8 - Writing, Connecting and Organizing

Summary

This chapter considers everyday writing practices by looking at the role of writing in maintaining our place in social networks, the ways in which we use writing to engage and interact with formal institutions and how such practices are being modified or adapted with the uptake of new technologies. It also looks at writing in the workplace, highlighting the diverse ways in which the written word becomes part of working life. It underlines the reciprocal relationship between written texts and work processes, their practices and goals. The chapter also looks at organizing, labelling and categorizing and shows how short pieces of writing – often single words – are routinely used to help us navigate daily life, to help us to store and retrieve things, and to create order and meaning. Although these kinds of recordings may be helpful in organizing everyday activity, they are not always innocent; they are also complicit in exclusionary practices, used to prop up repressive regimes and even the most heinous of crimes against humanity.