I sign, therefore I am’. (Un)stable Traces of Professional Practices

Signatures will be read as (un)stable traces of professional knowledges, practices, and identities. The paper intends to propose a theoretical framework to explore the sociomateriality of signature in occupational and professional practices. This exploration will be conducted by assuming a practice-based approach to “signing in practice” and therefore by paying attention to knowing as a situated practice within organizations. The aim of the paper is to invite to a line of research that considers signatures—in occupational and professional practices—as “matters of fact,” i.e. stable traces resistant to disputation that “make” the professional ac-countable, and as “social fabrications,” i.e. traces which emerge from professional learning and knowing, thus resulting from stable negotiations of human and non-human assemblages.