Regimes of Meaning

Abstract

Drawing on participant observation of a high-end restaurant, I examine how work group culture and discourse are formulated through the organization of space and time. To date, scholars have typically divided the study of space and time into two separate fields of inquiry, but the two constructs are intimately integrated. I use a natural ethnographic experiment, observing two different kitchen regimes while keeping the space and occupational pressures constant, to illustrate that groups can arrange time and space according to local cultures. My findings reveal that internally created pressures (i.e., chefs creating constraints via their managerial style) combined with external demands influence both how restaurant workers use the kitchen space during particular moments and what forms of speech they deem acceptable in those spaces and times. My study demonstrates the social organization of time and space, particularly in the context of a restaurant kitchen.