Ergonomics Gone Naff?? The Biography of Ergonomics as Knowledge and Practices in Finland

This project analyses how ergonomics as a discourse and practice of designing products has transformed in Finland (in years 1950-2015). The project will shed light on the specific material consequences the changing understanding takes as part of the modern working life. Changes in ergonomics have quite direct consequences on our working minds and bodies and on the rights and responsibilities of different actors (e.g. workers, designers, educators, product manufactures, policy makers). Thus, the everyday material setting of our offices requires a detective story, albeit a scientific one, that would show the hidden mechanisms by which a working body and mind are constructed by this materiality itself. The project's methodological contribution is multi-sited ethnography. The applicant will participate in developing the perspective of the Biography of Artefacts and Practices (BoA); how everyday things are designed and negotiated before they settle as part of the routines of work places.