Lee, Charlotte2017-04-152017-04-152005978-1-4020-4023-8Empirical studies of material artifacts in practice continue to be a rich source of theoretical concepts for CSCW. This paper explores the foundational concept of boundary objects and presents the results of a year-long ethnographic study of collaborative work. This research questions the assumption that artifacts exist necessarily within a web of standardized processes and that disorderly processes should be treated as “special cases”. I suggest that artifacts can serve to establish and destabilize protocols themselves and that artifacts can be used to push boundaries rather than merely sailing across them.enText10.1007/1-4020-4023-7_20