Peter Wilkin

Ergonomics and sustainability: towards an embrace of complexity and emergence

Technology offers a promising route to a sustainable future, and ergonomics can serve a vital role. The argument of this article is that the lasting success of sustainability initiatives in ergonomics hinges on an examination of ergonomics’ own epistemology and ethics. The epistemology of ergonomics is fundamentally empiricist and positivist. This places practical constraints on its ability to address important issues such as sustainability, emergence and complexity. The implicit ethical position of ergonomics is one of neutrality, and its positivist epistemology generally puts value-laden questions outside the parameters of what it sees as scientific practice. We argue, by contrast, that a discipline that deals with both technology and human beings cannot avoid engaging with questions of complexity and emergence and seeking innovative ways of addressing these issues. Practitioner Summary: Ergonomics has largely modelled its research on a reductive science, studying parts and problems to fix. In sustainability efforts, this can lead to mere local adaptations with a negative effect on global sustainability. Ergonomics must consider quality of life globally, appreciating complexity and emergent effects of local relationships.

Globalization, human security, and the African experience

Introduction - Critical Security in a Global Economy - African Encounters, C. Thomas. Part 1 Concepts: Class, P. Wilkin Feminist Perspectives, J.A. Tickner Community, J.A. Scholte Justice, A. Ray. Part 2 African Experiences: Security in the Senegal River Basin, A. Guest Economic Genocide in Rwanda, M. Chossudovsky The Horn of Africa, M. Salib Sierra Leone and Liberia, M. Sessay The African Experience, A. Mazrui.

The ideology of ergonomics

This paper examines the positivist and empiricist philosophical ideas that underpin mainstream ergonomics and argues that they undermine the disciplines ability to properly theorise the nature of the social world. Instead and as a consequence of these largely implicit philosophical beliefs ergonomics is an ideological discipline whose social use is largely shaped to reflect the interests of dominant social institutions, whether public or private, that tend to control the workplace. Arguing from the perspective of critical social science the paper says that questions of design are central to debates about the good society (how people should live) as indeed some ergonomic researchers have recently begun to argue. The task of the paper is to help encourage such debate within the discipline by clarifying what it sees as the ideological role that ergonomics plays in society and how this ideology is, in turn, reflected in its philosophical assumptions. The importance of the paper for ergonomic theory is that it highlights the need for the discipline to engage in a critical manner with its philosophical assumptions. It does this by exposing the problematic nature of its positivist philosophy, arguing that as a consequence of the latter ergonomics in practice is an ideological discipline.

The political economy of global communication : an introduction

Introduction - Fulfilling the Enlightenment? Attaining Human Security. Part 1 The Triumph of Democracy and Freedom - Political Change After the Cold War: The Privatization of the State The Legitimacy of Human Intervention Under the Guise of Humanitarian Intervention The Spread of a Technical Elite Led Political Process. Part 2 Global Capitalism and the End of History: The Enhanced Mobility and Accumulation of Capital The Diminution of the Rights of Working People Free Trade, Protectionism and Uneven Development in World Order. Part 3 Global Order and Cultural Freedom: The Rise of a Global Communications Industry Capitalism, Neo-Liberalism and the Privatization of Culture Culture Ideology and Political Power Conclusion - Perverting the Enlightenment? Resistance and Change in World Order.

Pornography and Rhetorical Strategies - The Politics of Public Policy

The role of rhetoric in social science has become a subject of renewed interest in recent years. Although a general concern with language has been a hallmark of what is often described as the ‘linguistic turn’ in philosophy, an explicit concern with rhetoric and its relationship to social science has, until recently, tended to be under-examined. In some respects this neglect might well reflect a lasting uneasiness as to the relationship between science and rhetoric. To what extent is rhetoric a legitimate part of social analyses? A prevalent claim in contemporary social theory is that all we have are different rhetorical strategies, that there is nothing more than this. This article seeks to challenge this view, arguing that while rhetoric is an inescapable aspect of social analysis it is still important to distinguish between good/bad, better/worse rhetorical strategies. In order to do this I focus upon the rhetorical strategy adopted by a group of writers who have sought to defend the powerful claim that there is a corrupting causal relationship between pornography and its male audience. In so doing I show that there are grounds for evaluating rhetorical strategies in social analyses and, more than this, that it is important that we do so for both the ethical and epistemological status of social science.

George Orwell: The English Dissident as Tory Anarchist

This article examines the nature of George Orwells Tory anarchism, a term that he used to describe himself until his experiences in Spain in 1936. The argument developed here says that the qualities that Orwell felt made him a Tory anarchist remained with him throughout his life, even after his commitment to democratic socialism. In fact, many of those qualities (fear of an all-powerful state, respect for privacy, support for common sense and decency, patriotism) connect the two aspects of his character. The article explains what the idea of a Tory anarchist means, describing it as a practice rather than a coherent political ideology, and moves on to examine the relationship between Eric Blair, the Tory anarchist, and George Orwell, the democratic socialist. It makes the case for his Tory anarchism by drawing out recurring themes in his work that connect him to other Tory anarchist figures such as his contemporary Evelyn Waugh. Thus Tory anarchism is presented as a conservative moral critique of the modern world that can connect figures who hold quite radically different political beliefs.

Are you sitting comfortably? The political economy of the body

The aim of this paper is to examine the relationship between the mass production of furniture in modern industrial societies and lower back pain (LBP). The latter has proven to be a major cost to health services and private industry throughout the industrialised world and now represents a global health issue as recent WHO reports on obesity and LBP reveal. Thus far there have been few co-ordinated attempts to deal with the causes of the problem through public policy. Drawing upon a range of sources in anthropology, health studies, politics and economics, the paper argues that this a modern social problem rooted in the contingent conjuncture of natural and social causal mechanisms. The key question it raises is: what are the appropriate mechanisms for addressing this problem? This paper develops an analysis rooted in libertarian social theory and argues that both the state and the capitalist market are flawed mechanisms for resolving this problem. There remains a fundamental dilemma for libertarians, however. Whilst the state and the market may well be flawed mechanisms, they are the dominant ones shaping global political economy. To what extent can libertarians work within these structures and remain committed to libertarian goals?

Ergonomics as Authoritarian or Libertarian: Learning from Colin Ward's Politics of Design

ABSTRACT Ergonomics is intrinsically connected to political debates about the good society, about how we should live. This article follows the ideas of Colin Ward by setting the practices of ergonomics and design along a spectrum between more libertarian approaches and more authoritarian. Within Anglo-American ergonomics, more authoritarian approaches tend to prevail, often against the wishes of designers who have had to fight with their employers for best possible design outcomes. The article draws on debates about the design and manufacturing of schoolchildrens furniture. Ergonomics would benefit from embracing these issues to stimulate a broader discourse amongst its practitioners about how to be open to new disciplines, particularly those in the social sciences.

Global communication and political culture in the semi-periphery: The rise of the Globo corporation

This article will offer a description and explanation of the rise of the Brazilian media corporation Globo by situating it in the context of the periphery and semi-periphery of the World System and the globalisation of communication. In particular it focuses upon the changing role that Globo has played in the construction of an elite-led political culture in Brazil that has moved through phases of authoritarian and democratic government. The article sets out an historical account of the emergence of Globo from being a regional media organisation in the periphery of the world system to a global broadcaster in the semi-periphery. It moves through three phases: First, 1925-1964, the colonial legacy and Brazil in the periphery; second, 1964-1985, a period of transition and conservative modernisation, into the semi-periphery; and finally, 1985 onwards, the age of globalisation.

Digital activism and Hungarian media reform: The case of Milla

This article examines the rise of the Internet-based opposition group, One Million for the Freedom of the Press in Hungary (or Milla for short), and considers its impact as a form of digital activism in Hungarian political culture. Milla was founded in December 2010 as a Facebook group in response to the newly elected Fidesz government and its fundamental revision of the Hungarian constitution and, in particular, its media laws. Milla is a civil society group, based in Budapest, who saw the Fidesz government as a threat to the democratic freedoms set out in the post-communist settlement in Hungary. It emerged at a time when the mainstream Hungarian opposition parties were in disarray, and it took on the role of challenging the legitimacy of Fidesz actions. Milla is an important example of the idea of digital activism and virtual solidarity, and its experiences serve to illustrate many of the strengths and weaknesses of these notions. The article sets out the ways in which Milla has sought to generate support for itself and opposition to the government, how it has organized its activities and ultimately the specific problems that it faces in Hungarian civil society.