Temporality as a member’s problem in real time: An analysis of a prehospital emergency care setting

The aim of this paper is to explore how theoretical concepts can be studied as members’ problems, building on an argument developed by Sacks and Garfinkel through the notion of perspicuous settings. This notion is crucial for addressing social order as a member’s problem. We aim to articulate ways of describing a member’s problem in real time by focusing on the concept of time, since members’ orientations to time are relevant to virtually all forms of action, whether or not they are carried out through interaction.It might seem, then, that describing actions in interaction with close attention to the details of sequential organization is the appropriate way to approach members’ problems in real time. However, this approach leaves unaddressed another dimension of members’ orientation to time – namely, the assumptions members make when engaging in setting-specific actions, which may not be audio-visually transcribable. Therefore, this paper articulates different ways of describing time as a member’s problem in real time, encompassing members’ orientations both to the ordering principles of interaction and to time as an ordering principle of the work setting – or to either of these dimensions individually.The setting of prehospital emergency care is chosen as a perspicuous setting, in which various temporal and spatial dimensions are made relevant in the coordination of actions involved in transferring a patient under treatment.