Where looking out of the window is professional activity: Lifeguard hut as context for swimzone checks

Beach lifeguarding offers a unique situation for studying the forms and meanings of embodied behaviors in a context of multiactivity. With video recordings of lifeguards inside their hut during lulls in professional activity, this article examines when and how the lifeguards look out of a window facing their swimzone some 100 meters away. Focusing on instances that occur without an explicit verbal noticing, I use transcriptions of spoken language to locate the occurrence of window lookings with respect to the details of talk and other ongoing activities. I show this behavior's intertwinement with lifeguard talk and offer additional ethnographic context, theorizing the mutually informing relationship between spoken language and co-occurring embodied actions. This article contributes to further understanding the significance and communicative potential of swimzone checks for professionals in this understudied domain of multiactivity.