Fire and water combined: Understanding the Relevance of Working Life Studies through a Concept of Practical Activity

Forfattere

  • Keijo R?s?nen Aalto University Business School

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.19154/njwls.v5i3a.4833

Resumé

When I presented the basic ideas of this paper at a conference, a Swedish colleague commented: ?you manage to combine water and fire.? I understood his kind comment to mean that he used water and fire as metaphors for practice and theory. The comment puzzled me for a while. Water and fire obviously destroy each other, or at least radically transform each other. Then I realized that humans have actually managed to combine water and fire in several ways. One solution is the kettle. It makes possible to use fire in a controlled way for the human purpose of boiling water. Thus, this paper can be taken as an attempt at offering a kettle-like vehicle for bringing together practicetheoretical concepts and vocational practice. My kettle is a concept of practical activity. I am trying to boil up an answer to the following question: in what senses a study of work can be practically relevant to those who are doing the work being studied?

Forfatterbiografi

Keijo R?s?nen, Aalto University Business School

Professor

Downloads

Publiceret

2015-11-01

Nummer

Sektion

Articles