Re: [xmca] A Culture of Safety at Work

Depends on how long the slience lasts, Marcia. One of the GREAT things about
fora like this one is that they allow great leeway in what is a timely
answer and so for the
kind of organizing and planning of thoughts you mention. In this case,
Helena was asking for help and has a practical need for it, so I am hoping
to stimulate
some of those who have been thinking to externalize their thoughts for her
and our benefit.

Of course, the results can be unhelpful. Perhaps my attempts were. It would
not be the first time!!
mike

PS-- And for anyone who has not noticed, David Kellog has been pointing at
an earlier discussion about development for which new materials are
available
on XMCA, for a topic of pretty general concern, but which has evoked little
reaction. That topic is beckoning me at present.

On Jan 16, 2008 4:11 PM, Marcia sueli pereira da silva SCHNEIDER <
marciasu@superig.com.br> wrote:

> Mike
>
> I don't know if I'm right but according to Marcuschi, a brazilian author,
> a non-responses can indicate or could be interpreted as a moment for
> organizing and planning our thoughts
>
> Marcia
>
> 2008/1/16, Mike Cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>:
> >
> > Its always difficult to interpret non-responses on XMCA, but the note
> > that
> > Helena sent in the middle
> > of the culture discussion growing out of discussion of Andy's paper
> > appears
> > not to have been given
> > much attention. Its a practical issue for Helena and for the workers and
> >
> > company involved.
> >
> > I sent the note re "web culture" in hopes of moving discussion in the
> > direction of consideration
> > of Helena's message, but also to doubtful effect.
> >
> > So, let me take a stab at being useful and thereby providing people
> > another
> > invitation to lend a hand.
> >
> > In my intermittent thinking about the question, my thoughts have
> > returned
> > often to the idea of "cultural
> > styles" because, as in that literature, there appears to be a claim that
> >
> > there is some shared pattern of
> > meaning and associated practices that apply, more or less, to condition
> > all
> > of the interactions among
> > people in a common social group living in more or less common
> > circumstances.
> > "Culture of the classroom"
> > and DIFFERENT "cultures of the classroom" may be at this level of
> > generality. Perhaps "culture of machismo"
> > in some societies or parts of societies?
> >
> > I also thought about the pilot's in Ed Hutchin's aircraft who have
> > safety
> > check lists and routines for going
> > through them, and routines for ensuring that the routines are gone
> > through,
> > and rules about how to go
> > through those routines, and sanctions for not going through those
> > routines.
> >
> > A preliminary guess about how to talk about such group-specific, but
> > presumably within-group pervasive
> > phenomena in the case of a factory or workplace. In such cases culture
> > refers to a combination of values
> > and their associated practices which members recognize, recognize that
> > others recognize them, and can be
> > referred to with the expectation that they will be understood by others,
> > so
> > they are tools for constructing joint activity,
> > a "shared reality." Gary Alan Fine in more elaborated treatments
> > called
> > this sort of cutlural system an idioculture.
> >
> > (Fine's definition can be interpreted a la Geertz, as an interpretive,
> > idealistic approach to culture. This is not my
> > reading; I prefer, a s n the parts of Geertz I use, to use it as
> > a way to
> > keep both material and ideal aspects of
> > culture in mind).
> >
> >
> > Perhaps this way of looking at things could prove useful, Helene. I got
> > to
> > thinking that if ALL that constituted the
> >
> > "Culture of the workplace" you were studying was safety, people would
> > enter
> > the building, sit down in a chair, and
> >
> > not move a muscle all day to be sure they were safe. Absurd, of
> > course.
> > They are engaged in productive activity
> > and earning their livings, so they must, like Hutchin's pilots, do
> > things
> > that are not guaranteed safe. So as part
> > of many of the practices constituitive of the particular activity
> > system,
> > safety is a value that gets included, with
> > others, in what people do.
> >
> > If this is approximately correct, the place to start may be with the
> > explicit practices where safety is named and
> > included. And then work to ferret out implicit practices where it is
> >
> > present, although perhaps not explicitly
> > named. And , passim Yrjo, look for the contradictions that arise when
> > this value and its associated practices
> > and shadings of practices conflict with other, co-existing cultural
> > features of the setting.
> >
> > A glance at google suggests that there is a n existing
> > literature applied
> > to workplaces where some such approach
> > as I am gesturing toward may live.
> >
> >
> > mike
> > _______________________________________________
> > xmca mailing list
> > xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> > http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> >
>
>
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Received on Wed Jan 16 16:21 PST 2008