resources Representing Distribution and Exchange

In this section, I describe the details of methodic and skillful practice whereby
workers establish the oder of the flow of loads and make it mutually intelligible
with the arrangement of loads. Further, I analyse how the arrangement of loads
is organized and elaborated by various resources.

Figure 4. Placement of goods.

 SPACE, TIME AND DOCUMENTS IN A REFRIGERATED WAREHOUSE 325

Arrangement of Frozen Seafood as the Representation of Distribution and

Exchange

The loads of frozen seafood carried to the Uroko warehouse from fishing ports
or factories are transferred from the transport trucks to the palettes, and carried
to the storerooms by a fork lift. The palettes with their loads are placed in the
prearranged spaces. After that, a tag is attached to each load. When the load
arrives, it is immediately annotated with two kinds of writing: first the tag,
second the marks on packages. On the tag printed: the in-loading number, name
of owner, name of goods (article), a way of packing (a corrugated carton or a
polystyrene box), quantity of goods, and date of in-loading. On each package,
a name of article, a production location, quality, brand, and size are printed.
In a sense, it can be said that an arrangement in one space is represented in
the combination of both layers of loads and documents on tags and packages.
(Figs 5 and 6)
Generally speaking, one of the most important jobs for workers in
warehousing is to decide where they should place the loads brought into their
warehouse. As already mentioned, the business of the Uroko Refrigerated
Warehouse is closely connected with the central wholesale market. The articles
of frozen seafood and the quantity requested by the customers for out-loading
are influenced by the transactions of each day in the market. Besides, once
they get remove orders, they have to load the ordered goods out as soon as
possible, especially during the nighttime business hours. Accordingly, the

Figure 5. The arrangement of goods.

326 YASUKO KAWATOKO

Figure 6. Arrangement of loads in a storeroom.

goods which are traded in the central wholesale market should be arranged in
a convenient place such as the front row or the rack room where they can
readily be removed.
However, it is not all that easy since the remove orders from the customers
usually extend to many articles. Besides, the quantity of goods requested for
out-loading is often less than ten cartons of one article. So, if they arrange the
loads only in the front row, where they can easily and quickly access the
storage, they will not profit by a maximum utilization of the total storage space.
Moreover, the loads are frequently taken in and out depending on the
movement of fish in the market. Thus, the workers cannot know, in advance,
how long they will keep the loads in storage. As a result, whenever they make
a decision of where to place loads, they have to consider various contingencies
concerning the movement of goods such as the following: when the goods
 SPACE, TIME AND DOCUMENTS IN A REFRIGERATED WAREHOUSE 327

will be out-loaded; how many cartons of an item will be out-loaded at a time;

where they will be sent; whether they will be out-loaded in the daytime or
nighttime; or whether they will be outloaded in a small lot little by little or in
one big lot all at once.
As previously mentioned, almost all the goods out-loaded from one thirty
to five in the morning follow from the remove orders that come to the field
office immediately after wholesalers make transactions in the central wholesale
market. Therefore, the goods to be traded in the wholesale market are placed
in the front row so that they can be removed immediately when the output
orders are received. The average number of remove orders coming by fax and
telephone in this period of time is 450 to 500.
On the other hand, the goods out-loaded on a massive scale are sent to
processing factories. As they are out-loaded in the daytime, they are placed
in the back row. In the same way, since the frozen seafood that is brought down
to a supermarket, such as dried flatfishes and filleted fishes, is outloaded in
large quantities at a time, it is also placed in the back of a passage, even if it
happens to be out-loaded during the nighttime shift. Regarding those goods
that are out-loaded on a massive scale, the remove orders for them are usually
made several days in advance so that the workers have enough time to prepare
for their removal. This is why those goods are placed in the rear of the storage.
As a general rule, the goods outloaded in the nighttime are placed in the front
row, and the goods out-loaded in the daytime are placed in the back. Often
two kinds of loads are placed in one address: in the front row, the goods
out-loaded in the nighttime, and in the back row, are the goods out-loaded in
the daytime.
Making arrangements and space for loads in the warehouse requires
attention not only to physical objects but to social ones as well. This is
especially true for the refrigerated warehouses since they are closely connected
with the seafood markets. In the warehouse, anticipated patterns of distribution
and exchange of frozen seafood are represented concretely by the spatial
arrangement of goods in storerooms.
Moreover, the arrangement of goods in the warehouse reflects the wide
variety of ways that seafood is categorized in terms of its quality, its
seasonableness, or whether its destination is to a supermarket, a hot spring
resort or processing factories. These things are significantly related to the ways
of distribution and exchange of loads. In other words, they are in relation to
where, when and how the loads of frozen seafood are in-loaded and out-loaded.
Consequently, they are represented in the arrangement of loads in the
storerooms.
The workers use both the arrangement of goods and the tags and marks
indicating the kind of food to make inferences about what is going to happen.
For instance, the workers estimate that some loads are materials for processing
because they are out-loaded to a processing factory in large quantities. Or,
328 YASUKO KAWATOKO

when they see a load with a pink tag in a storeroom, they presume that this
load will be out-loaded soon, because it has already been sold out from the
first-order wholesaler to the second-order wholesaler. Simultaneously, they
understand why it is placed in the front row. In this way, the various
“formulations of frozen seafood” by the workers are represented in the
arrangement of loads in storerooms. Thus, making space for a new load
involves not only making room for it, but finding and creating an appropriate
place for it in terms of seafood distribution and exchange.
In the refrigerated warehouse, the arrangement of loads in storerooms
represents what the distribution and exchange of frozen seafood would be. In
addition, as seen in the work of rearrangement of loads, the “representation”
itself becomes a tool for reorganizing the distribution and exchange of frozen
seafood. This implies that the technology of representation (Hutchins, 1990)
is not confined to documents, or instruments for calculation. How workers
reorganize their working environment using various resources, or how they
arrange documents and other artifacts in their work places, all, as a whole,
can be referred to as the “technology of representation”.

Resources for Arrangement of Loads

This section, presents concrete examples of the resources workers use for
estimating the movement of loads, and how they organize their resources in
producing practical, rational arrangements of loads in storerooms.
One of the first things that you see on entering the field office is a large
blackboard (Fig. 7). On the blackboard, the contents of input orders are written.
The descriptions on the blackboard are deeply embedded in the workers’
practice, and become important resources for them to arrange loads in the
storerooms. The workers who are in charge of the daytime shift look at the
blackboard in the morning when they come to work. They then use this
information to help make a plan for the day. Not only the daytime workers,
but the nighttime workers pay close attention to the descriptions on the
blackboard. For instance, while they engage in the work of loading goods out
in the nighttime, they try to find an appropriate space for the forthcoming load
based upon information they saw on the blackboard. If they find it, they pass
that information onto the daytime workers. In the following section, I will
explain in detail how they read the descriptions on the blackboard.
Here, I will briefly describe some examples of how descriptions on the
blackboard are used to figure out how to arrange loads. Let us take a look at
a case where workers might see a description on the blackboard that says “1000
cartons of squid are in-loading”. It is known that this type of material, in this
quantity, is typically sent to a factory. Thus it can be placed in the back row,
since the goods sent to a factory are usually outloaded from storage in the
 SPACE, TIME AND DOCUMENTS IN A REFRIGERATED WAREHOUSE 329

Figure 7. Blackboard.

daytime. Next, let us look at a case where workers might see a description on
the blackboard that says “200 cartons of filleted mellow whose owner is ‘718’
(the customer’s code number) is carried in soon”. The workers accumulate
the history of what different customers do. The customer, 718, typically sells
to supermarkets, and the goods are filleted fish. Therefore, this load will be
distributed to a supermarket. If so, the movement of the load must be speedy.
Then, it can be placed in the front row, or in a rack room where it can be
accessed easily. In these cases, the quantity of the goods, the name and
characteristics of the owner and the features of the goods are used as resources
to estimate the movement of the load.
The following resources are also used for estimating the movement of loads
and then for making arrangements: the articles of seafood, brands, size, and
production location printed on packages, and sometimes the color of tags. For
instance, seeing “ S sushi “ (that is the brand), and “cold red salmon “ (that is
the article) on the packages of the load, it is known that these goods will be
used for unrolled sushi. That type of load goes to chain stores specializing in
sushi. It is out-loaded in regular amounts everyday. Therefore, it can be placed,
temporarily, at the far end of the passageway.
They also take note of: the owner’s name, the variety of goods, the
movement of loads from a particular trucking company, and its arrival time
at the warehouse. For example, when a truck of the S transport company arrives
at 8:30 in the morning, it is known that the contents of the load might be
330 YASUKO KAWATOKO

half-processed shrimps dealt by Mr. O (who is on the sales staff of their parent
company). His goods are always distributed quickly. Thus, they have to be
placed in the front row, or in a rack room. This example shows that the whole
spatiotemporal environment of the workplace is also used as a resource by
the workers when they make arrangements of loads in the storerooms.
There are some cases where existing resources are no longer appropriate
to the current situation and rearrangements must be made. For example, in
the early winter when loads of salted salmon are in the storeroom, it is known
that these are now to be placed in the back row. Recently, the number of remove
orders for them has been increasing. The season of hot-pot has come. The loads
of salted salmon that are cooked for hot-pot should, therefore, be placed in
the front row. This case shows that the organization of loads fitted to current
needs of customers is utilized as a resource in the next reorganization for
distribution and exchange.
As seen above, one arrangement of loads in a storeroom is realized with
the combination of various resources. Also, we have seen that the combination
of resources itself is not fixed, but always has an alternative as determined by
the workers and the situation. The workers organize various resources for
performing their tasks. These resources and ways of organizing distribution
and exchange are instantiated in the arrangement of loads.
The above examples also show that diverse spatial resources are not
contained within fixed boundaries but often require ‘occasioned’ (Garfinkel
& Sacks 1970) arranging. According to traditional cognitive anthropological
research, space has been regarded as a kind of culturally fixed category that
represents the world view of that culture. On the contrary, the workers’ use of
space in the refrigerated warehouse demonstrates that the arrangement of space
is ongoing and occasioned accomplishment with various resources, and
simultaneously that arranged space becomes a part of the resources for making
projected actions visible. Thus, the arrangement of space can be regarded as
a situated practice rather than a kind of pre-formulated pattern matching or
pre-formulated cultural categories.
Activity theorists make a clear distinction between “object” and “tool”
(Nardi, 1994), although some of them consider the dynamic changes of an
activity system over the long run (Engestrom, 1990). They will regard “making
arrangements for loads in space” as the object of activity, that may be
accomplished, using “various resources such as documents, marks on packages
and quantities of goods” as tools. However, it seems that the relationship
between the “tool” and the “object” is not fixed in practice in real workplaces.
Rather, it is likely that the object of activity such as organizing distribution
and exchange, or making arrangement of loads in storerooms, itself and in
turn, becomes a tool for reorganizing distribution and exchange according to
the situation. In the activity of organizing distribution and exchange, the
relationship between the “tool” and the “object” is interchangeable, and under
 SPACE, TIME AND DOCUMENTS IN A REFRIGERATED WAREHOUSE 331

these flexible circumstances, one can reorganize the environment with multiple
phenomena, constituting dynamic relations with each other.

Convergence of Reading in the Juxtaposition of Various Resources

According to the situated approach, technologies, tools, and artifacts are

embedded in specific practice. Any tool or any artifact is never, on its own, a
technology; it never could be a tool or an artifact without being anchored in
the actuality of practice (Ueno, 1995, 1996). In this section, I focus on the
various documents that can be regarded as important resources for organizing
activities in the Uroko Refrigerated Warehouse. I also attempt to analyse how
these artifacts are juxtaposed to each other and how they mutually constitute
each context for reading and searching each artifact. The various artifacts as
they are used, reciprocally organize and elaborate each other.

“Reading” the Screen of a Computer

When the fax for a remove order comes to the field office, the workers search
the stock data on the computer. Searching a database is often described as a
set of fixed procedures. Actually, the way a person searches it is occasioned
and improvisational. Warehouse workers use different ways of searching for
different kinds of customers and different kinds of products. What is ‘critical
information’ on the computer screen is a function of the criteria called for in
the remove orders.
Let us take a look at a case where the size and quality is not referred to on
the load-out-order-fax. Typically, any fish product comes in many different
sizes and qualities. Thus, the “cold red salmon” might be 2/4 plebilof, 4/6
trident, 2/4 trident, 6/9 aleutian, 4/6 trident-bristle. The same 4/6 size comes
in both “trident” and “trident-bristle”. Moreover, the same customer owns
various sizes and qualities for each product. As a result, if warehouse workers
use only the owner’s name and the article, they are likely to load out goods of
the wrong size and quality. Nevertheless, it often happens that the load-out-
order-fax arrives without the specification of size and quality.
During one day of field research, a load-out-order-fax arrived identifying
simply an article and the quantity needed. On the fax, there was the following
description: “cold red salmon, five cartons, Send to the OG Marine Product
Toyama”. When the worker searched for the “cold red salmon” owned by this
customer on the database, many different sizes and qualities of “cold red
salmon” showed up on the computer monitor screen. Since the size and quality
were not specified on the load-out-order-fax, the warehouse worker looked
up the history of previous orders from that customer. He checked the
332 YASUKO KAWATOKO

destination, the size and quality out-loaded in the past. He found records
showing regular shipments of eight cartons of 4/6 trident-bristle were out-
loaded to the “OG Marine Product Toyama”. Thus, he conjectured that the
“cold red salmon” on the load-out-order-fax was 4/6 trident-bristle. After he
confirmed this with the customer by telephone, he drew up the order on the
load-out-order-form.
In the above example, the truncated information on the load-out-order-fax
was clarified through referring to the list of itemized articles on the computer
database. Moreover, reading a load-out-order-fax led to a search of that
customer’s history of out-loaded articles on the computer database. In this
context, which size and quality of the article should be out-loaded can be
determined.
Thus, in the Uroko Refrigerated Warehouse, the use of one tool is embedded
in the use of other tools, exactly as can be seen in the airport control tower
study by Goodwin & Goodwin (1996). Insufficient information on the
load-out-order-fax created a context in which searching the history of the loads
requested by the customer becomes relevant to the next action. In this way,
three documents: a load-out-order-fax, a list of itemized articles, and a list of
out-loaded articles, are reciprocally juxtaposed to each other. The meaning
and the focal point of each document for the task’s goal are merged to situated
work practice. The document does not stand alone. But instead, it is embedded
within a work context where each document reciprocally helps to constitute
each focal point (Ueno, 1995, 1996).
Lynch (1990) investigating the ethnomethodology of scientific practice in
laboratory work, pointed out that the juxtaposition of the diagram, the
diagrammatic model, and the photograph, such as of a mitochondrion, does
more than show how diagrams reduce and add to the information from
photographs. For example, when we look at the photograph after one draws
the diagram and observes it in detail, one sees something different. Now one
sees the photograph in the context given by the structured and clearly drawn
diagram. On the other hand, the photograph previously gives the context for
drawing the diagram. Thus, each artifact reciprocally organizes the structured
perception of the other. That is true in the case of the above example of reading
the document and the computer database in the refrigerated warehouse.

Documents Embedded in the Diverse Courses of Actions

“Reading” the Blackboard

The spatial arrangement of in-loaded goods is partially shaped by the situation

of out-loading. On the other hand, the work context of out-loading is dependent
on the spatial arrangement in storerooms. The workers in charge of out-loading
 SPACE, TIME AND DOCUMENTS IN A REFRIGERATED WAREHOUSE 333

shift may pay attention to the flow of loads not only for the work of
out-loading but for the work of future in-loading. The work contexts of
in-loading and out-loading reciprocally shape each other. One context and
the other context mutually constitute each other. Each work context is not
constituted independently.
As noted previously, the descriptions on the blackboard are deeply
embedded in the activities of the workers, both of the daytime and the nighttime
shifts. They are critical resources used to organize diverse courses of actions.
Let us see how the blackboard is read in multiple work contexts.
On November 30, on the blackboard, there was the following description:

“11/30(Mon.) 20-2 mackerel F 850 cartons (12/1)”

This ‘shorthand’ means “850 cartons of filleted mackerel owned by Maruike

(name of wholesaler, 20-2 is his code.) will be carried in on November 30. It
will be registered on the computer on December 1st.”
This morning Mr. SK, who was on the daytime shift, came to the office at
around 7:30. Immediately after he looked at the blackboard, he asked Mr. NK,
who was finishing the nighttime shift, about the movement of mackerel F. He
asked, “Did some of the 250 cartons of mackerel, owned by Maruike, move?”
There are two presuppositions behind Mr. SK’s question. One is the fact
that 250 cartons of mackerel owned by Maruike were in-loaded the day before.
The other is that the same owner is loading 850 cartons of mackerel today.
Then, he asked whether some of that 250 cartons of mackerel were out-loaded
during the previous nighttime shift. If so, it might be possible for the same
goods coming today to be out-loaded during the nighttime in the near future.
Moreover, since Maruike is a wholesaler who deals with processing factories,
the goods are usually out-loaded on a 100–200 cartons scale at a time. Thus,
at least 200 cartons of 850 cartons coming in today should be placed in the
front row.
In this case, Mr. SK read the description, “mackerel F 850 cartons” in the
context of the projective course of actions. He read the description in the
context of the work task and where he was supposed to put a big lot in the
storeroom, or to make space for them. This way of reading the description
organizes his subsequent actions. That is, after looking at the blackboard, he
asked a fellow worker about the load of similar goods that had arrived the
day before. Through reading the blackboard in the course of work, the
descriptions on the blackboard become resources which organize the
appropriate actions in appropriate time coordinates.
In the above situated actions, the descriptions on the blackboard are read
in the contexts of the distribution and exchange of frozen seafood and they
are as follows: the previous day’s in-loading activity, the movement of goods
during the nighttime business, and the owner’s means of transactions. It shows
334 YASUKO KAWATOKO

that the description concerning mackerel on the blackboard would be read in

multiple contexts such as the in-loading and out-loading. Further, in the above
conversation between the worker in the daytime shift and the worker in the
nighttime shift, handing over of work from the daytime shift to the nighttime
shift is achieved by overlapping each other through the description on the
blackboard. In this way, the blackboard is embedded in multiple contexts and it
can be regarded as the boundary object (Star & Griesemer, 1989) among various
parts in the division of labor of the workplace. In other words, the blackboard is
a kind of artifact that constitutes points of reference across each shift.
As has already been mentioned, in this workplace, the same person is in
charge of the nighttime shift and the daytime shift every other week. Thus,
even the worker in the nighttime shift regularly sees the space in the storeroom
in the context of in-loading such as rearrangement of loads and also sees the
blackboard in multiple contexts. It means that not only the worker in the
daytime shift, but the worker in the nighttime shift is crossing boundaries of
various divisions of labor.

A Palette-Unit as the Artifact for Making the Quantity of Loads, the Space,
and the Action Visible

On March 21, there was this description on the blackboard:

“3/22 (Fri.) 823 princess codfish 10k 1416C/T (20 feet 2 containers) These
goods are bonded. M-20,S-587,2S-809”

This input order on the blackboard had been sent one week prior from the
owner of the loads. Until one day before the scheduled date of in-loading, the
description on the blackboard was as shown in the above. On March 22, around
eight o’clock on the morning of in-loading, another description as shown in
the following was added to this description.

“S-587 36x16+11 2S-809 36x22+17”

“S-587 36x16+11” means that: first, the number of S size is 587 cartons, and
second, if 1 palette carries 36 cartons, then the 587 cartons are equal to 36x16
palettes plus 11 cartons. In this description, the quantity of goods is represented
by the number of palettes. One palette constitutes one unit. With this
palette-unit calculation, one can calculate the space which is required for the
placement of loads. For example, in the case of “princess codfish S-584 C/T
= 36x16 palettes + 11 cartons”, if you place 4 palettes in one row, and pile up
2 more palettes in each palette in one row, you will need the space for 1 row,
4 palettes and I I cartons to store the whole load.
 SPACE, TIME AND DOCUMENTS IN A REFRIGERATED WAREHOUSE 335

Here, the number of cartons described on the blackboard is transformed

and read as the number of palettes and the necessary space for that number of
palettes. Usually, the number of cartons and the way of piling up on one palette
are dependent on the method of packing, on the weight of one carton, and on
the frozen or the dried seafood. Regarding “princess codfish” referred to
previously, the workers talked about it in the morning meeting as shown in
the following.
“The goods are dried and sent to the factories for further processing. The
weight of each carton is about 10 kilogram, that is heavier than the ordinary
carton. So, only six cartons for one layer and five or six layers on one palette,
that is 30 or 36 cartons total, can be piled up on each palette. This time, since
many cartons will be in-loaded, three palettes should be piled up on each array.
Then, the load (weight) on the bottom palette will be too much. The supporter
should be built up.”
In this talk, the “supporter” means the metal frame attached to a palette for
reducing the load on the bottom palette.
The above example shows that a palette is not only the tool for carrying
and piling up cartons, but the measurement artifact for constituting the unit
of piled cartons. The unit can be easily transformed into the occupied space
and the quantity of work. The quantity of loads carried by a truck is
transformed into the number of palettes. The representation with the number
of palettes constitutes the perceptual field for organizing the course of actions
of calculation of space and of rearrangement of loads in a storeroom. Thus,
palettes become the unit of space for placing the loads and the unit of actions
such as the work of loading. For example, when the workers read the
load-in-order-form and prepare for in-loading, they calculate the number of
palettes from the number of cartons, and then they figure out, from the number
of palettes, how many times they have to execute palette carries with a folk
lift. The substantive calculation is achieved through a manipulation of the
singular materials embodying it. The palette is both an object upon which
arithmetical calculation is applied and a means for measuring what is
measured, (Lave, 1988; Lynch, 1991 ). Here, we see the seamless transactions
between the palettes as artifacts and the planning activities that those palettes
have organized.

Conclusion

The business of a warehouse is not just storing goods. A warehouse is made

up of the activity of organizing distribution and exchange. The activity of
distribution and exchange in this workplace is regarded as the activity of
organizing space and time with various artifacts in multiple contexts. It might
be better to say that the situated activity system (Goodwin, 1994) of this
336 YASUKO KAWATOKO

workplace organizes the artifacts, the categories, the literacy practices, the
space and the time. By virtue of the organization of diverse things, each
reciprocally gets multiple meanings and shapes multiple contexts, each
informing the other.
The documents, the computers, the blackboard, the palettes, the cartons and
other artifacts are embedded in the course of actions at various levels in the
whole activity of organizing the distribution and exchange. Moreover, in this
workplace, the whole environment such as the configuration of space, time,
personnel, goods, documents and other resources can be regarded as the
artifacts for organizing the activity of the distribution and exchange.
The arrangement of loads in a store room is realized with the combination
of various resources. The workers organize various resources in a way that
makes frozen seafood distribution and exchange visible, and they represent
their ways of organizing distribution and exchange in the arrangement of loads.
The workers’ use of space in the refrigerated warehouse demonstrates that
the arrangement of space is an ongoing and “occasioned” accomplishment
with various resources, and that reflexively arranged space becomes a part of
the resources for making projected actions visible.
Reading documents or searching a computer database in this workplace is
not an autonomous self-contained activity. Reading documents requires one
to timely note relevant focal points for the appropriate occasion. In other words,
reading documents is tightly integrated into the organization of the occasion
and of the course of actions. In addition, within a specific course of action,
the meaning of documents must be constituted by juxtaposing relevant
resources for specifying the focal points. This process constitutes a context
for organizing relevant courses of future actions. Thus, while reading
documents is improvisational, it is embedded in organizing the course of
actions in the whole activity.
One artifact is often embedded in multiple contexts of work practice. Also,
different parts of the division of labor are frequently overlapped in complicated
ways. The worker in the daytime shift reads the description on the blackboard
not only in the context of the work of in-loading, but in the context of
out-loading in the nighttime, although he himself would not be responsible
for the work of out-loading in the nighttime. The worker in the nighttime shift
reads the description on the blackboard in multiple contexts such as in-loading
and rearrangement of loads as well. Further, the overlapping of the division
of labour of the daytime and the nighttime shifts is mediated by the description
on the blackboard. The blackboard becomes the boundary object among
various parts in the division of labour. Thus, the situated activity system of
this workplace organizes space, time, workers, and various artifacts weaving
each together in dynamically integrated ways.
 SPACE, TIME AND DOCUMENTS IN A REFRIGERATED WAREHOUSE 337

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