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Addressed to Philosophy teachers, this text sums up the contributions offered by a university training aimed at filling the blanks on what is known about work. By revisiting concepts such as subject, values, health and norms... it is defended that all work, and even all human endeavor, is always, to different extents, one's use of self and use of self by others. This may provide a generic work definition. However, it is noticed that knowledge "by others" rules the work activities in detriment to the knowledge at the core of "one's use of self". This would introduce an historical version of work, presenting it as a constraint, as it is characterized in social categories where inequalities stand out. The origin of this historical perspective is then questioned, suggesting that such drift from work is undoubtedly central to the anemia of current democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This text offers a historical commentary on Leontiev's famous example of primitive hunting. After briefly outlining the main stages in Leontiev's career, we will present the main characteristics of the concept of activity as introduced by Leontiev in the primitive hunting example. Finally, we'll show that, in introducing the concept of activity into psychology, Leontiev broke with the work previously carried out in Moscow with Vygotsky, while at the same time following in Vygotsky's cultural-historical footsteps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this article is to question the ergonomics on the basis of Roberto Novaes’ documentary-intervention, "Mulheres das águas" (women of the waters), which describes and comments on the activities of the fisherwomen in the mangroves of the North-East of Brazil. Their way of life, their work and the survival of their families are threatened by pollution from large industries and by tourism which damages the ecosystem. The documentary highlights the commitment and resistance of these women in their quest to preserve fishing grounds, maintain and expand their social rights, and improve their working and health conditions. We explore questions raised by the documentary that challenge contemporary ergonomics and appeal to: the category of analysis of intersectionality, the notion of extended harmfulness, the tradition of Freire’s education, and the approach of the territory as being acted in work activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New risks are emerging from global changes – climatic, technological and societal – which imply taking into account multiple spatial and temporal scales and a diversity of actors. To cope with them, it is necessary to develop citizen participation, to strengthen the territorial dimension and to take into account the vulnerability of individuals. This text aims to understand the impacts of climate change on the concepts and intervention methods in activity-centered ergonomics. Connections should be made with two disciplines : environmental and political sciences. Two cases will illustrate the evolution of the activity analysis model : that of women mountain guides and that of actors in the risk management of permafrost degradation. Climate change calls for ergonomics to take greater account of the social dimensions and networks of actors in its models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Celebrating the 100-anniversary of the birth of Paulo Freire (1921-1997) and his fifty years of political-educational work (1947-1997), we present this paper aiming at contributing to consolidate the appropriation of Freire's theory and epistemology by those who are interested in understanding-transforming the real work situations, emphasizing the Activity's point of view. We bring to this dialogue (central concept for us) the concepts of Ergology, Activity Ergonomics, Work Psychodynamic, Activity Clinic and Italian Model of Worker's Struggle for Health (MOI, in Portuguese), which share a common horizon of analyses and paths. Dialogy, awareness and lovingness are hereby explored as strong ideas to understand-transform both work and life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the human-horse work collectives competing at high level in the discipline of eventing, the aim is to show how horses acquire a second nature through work. To this end, a survey was conducted with eight high-level riders. Initially, semi-directive interviews were held and then three riders were followed during the French Eventing Championships and the World Championships for seven-year-old horses. The results show the complexity and richness of the working relationship between humans and horses. It appears to be an ambivalent, unequal relationship where the human is committed to highlighting the physical and mental qualities of the equine athlete who becomes an extraordinary individual. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Starting from a research in psychodynamics of work, the paper aims to explain the consequences of the new forms of work organization on the activity of deliberation and cooperation of workers, on the one hand, and on their possibilities of development and action, on the other hand. It is particularly concerned with showing how the denial of reality and living labor, supported by managerial transformations in the organization of work, disqualifies the language of activity emanated from workers and bars access to effective work, thus "preventing" deliberation on living labor. Finally, it questions the necessary conditions for a reinstatement of deliberation, so that it takes precedence over a thought invaded by the social imaginary and that can open the way to the challenge of symbolic domination and to the resistance to governance by numbers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The scope of this paper is the digitalization of the service at the National Institute of Social Security - INSS, the federal institution in charge of implementing the Brazilian Welfare Services policy. Based on the framework of Work Psychology and Activity- centered Ergonomics, a field study has been carried out in order to understand the conditions under which the "Digital INSS Project" has been implemented and their impact on the activity performed by the public servants. It revealed the heterogeneity in terms of production control and resources to enable the appropriation of technological tools by the workers from different units. Given the intensification of work, the regulatory strategies try to balance the production demands and the health preservation. They do so through schemes to use the computer tools that confront these workers with additional workload, given the accomplishment of several simultaneous operations and the necessity to validate the work using paper, in the face of the unexpected generated by the digital support and the experience still to be built in its resolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social and organisational changes are causing deep transformations, which can generate quite concerning psychosocial dynamics in the work places. The "psychosocial risks" result from a set of conditions and factors inherent to the organisation of the work and it is important to identify them. This study's main purpose was to verify whether the Advanced Technicians on Occupa-tional Health (ATOH) who perform their activity in Portugal are exposed, or not, to psychosocial risk factors and whether, consequently, their health condition is deteriorating. The findings show they are exposed to psychosocial risk factors related to the work conditions and characteristics. Their health is perceived as good and not entirely work-related, though some of their health problems are made worse by the work. The less the ATOH are affected by the psychosocial risk factors, the better do they perceive their health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the use of personal protective equipment (PPE) with regard to biological risk. It is based on an action research approach conducted in a confined biological analysis laboratory, of "class 3" safety level. The first results, coming from the analysis of risk perception and the operators' activity, show that their actual use of PPE depends on both the safety prescription and their own perception of risk in the work activity. At the same time, depending on the constraints caused by the PPE in situation, operators adjust the way they wear or use them, whilst implementing additional strategies to reach both efficiency and safety in the work activity. Thus, work safety in this context requires considering the PPE in a broader framework: the relation between operators, their risk perception and real work activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organizations tend to create and hold routines that make their work predictable. Changes in organizations often introduce unexpected effects, increasing uncertainty and operational casuistry, affecting people and their activity. The literature on organizational change favors the analysis of factors underlying the change processes, including the role of purposive activity of members of the organization (agency), however, it shortly adresses the effects these changes generate about the specific activity of organizational change. Relevant topics are discussed regarding change processes, and effects they entail on people and their performed activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two paradoxes seem to appear throughout Alain Wisner's Anthropotechnology. The first one, from his studies on human labour, leads him to assert that all human beings have equal potentialities, while maintaining at the same time that this universality emerges through history and inheritance which are always specific. The second one leads him to request the cooperation of various areas of human sciences, but without a critical approach, as if they could disregard the consequences of the first paradox. Firstly, it is suggested how it is possible, through the ergological approach, to clear up the first paradox by going deeper into this concept of activity, largely inherited from the wisnerian ergonomy. From an anthropological point of view, it is possible to define live as a universal effort for partly redesigning the frame of local norms which surround human beings and groups. Secondly, the question is : through which crucial scenes the «setting in history» of this universality is developed? Three knots of this « setting in history » are successively considered: body, technical activity and social building of the various spaces where living together proved efficient. In accordance with these points, the basis for a treatment of the second paradox seem yet to be given: if human activity is a permanent crucible for « renormalisations », it constantly reproduces social configurations so that concepts and categories of the human sciences are always partly unprepared in regard to them. Then the question is: how this concept of activity which runs across them all is refracted or taken into account by these sciences? To conclude: if this paper entirely assumes the first paradox, it cannot accept the second one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using empirical materials from studies about professional training and the validation of acquired experience this text is interested in work that is to "raise" the qualification level of experienced workers, as suggested in the European Directives. The adopted point of view is the analysis of the activity, precisely the activities that relate the knowledge developed at work with the abstract knowledge contained in the referential systems of training courses or diploma. Following Vygotsky's theory, revisited by contemporary works, we study the conditions that allow the beginning of a potential double development: leading the renewal of the action as well as abstract concepts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is framed by a long lasting tradition of studies that, since the last third of the twentieth century, have been enhancing the contribution of ergonomic work analysis for professional training, particularly when continuous training is at stake. The main perspectives assumed in these approaches are defined: the training of preventionists for ergonomic work analysis; work analysis as a means for professional training; and a third way that aims to embrace the two former perspectives in projects that comprise of training and work situation transformation. Highlighted in this analysis is the importance given to the consideration of the acquired experience gained throughout a professional course as well as the valorisation of this experience in the scope of projects of transformation of productive processes. In this framework the theme of durable development emerges, despite being dressed up in various meanings that will be characterized in a differential manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]