Embodied Connection Work: The Role of the Lived Body in Routine Recreation in Extreme Contexts

Abstract

Extreme events pose major challenges for the performance of routines as they threaten the continuation of work in all its forms. This paper uses an embodiment perspective to examine a routine recreation process in a fine-dining zero-waste restaurant whose routines were completely disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Zooming in on the role of the lived body, our study reveals the importance of ‘embodied connection work’ for the recreation of a new set of routines. We show how this active process of making connections between actors and actions consists of ‘embodied imagining’ and ‘embodied protecting’. Together, these interrelated practices enable the reintegration of stakeholders and the reassembling of what matters to the restaurant owners. Our study contributes to research at the intersection of routines and extreme contexts in three ways: (1) we move away from considering the body as a trained object and focus instead on the lived body and its role in performing and patterning and, hence, in recreating routines; (2) we unpack how novel roles emerge through embodied connection work as new and existing connections are forged; and (3) we conceptualize the relationship between routines and context as mutually constitutive suggesting that actions are situated through the lived body.