Abstract
These days the adjective ‘situated’, the noun ‘situation’, the Latin expression ‘in situ’, and the abstract concept of ‘situatedness’, are liberally employed by those researchers and scholars who want to take and articulate alternative approaches to the study of organizations, the analysis of knowledge and change, the design of sophisticated technical systems, and in general the understanding of the complex interactions between people and technologies. These alternative perspectives have been developed and deployed against the positivist paradigm in social and organizational inquiry (Burrell and Morgan, 1979) and the normative discourse in organization science aimed at finding law-like relationships among organizational facts, events and behaviours (Deetz, 1996). They support especially the interpretivist paradigm, but are also employed in other radical or critical discourses.
Dorabella: ‘Nel petto un Vesuvio d’avere mi par’ (In my breast is like having a Vesuvius)
from Cosi’ Fan Tutte – Da Ponte – Mozart
The mob within the heart police cannot suppress.
E. Dickinson
Unter jedem Gedanken steckt ein Affekt.
(Under any thought hides an affect)
F. Nietzsche
We must acknowledge drives (emotions)
as the most primitive manifestations of the active principle
by which we grasp knowledge and hold it.
M. Polanyi
This chapter originally appeared in (2006) Journal of Information Technology 21(3): 129–139.
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© 2009 Claudio U. Ciborra
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Ciborra, C.U. (2009). The Mind or the Heart? It Depends on the (Definition of) Situation. In: Bricolage, Care and Information. Technology, Work and Globalization. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230250611_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230250611_2
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