Author(s):
- O’Neill, Christopher
Abstract:
While the Quantified Self has often been described as a contemporary iteration of Taylorism, this article argues that a more accurate comparison is to be made with what Anson Rabinbach has termed the “European Science of Work.” The European Science of Work sought to modify Taylor’s rigid and schematic understanding of the laboring body through the incorporation of insights drawn from the rich European tradition of physiological studies. This “softening” of Taylorist methods had the effect of producing a greater “isorhythmia” or synchronicity between the bodily rhythms of workers and those of the mode of production itself and was embraced by employers as a way to dampen worker militancy. Through a discursive analysis of the promotion of sensor analytics by management consultants VoloMetrix and Humanyze, I argue that the contemporary quantification of the workplace represents a similar project of “soft domination,” as the intimate, bottom-up mode of surveillance it fosters seeks to more closely mold workers’ physiological and social rhythms to the structure of the workplace and the working day.
Document:
https://doi.org/10.1177/0162243916677083
References:
| Aitken, H. 1985. Scientific Management in Action: Taylorism at Watertown Arsenal, 1908-1915. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
| Angrave, D., Charlwood, A., Kirkpatrick, I., Lawrence, M., Stuart, M.. 2016. “HR and Analytics: Why HR Is Set to Fail the Big Data Challenge.” Human Resource Management Journal 26 (1): 1–11. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
| Barnett, N. (2014). “What Is an Organizational Load Index and Why Is Mine So High?” Volometrix.com. Accessed July 10, 2015. http://www.volometrix.com/blog/volometrix_organizational_load_index. Google Scholar | |
| Bersin, J. 2014. “Quantified Self: Meet the Quantified Employee.” Forbes. Accessed July 10, 2015. http://www.forbes.com/sites/joshbersin/2014/06/25/quantified-self-meet-the-quantified-employee/. Google Scholar | |
| Brauer, F. 2003. “Representing ‘Le moteur humain’: Chronometry, Chronophotography, ‘The Art of Work’ and the ‘Taylored’ Body.” Visual Resources 19 (2): 83–105. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
| Bruce, K., Nyland, C.. 2011. “Elton Mayo and the Deification of Human Relations.” Organization Studies 32 (3): 383–405. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI | |
| Canguilhem, G. 1994. A Vital Rationalist. New York: Zone Books. Google Scholar | |
| Cheney-Lippold, J. 2011. “A New Algorithmic Identity: Soft Biopolitics and the Modulation of Control.” Theory, Culture & Society 28 (6): 164–81. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI | |
| Crary, J. 2013. 24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep. London, UK: Verso. Google Scholar | |
| Dagognet, F. 1992. Étienne-Jules Marey: A Passion for the Trace. New York: Zone Books. Google Scholar | |
| Foucault, M. 2001. “Les Rapports de Pouvoirs Passent à l’Intérieur du Corps.” In Dits et Écrits 1954-1988 (Vol II), edited by Defert, D., Ewald, F., 228–36. Paris, France: Gallimard. Google Scholar | |
| Frader, L. 1999. “From Muscles to Nerves: Gender, ‘Race’ and the Body at Work in France 1919-1939.” International Review of Social History 44 (S7): 123–47. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
| French, J. R. P. 1953. “Experiments in Field Settings.” In Research Methods in the Behavioral Sciences, edited by Festinger, L., Katz, D., 98–135. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Google Scholar | |
| Fridenson, P. 1987. “Un Tournant Taylorien de la Société Française (1904-1918).” Annales. Économies, Sociétés, Civilisations 42 (5): 1031–60. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
| Gilbreth, F., Gilbreth, L.. 1916. Fatigue Study: The Elimination of Humanity’s Greatest Unnecessary Waste: A First Step in Motion Study. London, UK: Routledge. Google Scholar | |
| Gillespie, R. 1991. Manufacturing Knowledge: A History of the Hawthorne Experiments. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar | |
| Gillespie, R. 2004. “Industrial Fatigue and the Discipline of Physiology.” In George Elton Mayo: Critical Evaluations in Business and Management, edited by Wood, J., Wood, M., 429–57. London, UK: Routledge. Google Scholar | |
| Gregory, D. 2011. “From a View to a Kill: Drones and Late Modern War.” Theory, Culture and Society 28 (7-8): 188–215. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI | |
| Lefebvre, H. 2002. Critique of Everyday Life Volume 2: Foundations for a Sociology of the Everyday. London, UK: Verso. Google Scholar | |
| Lefebvre, H. 2004. Rhythymanalysis: Space, Time and Everyday Life. New York: Continuum. Google Scholar | |
| Manovich, L. 1995. “The Labor of Perception.” Manovich.net. Accessed July 7, 2015. http://manovich.net/index.php/projects/the-labor-of-perception. Google Scholar | |
| Mayo, E. 1933. The Human Problems of an Industrial Civilization. New York: Macmillan. Google Scholar | |
| Morozov, E. 2013. To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism. New York: PublicAffairs. Google Scholar | |
| Mosso, A. 1891. La Fatica. Milan, Italy: Treves. Google Scholar | |
| Motorola . 2014. “WT41N0 Product Specification Sheet.” Accessed July 5, 2015. motorolasolutions.com/WT41N0. Google Scholar | |
| Neff, G. 2013. “Why Big Data Won’t Cure Us.” Big Data 1 (3): 117–23. Google Scholar | Crossref | Medline | ISI | |
| O’Connor, S. 2013. “Amazon Unpacked.” Financial Times, February 9, 2013, p. 14. Google Scholar | |
| Pasquinelli, M. 2015. “Anomaly Detection: The Mathematization of the Abnormal in the Metadata Society.” Matteopasquinelli.com. Accessed July 3, 2015. http://matteopasquinelli.com/anomaly-detection/. Google Scholar | |
| Pentland, A. 2008. Honest Signals: How they Shape Our World. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
| Pentland, A. 2012. “The New Science of Building Great Teams.” Harvard Business Review. Accessed July 10, 2015. https://hbr.org/2012/04/the-new-science-of-building-great-teams. Google Scholar | |
| Rabinbach, A. 1990. The Human Motor: Energy, Fatigue, and the Origins of Modernity. New York: Basic Books. Google Scholar | |
| Rasmussen, T., Ulrich, D.. 2015. “Learning from Practice: How HR Analytics Avoids Being a Management Fad.” Organizational Dynamics 44 (3): 236–42. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
| Roethlisberger, F. J., Dickson, W.. 1939. Management and the Worker: An Account of a Research Program Conducted by the Western Electric Company, Hawthorne Works, Chicago. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Google Scholar | |
| Rose, N. 1991. Governing the Soul: The Shaping of the Private Self. London, UK: Routledge. Google Scholar | |
| Schumpeter . 2014. “Decluttering the Company.” The Economist. Accessed July 8, 2015. http://www.economist.com/news/business/21610237-businesses-must-fight-relentless-battle-against-bureaucracy-decluttering-company. Google Scholar | |
| Sutherland, T. 2014. “Getting Nowhere Fast: A Teleological Conception of Socio-technical Acceleration.” Time & Society 23 (1): 49–68. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI | |
| Taylor, F. W. 1911. The Principles of Scientific Management. New York: Harper & Brothers. Google Scholar | |
| Taylor, P. 2013. Performance Management and the New Workplace Tyranny. Report for the Scottish Trades Union Congress. Glasgow: University of Strathclyde. Google Scholar | |
| Thompson, E. P. 1967. “Time, Work-discipline, and Industrial Capitalism.” Past and Present 38: 56–97. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
| Volometrix . 2015. “Frequently Asked Questions.” Volometrix.com. Accessed July 8, 2015. http://www.volometrix.com/frequently-asked-questions. Google Scholar | |
| Whitehead, T. 1938. The Industrial Worker: A Statistical Study of Human Relations in a Group of Manual Workers. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
| Wilson, H. J. 2013. “Wearables in the Workplace.” Harvard Business Review. Accessed July 9, 2015. https://hbr.org/2013/09/wearables-in-the-workplace. Google Scholar | |
| Wolf, G. 2009. “The Quantified Self.” Antephase.com. Accessed July 8, 2015. antephase.com/quantifiedself. Google Scholar | |
| Wolf, G. 2010. “The Data Driven Life.” The New York Times. Accessed July 12, 2015. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/02/magazine/02self-measurement-t.html?_r=0&pagewanted=all. Google Scholar | |
| Womack, J., Jones, D., Roos, D.. 1990. The Machine that Changed the World. New York: Free Press. Google Scholar |