Description
Sedentary habits are now defined as a chronic healthproblem, and nowhere do we sit more than in the office. This paper examines how
the office environment has been configured for seated work. Threading together
material histories of the office, posture science and ergonomics with analytical tools from infrastructure studies, it traces how body postures were turned into
a matter of concern over the last century. Drawing on a longitudinal analysis
of scientific publications, trade journals, patents, standards, and furniture catalogues,
between 1915 and 1995 in the US, Britain and German-speaking countries,
I examine how scientific concepts of good body posture circulated between the
posture sciences, ergonomics, design and the furniture industry. I follow how
technical drawings, advertisements, standards, and material artifacts circulated
particular idealized body postures, and how these were appropriated, challenged,
and subverted in turn. Doing so highlights the provisional and often shifting
coalitions with which ergonomics, as a scientific and professional discipline, has
sought to establish itself and postural care in office design and practice. But in
turn, it also exposes the various path dependencies and obduracies that have constrained the kinds of postural knowledge that were articulated. This, I argue, has
led to narrow the ergonomic problem of health and comfort at work to strategies
for stabilizing and immobilizing laboring bodies. Ultimately, this not only serves
to recover a forgotten ‘infrastructure’ and embodied practice of knowledge but
also calls for STS to engage with the material politics of ergonomics and design
as worldmaking fields.
| Period | 17 Mar 2023 |
|---|---|
| Event title | STS-hub.de 2023 |
| Event type | Conference |
| Location | Aachen, GermanyShow on map |
| Degree of Recognition | International |