Café Ethnography : the uses of tables and chairs

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Café Ethnography: 5). 14 A customer can see people sitting at a table as unacquainted by such discernible actions as: table sharers avoiding each other's gazes (in a similar fashion to the way one can discern who are strangers and friends in a lift/elevator), orienting to other members of their group through conversation & glancing, moving their chairs farther away from each other or perhaps using reading-a-newspaper/magazine/book as a boundary marker if they are sitting alone. Most of the customers at the Flaming Cup are 'regulars' and so have built-up plenty of their own ethnographic experience of how things are done at the café, how to avoid making mistakes there and also in some respects how to avoid or encourage table-sharing. Table-sharing further produces a feeling of informality as unacquainted customers are put into a situation where there are plenty of opportunities to initiate a conversation. 15 By sharing a table the customers can expect no easy exemption from 'small talk' from the other customers they are sharing with (Cavan 1973). Initiating and continuing small talk requires active work from the parties to the talk, and declining to respond also requires work to ensure that the decliner is not open to scorn and negative moral evaluation. Choosing a table to share with a stranger does not really become an acceptable following of the 'rule' of the most efficient use of the tables until all the tables are full. So joining a stranger at a table at the Flaming Cup when it is quiet is likely to be treated as evidence of abnormality without some reason being given (and it would only be a weak reason to cite as common knowledge 'that people share tables at the Flaming Cup'). During the testing of our research project's prototype electronic café table, for instance, the prototype table was shared by reference to the occasion of which it was a part since it was no longer just one table equivalent to all the other tables. Customers were invited to share the table with Living Memory researchers so as to be shown how the prototype functioned and offer their comments and evaluation of it. Even under such special circumstances for table-sharing plenty of customers declined the offer to share the prototype table and sat at their chosen tables where they did not have to engage in the Living Memory Project's activities. Being able to decline an offer from a research team to participate in their activities when permission has been secured from the owners of the setting is characteristic of informal settings where customers have a different kind of discretion to that of, for instance, air traffic controllers involved in testing a new air traffic control system (Hughes et al. 1988). 14 It is not simply that a person has to look at a scene and work out 'inferentially' what is occurring in that scene (i.e. 2 people sitting at a table who do not know each other), as (Sudnow 1972) demonstrates actors in that scene struggle to make their appearances intelligible to an observer who looks, even very briefly, at a scene. 15 In contrast to brief encounters whilst paying the bill at the counter or selecting a magazine or newspaper from the café’s store of reading material. 12
Fig. 2 A table in a different place has a different value Café Ethnography: Despite being built of standardised steel, wood and formica, being the same size and shape, with matching sets of chairs, not all tables are equal in the Flaming Cup. The arrangement of the tables within the space of Flaming Cup leant the individual tables differing value according to where they were positioned. The prime example of this feature being the window table (see Fig.2) which was almost constantly in use, and thus by far the most popular of the tables. Interestingly there was a second window table in the café in another bay window alcove close to the serving counter, however its use was predominantly given over to the staff who either used it to store prepared food that was awaiting collection for delivery elsewhere (since they did outside catering), or fresh ingredients awaiting use behind the counter, or as a third possibility: the manager or assistant manager was sat at the table doing their 'books' (i.e. orders, accounts, etc.) Since the tables in the Flaming Cup were of the same design (with the exception of 2 smaller tables that were fitted into two tight spots near the café's central pillar), they could be substituted into the window seat area and still be seen as the same 'window' seat. We took account of such arrangements in the introduction of our table with its electronic augmentation. Indeed our prototype was deliberately placed 'out of the way' inside the café (specifically, in the furthest corner from the serving counter and the windows). Even this table location was of a certain significance since a group of elderly women who were 'regulars' at the café used this table location consistently as 'their' table. During a pre-installation visit by Eric they wanted to know why their table was to be moved and what was going to be put in its 13
Page 1 and 2: Café Ethnography: An ethnography o
Page 3 and 4: Café Ethnography: The authors of t
Page 5 and 6: Ethnographic studies of table waiti
Page 7 and 8: Café Ethnography: At ground level
Page 9 and 10: Selecting a table Café Ethnography
Page 11: Café Ethnography: Returning to the
Page 15 and 16: The tabletop as a sequential phenom
Page 17 and 18: Café Ethnography: ways of indicati
Page 19 and 20: Café Ethnography: As we noted earl
Page 21 and 22: Café Ethnography: Regulars can be
Page 23 and 24: Café Ethnography: between the staf
Page 25 and 26: Closing Remarks Café Ethnography:
Page 27 and 28: Bibliography Café Ethnography: Adk
Page 29 and 30: Café Ethnography: 2000 Informality

Café Ethnography : the uses of tables and chairs

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