Reorganizing Mobile Formations

Abstract

Guided tours are a perspicuous setting for the study of mobile formations. Guided visits are characterized by mobile phases in which the group moves forward, alternating with moments in which participants adopt a more stationary, object-focused positioning. In this article, we pay attention to specific ways of walking from one point to another as a mobile formation: We focus on mobile reorientations of the group changing the initially projected trajectory. This particular movement allows us to observe key features of mobile formations: how they are initiated, by whom, with which resources. We sketch a systematic study of multimodal practices through which various kinds of participants initiate a reorientation of the group, with a particular focus on the category of the participants initiating the reorientation (the “guide” vs. the “guided”), on the action they achieve at the beginning of a sequence in order to do so (questions, noticings, comments), and on the multimodal resources they use.