Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
singular situation in which activity takes place. It is the here and now of
the worker's current experience that is of interest to us, at the very moment
in which action is undertaken.
When considering the real-world conditions of carrying out a task, the
first experience of the worker is a mismatch between what was planned
and the state of the world as it presents itself at the time of action. One
might also speak of a 'resistance' (of the outside world and of the worker's
own body) to the task, as a representation and as an anticipation con-
structed by the agent prescribing the work (who may, in some cases, be
the worker himself). Things never go
exactly
as they had been planned.
The 'reality of work' is therefore this space that is opened up by the exis-
tence of an always-irreducible gap between the theoretical representation
of work, on the one hand, and the concrete and sensitive ways in which
the state of the world presents itself to the worker, on the other hand. It
is within this space, which is both inevitable and always specific, that the
real-world activity of the worker takes place. It makes the worker some-
thing other than a simple executor. It makes him an acting subject in the
world (Bourgeois and Hubault, this volume).
In the concrete process of work, 'the confrontation to the resistance of
the real first gives birth to the subjective, affective experience of failure'
(Dejours, cited by Deranty, 2010, p. 216) concerning forecasts, prior knowl-
edge and previously constructed procedures. The gap between prescribed
work and real work indicates that before doing what has been asked of
them, workers are first confronted with a problem or an unforeseen event
that prescription (e.g. tasks, allocated means, directly available information)
is not able to solve completely. It is to cope with this resistance of the real
world to prescription contents that workers must engage themselves per-
sonally, in order to discover and invent an original outcome for action, mak-
ing it possible to reach the desired goal. This mobilization involves workers
in all the dimensions of their being: efforts of the body, sensitivity, technical
know-how, ability, ingeniousness, the knowledge acquired through experi-
ence and the more formal knowledge of symbolic systems that are specific
to a profession. This mobilization is motivated by many factors.
In this way of committing oneself 'body and soul' in a real-world situ-
ation of activity, subjects involve part of themselves in the scene of work.
They awaken their bodily, cognitive and affective sensitivity to better
understand what is going on. They recover knowledge acquired previ-
ously, in other circumstances. They apply skills to test new solutions. They
request the assistance of other people who are able to help them. They take
the risk of drifting away from formal prescriptions in order to achieve
their goals. Here, there is a total commitment of the worker, who makes
available for work some components of oneself that go far beyond what is
requested and expected in order to respond to events in the real-life situ-
ation of work. Whereas a task may forecast relying on a specific resource
