Article ID: CBB000953522

Standardized Data and Singular Situations (2008)

unapi

Today a key feature of every technological organization is the abundance and pivotal role of standardized data sets. This paper discusses the interplay between standardized semantic knowledge representations and situated work on a knowledge intensive workplace. Drawing upon anthropological fieldwork with geologists and engineers in the `subsurface' department of an oil company, this paper discusses how an oil reservoir is represented with standardized semantic entities, and how such representations are used when workers try to make sense of the reservoir. The terms decontextualization and recontextualization are used to address and highlight the work that is involved in transporting meaning out of and into different contexts. Examples are given on how the subsurface personnel try to make sense of the oil reservoir through data: creatively using data to explore, speculate and guess about the subsurface. Through these examples, the paper explores the integrated relationship between the minds trying to understand the reservoir and the symbolic tools they have available, outlining some of the experience-based embodied skills that are involved in this work. It is argued that a key skill in this workplace is handling the translations between the standardized and singular.

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Description Uses anthropological fieldwork with geologists and engineers to study how workers in an oil company try to make sense of a subsurface oil reservoir using standardized data sets.


Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB000953522/

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Authors & Contributors
Clary, Renee M.
Jayne C. Aubele
Ginny Kilander
Valentina Roxo
Hadeel Assali
Mamdani, Mahmood
Concepts
Earth sciences
Petroleum industry
Geology
Oil; natural gas
Data analysis
Geological surveys
Time Periods
20th century, late
21st century
19th century
20th century, early
20th century
Places
United States
Nevada (U.S.)
Palestine
Scotland
Siberia (Russia)
Great Plains (North America)
Institutions
University of Aberdeen
American Heritage Center
International Commission on the History of Geological Sciences (INHIGEO)
United States. Geological Survey
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