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  • 5 - Embodied Trajectories of Actions in Shop Encounters

  • Edited by Barbara Fox, University of Colorado Boulder, Lorenza Mondada, University of Basel, Marja-Leena Sorjonen, University of Helsinki
  • Book:
    Encounters at the Counter
    Published online:
    19 January 2023
    Print publication:
    26 January 2023, pp 144-183

  • Summary

    The chapter examines the transfer of the item(s) from the customer’s hands into the hands of the seller. This transfer is a crucial part of many commercial transactions, as the seller must enter the item number into the shop’s inventory system, both to learn the price and to subtract the item from inventory. Exploring data from ‘kiosks’ or convenience stores across Europe, the precise details of this manual transfer of items are examined There are two general methods by which the transfer is enacted: in the first, the customer gives the item directly into the hand(s) of the seller; in the second, the customer places the item on the counter and the seller picks it up. Which method unfolds depends on a variety of factors, including the seller’s physical availability at the moment the customer approaches the counter, the kinds of items purchased, and whether the seller has anticipated the transfer by reaching out their hand, in a shape recognizable as ready to ‘take’. These two methods are seen to reveal the moral and commercial nature of the manipulation of objects, and ultimately of the transaction.