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Paper short abstract:

This paper focuses on time spent on boats sailing at sea. In the process of dwelling all crew members attend to one another in the performance of their tasks. Whenever they are sailing, they voyage in a place.

Paper long abstract:

In performing tasks together, not only do crew members become aware of their necessities on board, but they also inhabit the boat as a home. A taskscape can be understood as the total ensemble of tasks, in their mutual interlocking, that make up the pattern of activity of a community (Ingold, 1995). The boat, as a complex interweaving of 'shared intentionality' (Tomassello, 1999), becomes a dwelling place.

Due to the fact that the process of dwelling is fundamentally temporal, the journey entails a release in time, a becoming. Becoming is the movement by which the line frees itself from the point, and renders points indiscernible (Deleuze and Guattari, 1980). There is a sense of rest in this world in which all around is in movement (Gladwin, 1964).

Sailors call the boat a time machine. Whenever they are sailing, they voyage in a place. Voyage in a place is the name of all intensities (Deleuze and Guattari, 1980). On the boat, proximities foster dialogue as well as nonverbal exchanges of many kinds, and thus nurture interpersonal reciprocity (Casey, 1993). The time on board is defined by the opportunity that must be seized, the kairos; that point where human action meets its natural rhythm (Vernant, 1983) together with its environment.