Drawing on the notion of mechanisms as systems of constitutive rules, this paper advocates a reappraisal of the generative systems metaphor in routines studies. While the recent practice-turn to routines studies has turned a blind-eye to the notion of generative systems, this paper endeavours to use critical realist tenets to shed a new light on the notion of generative systems. By analyzing the emergence of Duty Prosecutors as an instance of routinization in the making, the paper deploys critical realist (...) case study principles that unpack the underlying structural mechanisms in a counterfactual fashion. Theoretical implications are discussed by highlighting that the structural nexus of position-practice relations is constitutive and, therefore, generative of patterns in variety. (shrink)

I offer a critique of how we have gotten to the point of considering xenografts into humans through a kind of moral failure to generate an efficient system of organ harvesting from human cadavers. I consider several proposals for increasing the supply of transplantable human organs, including one recently proposed in detail by James Lindemann Nelson of the Hastings Center for routine retrieval with an opt-out option.

An ascent routine (AR) allows a speaker to self-ascribe a given propositional attitude (PA) by redeploying the process that generates a corresponding lower level utterance. Thus, we may report on our beliefs about the weather by reporting (under certain constraints) on the weather. The chief criticism of my AR account of self-ascription, by Alvin Goldman and others, is that it covers few if any PA’s other than belief and offers no account of how we can attain reliability in identifying our (...) attitude as belief, desire, hope, etc., without presupposing some sort of recognition process. The criticism can be answered, but only by giving up a tacit—and wholly unnecessary—assumption that has influenced discussions of ascent routines. Abandoning the assumption allows a different account of ARs that avoids the criticism and even provides an algorithm for finding a corresponding lower level utterance for any PA. The account I give is supported by research on children’s first uses of a propositional attitude vocabulary. (shrink)

Many scholars continue to accord routine action a central role in social theory and defend the continuing relevance of Bourdieu's habitus. Simultaneously, most recognize the importance of reflexivity. In this article, I consider three versions of the effort to render these concepts compatible, which I term "empirical combination," "hybridization," and "ontological and theoretical reconciliation." None of the efforts is ultimately successful in analytical terms. Moreover, I argue on empirical grounds that the relevance of habitus began to decrease toward the end (...) of the 20th century, given major changes in the structures of the advanced capitalist democracies. In these circumstances, habitual forms prove incapable of providing guidelines for people's lives and, thus, make reflexivity imperative. I conclude by arguing that even the reproduction of natal background is a reflexive activity today and that the mode most favorable to producing it—what I call "communicative reflexivity"—is becoming harder to sustain. (shrink)

Lorsque l’individu de la surmodernité, placé dans un environnement dominé par le risque et entraîné dans le « grand dérangement », est soustrait à sa routine et confronté à un moment fatidique, c’est-à-dire lourd pour lui de conséquences mal maîtrisables a priori, il est appelé à passer d’un système expert à un autre système expert, ce que peut lui faciliter une réflexivité cognitive bien alimentée.When the individual of the late modernity, situated within an environment dominated by risk and swept along (...) by the « big disarrangement » is drawn from his/her routine and affronted with a fateful moment, i.e. filled for him/her with not easily controlled consequences, he/she is drawn from an expert system to another expert system, which can be made easier for him/her, thanks to a well-fed reflexivity. (shrink)

This paper considers the ethics of routine antenatal HIV testing and the role of informed consent within such a policy in order to decide how we should proceed in this area—a decision that ultimately rests on the relative importance we give to public health goals on the one hand and respect for individual autonomy on the other.A recent illuminating qualitative study by Zulueta and Boulton1 explores the practicalities of informed consent in routine antenatal HIV testing. Its results support what I (...) have argued1 is inevitable with routine testing policies of this kind: that routine antenatal testing regimes are incompatible with requirements for informed consent. It has become clear that intervention could reduce the risk of transmitting HIV from mother to child from 15–20%2 to around 8%,3 or possibly as low as 2%.4,5 The evidence of this possibility produced a general trend towards introducing routine antenatal HIV screening in developed countries worldwide.6,7,8,9,10 The aim was to dramatically reduce the rate of HIV transmission from mother to child by encouraging universal antenatal HIV testing. The UK has been no exception, and in 1999 the government instructed health authorities to implement a policy of offering and recommending an HIV test to all pregnant women.11This UK antenatal screening policy and others like it, although well-meaning, are problematic in their formulation. In order to reflect contemporary ethical and legal practice, such policies attempt to marry the public health aims of maximising uptake of testing with a commitment to respect the choices of patients by requiring informed consent before they participate in screening. Thus, in the case of UK policy, health professionals are instructed to recommend the HIV test to all pregnant women in order to achieve the target of a 90% …. (shrink)

An enduring ethical dispute accompanies prenatal screening and testing (PST) technologies. This ethical debate focuses on notions of reproductive choice. On one side of the dispute are those who have supported PST as a way to empower women’s reproductive choice, while on the other side are those who argue that PST, particularly when made a routine part of prenatal care, limits deliberate choice. Empirical research does not resolve this ethical debate with evidence both of women for whom PST enhances their (...) choices but also persistent evidence of recurrent problems between PST and women’s autonomous decision-making. While there have been attempts to remove challenges to reproductive choice, it has been argued that these challenges cannot be removed entirely. In this paper I provide a historical review of PST technologies’ development and in doing so provide a detailed insight into the root causes of this tension between the opposing sides of this debate. This historical account provides evidence that those who championed the early use of these technologies did so in order to achieve a number of wholly different goals other than women’s choice and empowerment. These different aims focus on scientific discovery and eugenic goals and, I argue, areirreconcilablewith women’s choice and empowerment. It thus may not be surprising that the resulting practice of PST continues to resist compatibility with women’s choice and empowerment. Ultimately, by understanding the historical foundations of PST we can more effectively assess how toreconcilewomen’s reproductive autonomy with routine prenatal screening. (shrink)

In the current debate about the pros and cons of routine (nonreligious) neonatal circumcision (RNC), the emphasis is on medical justifications for the practice. Questions of human rights also are widely discussed. However, even if the alleged medical benefits of RNC were to outweigh the harms and risks, this is not a sufficient justification for RNC. The practice of RNC is questionable from a variety of viewpoints including not only the ideal of evidence-based medicine and human rights considerations, but also (...) the notion of respect for bodily integrity. (shrink)

This qualitative cross-sectional survey, undertaken in the antenatal booking clinics of a hospital in central London, explores pregnant women’s responses to routine HIV testing, examines their reasons for declining or accepting the test, and assesses how far their responses fulfil standard criteria for informed consent. Of the 32 women interviewed, only 10 participants were prepared for HIV testing at their booking interview. None of the women viewed themselves as being particularly at risk for HIV infection. The minority of the participants (...) who declined testing differed from those who accepted, by interpreting test acceptance as risky behaviour, privileging the negative outcomes of HIV positivity and expressing an inability to cope with these, should they occur. Troublingly, only a minority of women had a broad understanding of the rationale for the test, and none fulfilled the standard criteria for informed consent. This study suggests that, although routine screening combined with professional recommendation may be successful in increasing uptake, this may be at the cost of eroding informed consent. Protecting third parties from a preventable disease may outweigh the moral duty of respecting autonomy, enshrined in Western bioethical tradition. Nevertheless, such a policy should be made transparent, debated in the public domain and negotiated with women seeking antenatal care. (shrink)

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently recommended that HIV screening should become routine for all adults in the United States. Implicit in the CDC proposal is the notion that pre-test counseling would be more limited than at present, and that written informed consent to screening would no longer be required. If widely implemented, routine testing would mark a tremendous shift in the US HIV screening strategy. There are a number of considerations used to determine what screening tests (...) should be routine, and HIV fits the bill in almost every regard. Yet the stigma associated with HIV infection remains, making the CDC's recommendation highly controversial. Will minimizing requirements for pre-test counseling and special written informed consent lead to unexpected or unwanted HIV testing, or do these stringent counseling and consent requirements needlessly scare people away? Will widespread and routine testing be associated with declining stigmatization, or will it drive some patients away from seeking desperately needed health care? These are high stakes questions, and we're about to find out the answers. (shrink)

Michel Weber, Éléments de routine ayurvédique. Autonomie, rituel et ascèse, Les Éditions Chromatika, 2021. (978-2-930517-82-7 ; pdf 978-2-930517-83-4 ; 104 pp., 14€) -/- L’Ayurvéda propose une philosophie de vie qui articule un vaste système métaphysique (une cosmologie théorique) avec une visée thérapeutique profonde (une anthropologie pratique). -/- À la croisée de la théorie et de la pratique, on trouve la routine (« dinacharya ») dont le but est de susciter l’individuation et la solidarité, c’est-à-dire l’autonomie (de chacun) respectueuse de la (...) communauté (de tous). Ce faisant, elle constitue une ascèse dont l’efficacité a été longuement éprouvée et rarement égalée. (shrink)

The religious justification for male circumcision proffered by Jewish and Islamic parents is frequently overlooked in current secular (medical/hygienic) discussions that (1) challenge the moral justification of this ancient practice, and (2) question the decisions of today's parents who are committed, on the basis of their religious beliefs, to continue this practice. This paper reviews critically these conflicting values and arguments and calls for compromise in the face of potential state intervention to coerce parents to abandon this practice. Keywords: disease (...) prevention, medicalization, mutilation, religious values, routine neonatal circumcision, therapeutic state CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

The chapter presents the prototyping of a thinking routine designed to foster good inference habits in children ages 6 to 11. The prototyping was developed at Ninho, an educational project for children from underprivileged households in Brazil. The thinking routines by Ritchhart and colleagues (2006) served as our starting point. Following a Virtue Education (VE) approach, we supposed that the repeated application would conduce to habituation. In addition, to increase peer-to-peer interactions, the teacher applying the routines worked as a facilitator (...) in a Community of Inquiry (CI). After six months of application, the results were partially successful. We identified that the repeated exposition to the magic question “What makes you say that?” made children more aware of the evidence supporting their assumptions. Furthermore, the interactions between peers made them recognize different perspectives. However, we also identified some shortcomings. Most of them seemed to arise from cognitive biases. At the individual level, belief perseverance kept children too attached to their first assumptions. They preferred self-serving rationalizations instead of accepting a counter-argument. At the group level, we identified problems of social contagion such as information cascades. The effects of a first opinion rhetorically voiced were hard to efface. Since none of the steps on the previous routines addressed these biases, we prototyped a routine to start filling this gap. Following Critical Thinking (CT) theorists, we added a step of structured instruction concerning one specific reasoning technique - the inference to the best explanation. Moreover, the recommendation of cognitive psychologists motivated the inclusion of some extra features to avoid groupthink biases. For instance, a visual table that juxtaposes contrasting arguments should facilitate comparative evaluations. Also, a star-based evaluation scale should help different individuals to discuss their assessments based on a common ground. As described in the end, the prototype with elements from VE, CI and CT presented promising results. (shrink)

: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has recommended that HIV testing be routinely offered to certain patients in hospitals with a high prevalence of HIV infection and on all pregnant women. The CDC does not, however, offer implementation level guidelines for obtaining informed consent. We provide a moral justification for requiring informed consent for HIV testing and propose guidelines for securing such consent. In particular we argue that genuine informed consent can be secured without elaborate counseling, such (...) as that currently used at Counseling and Testing Sites, provided that sufficient written notice is given to the patients before testing and that they are specifically asked for permission. (shrink)

The paper explores the topic of organizational routines from a philosophical vantage point to see how the philosophy of action may help improve its understanding in organizational research. The main goal is to show the distinctive complexity of the intentional picture of routines. In this respect, the paper clarifies the interrelations between psychological habits and routines and describes similarities and differences between them. It also highlights the special place of mindfulness as a psycho-cognitive mechanism of action meta-control in intentional explanations (...) of routine complexity. (shrink)

The paper focuses on knowledge generation, a topic frequently overlooked in the traditional debates in epistemology and philosophy of science. We focus on investigation as the primary process generating knowledge and its products. Investigation is taken as a generalization of the research process that includes similar knowledge-generating practices in aboriginal communities. To characterize the complexity of investigation processes and their products we go beyond traditional epistemological characterization of knowledge in terms of mental states and turn to the concept of routine. (...) Investigation processes share a common symbolic representation form which we call here a knowledge thread. The dynamics of the knowledge thread may be characterized by two intertwined tiers: cognitive and institutional. Using examples from our previous studies, especially on the recent discovery of microRNAs in molecular biology, we illustrate the dynamics of threads and claim that it is susceptible to the social network analysis which, however, requires insightful applications and sound interpretation of the results. Such an interpretation, as we suggest, may further be elaborated on the grounds of anthropological theories of distributed agency and distributed cognition. (shrink)

Repetition dynamically shaped important modes of thought and action in early modern British and European cultures. The centrality and often problematic ambiguity of repetition as they converge in ritual, routine, and regime, however, are rarely assessed accurately because repetition is often dismissed as quaintly primitive or embarrassingly visceral. Ritual, Routine, and Regime is a collection of essays that reveals varied meanings given to and created by repetition from a range of disciplinary perspectives. The contributors reveal repetition at work in evolving (...) definitions of the self and of the emotions, in political rhetoric used to assert a nation's history, in values ascribed to musical styles, in religious verse grounded in practices of prayer, in the aesthetics created by the poetry of work and by rhyme in general, in the recreation of British classics through French translations, and in the repeated but significantly varied sculpture of the portrait bust. Edited by Lorna Clymer, Ritual, Routine, and Regime juxtaposes early modern practices with twentieth- and twenty-first century theoretical accounts of the institutions of repetition. Providing a stimulating, new perspective on early modern culture, the collection describes repetition's often peculiar demands, its surprising gratifications, and its contested interpretations. (shrink)

This special issue of Science, Technology, & Human Values contains articles concerned with ethics in and around scientific practice. These articles ask how organizational routines both produce and diffuse concerns about the risks and benefits of scientific research and products, and why context remains elusive in formal ethical analysis. These cases are from diverse settings, with several touching on issues of economic inequality and participation in scientific research. Each article describes in some way how cultural and institutional configurations shape ethical (...) thinking and the distribution of goods and harms in science. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore the concept conduct of everyday life, namely routines and real life, as they are confronted with empirical observations. The observations are from a study of changes in the conduct of everyday life for individuals who attended a patient education course. The course was a part of their treatment after a hospitalisation with depression in a psychiatric ward. I use analysis of the main individual, Steven’s, conduct of everyday life and illustrate my points with models of (...) conduct of everyday life made using beads. The conceptualisation of conduct of everyday life is expanded through three points. Firstly, cyclic routines can matter and fulfill life, which can support the ongoing discussion about the concept conduct of everyday life. Secondly, I show that, from a first person perspective, what matters in conduct of everyday life is more complex than what is possible to grasp analytically through a dualistic opposition between cyclic everyday conduct and the particular meaningful conduct of everyday life. Thirdly, I expand on the notion of timeouts/breaks as solely something that lifts us out of mundane everyday life. I conclude that it makes a more comprehensive analysis to perceive all conduct of everyday life as having profound personal meaning and to analyse the individuals' concerns in relation to their social self-understanding and localisation at a certain time. (shrink)

The challenges of dealing with disclosure of HIV status cause frustration to health care providers and counselors. This frustration follows from the already known high risk to the third party on one hand and our ethical obligation to “respect persons” in terms of privacy and confidentiality on the other side. Given the stubbornly low rates of voluntary disclosure (partner notification) among couples, however, it is quite tempting to suggest a paradigm of routine third party disclosure to identifiable sexual partners by (...) health care providers. This might be the lesser of the two evils and might give better public health outcomes in the fight against HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa. (shrink)

Although we tend to associate social transformation with major events, historical turning points, or revolutionary upheaval, Revolutionary Routines argues that seemingly minor everyday habits are the key to meaningful change. Through its account of influential socio-political processes – such as the resurgence of fascism and white supremacy, the crafting of new technologies of governance, and the operation of digital media and algorithms – this book rethinks not only how change works, but also what counts as change. Drawing examples from the (...) affective politics of Trumpism and Brexit, nudge theory and behaviour change, social media and the international refugee crisis, and the networked activism of Occupy and Black Lives Matter, Carolyn Pedwell argues that minor gestures may be as significant as major happenings, revealing the powerful potential in our ability to remake shared habits and imaginatively reinhabit everyday life. Revolutionary Routines offers a new understanding of the logics of habit and the nature of social change, power, and progressive politics, illustrating diverse forms of consciousness and co-operation through which political solidarities might take shape. (shrink)

There is a debate over whether actions that resist devaluation are primarily habit- or goal-directed. The incentive habit account of compulsive actions has received support from behavioral paradigms and brain imaging. In addition, the self-reported Creature of Habit Scale has been proposed to capture inter-individual differences in habitual tendencies. It is subdivided into two dimensions: routine and automaticity. We first considered a French version of this questionnaire for validation, based on a sample of 386 undergraduates. The relationship between two dimensions (...) of habit and the risk of substance use disorder and impulsive personality traits was also investigated. COHS has good psychometric properties with both features of habits positively associated with an Obsessive-Compulsive Inventory score. Besides, the propensity to rely more on routines was associated with lower levels of alcohol abuse and nicotine use, suggesting that some degree of routine might act as a protective factor against substance use. In contrast, a high automaticity score was associated with an increased risk of harmful alcohol use. These results demonstrate that the COHS is a valid measure of habitual tendencies and represents a useful tool for capturing inter-individual variations in drug use problems in undergraduates. (shrink)

How can imperceptible knowledge such as professional routines in class immediacy be taught? How to express their main principles and their construction in formation? These routines create a sense of security among both students and teachers; it is a frame favouring successful classroom management. They come under the scope of integrated competencies, and this prompts their analysis in view of understanding a central link within initial professionalization. This paper will present the concept of professional routines as an educational practice in (...) regards to professional development, then the conceptual frame, the analytical method, some results followed by a discussion and conclusion. Comment enseigner un savoir imperceptible comme des routines professionnelles dans l’immédiateté de la classe? Comment dégager les principes organisateurs et leur construction en formation ? Pour une gestion de classe efficace, il est essentiel de recourir à des routines professionnelles. Elles soutiennent le sentiment de sécurité tant chez l’enseignant que chez les élèves. Elles relèvent de compétences incorporées, ce qui force à leur analyse pour une articulation phare dans une formation professionnalisante. Nous présenterons le concept des routines professionnelles comme un savoir-faire nécessaire au développement professionnel, le cadre conceptuel, la méthodologie, quelques résultats et la discussion suivie de la conclusion. (shrink)

In this paper I consider the routine moral burden of occupying a professional role and having to negotiate tensions between the normative expectations attached to that role and one's own personal moral compass. Using an example to introduce this central issue I then seek to explore it through a discussion of the tensions between, and spaces between, ‘identifying’ with one's role and ‘separating’ oneself from one's role. I suggest that ethical integrity at work is revealed through the successful negotiation of (...) these tensions, but that such negotiation depends upon the power and other resources available to individual professionals. Finally I argue that this discussion of ‘the ethics of role occupation’ has important implication for ‘the ethics of role construction’ and adds weight to concerns about the potential moral costs of managerialism. (shrink)

Animal health is a key factor affecting the economic efficiency of the dairy industry. Improvements in animal health are also of relevance to society more broadly, given important implications for animal welfare, food safety and quality. Although the economic gains of best practice with regard to animal health have been well documented, many farmers are not adopting optimal herd management techniques. This paper utilises nationally representative farm-level data from Ireland for 2013 to identify drivers and barriers to the adoption of (...) best practice with regard to on-farm mastitis management. Exploratory factor analysis is used to derive measures of farmers’ attitudes towards animal health and mastitis and econometric techniques are employed to empirically assess the influence of these on the uptake of beneficial herd health management practices. A number of focus groups were also undertaken to complement the analysis. This paper concludes that farmers’ attitudes towards animal health are not a key driver in the uptake of best practice, although perceived disease risk is of relevance. A number of interesting issues arise in identifying barriers to the uptake of best practice, these include the possibility of routine inertia, i.e., farmers do not deviate from the routine developed around mastitis prevention until there is an indication of infection, as well as constraints around the availability of labour and time. Farmer behaviour with respect to mastitis management can thus be considered as reactionary as opposed to precautionary. This research highlights the valuable role of the extension agent but concludes that engagement around knowledge transfer and technology adoption is particularly complex. (shrink)

What makes trust such a powerful concept? Is it merely that in trust the whole range of social forces that we know play together? Or is it that trust involves a peculiar element beyond those we can account for? While trust is an attractive and evocative concept that has gained increasing popularity across the social sciences, it remains elusive, its many facets and applications obscuring a clear overall vision of its essence. In this book, Guido Möllering reviews a broad range (...) of trust research and extracts three main perspectives adopted in the literature for understanding trust. Accordingly, trust is presented as a matter of reason, routine or reflexivity. While all these perspectives contribute something to our understanding of trust, Möllering shows that they imply, but cannot explain, ‘suspension’ – the leap of faith that is typical of trust. He therefore proposes a new direction in trust research that builds on existing perspectives but places the suspension of uncertainty and vulnerability at the heart of the concept of trust. Beyond a purely theoretical line of argument, the author discusses implications for empirical studies of trust and presents original case material that captures the experience of trust in terms of reason, routine, reflexivity and suspension. Möllering concludes by suggesting how the new approach can enhance the relevance of trust research and its contributions to broader research agendas concerning the constitution of positive expectations in the face of prevalent uncertainty and change at various levels in our economies and societies. The book is essential reading for anyone who wants to gain a thorough understanding of trust. It can serve as a general introduction for advanced students and scholars in the social sciences, especially in economics, sociology, psychology and management. For more experienced researchers, it is a challenging and provocative critique of the field and a new approach to understanding trust. (shrink)

The hypothesis that emotions influence our behavior via emotional action tendencies is at the core of many emotion theories. According to a strong version of this hypothesis, these emotional action tendencies are immediate, automatic (unintentional), stimulus-based and directly linked with specific muscle movements. Recent evidence, however, provides little empirical support for this strong version during routine behavior, especially when the task does not require the evaluation of the stimuli. The present study tested the prediction that surprise interrupts routine behavior and (...) triggers a threat avoidance response. In the presence of a threat-related stimulus, avoidance responses are relatively rapid, and approach responses impeded, even when the interrupted routine behavior is guided by a non-evaluative task goal. In contrast, approach and avoidance responses are predicted to be unaffected in the presence of a pleasant surprising stimulus. To test these predictions, in each trial the participants had to execute an approach or withdrawal movement depending on the location of a target stimulus. In the critical trial, either a picture of a pleasant or a threat-related animal was presented as target. Supporting the predictions, the initiation times for these movements were shorter in response to a threat-relevant than a pleasant surprising stimulus. Additionally, in the presence of a threat-related surprising stimulus, withdrawal movements were made faster than approach movements even though the participants performed a non-evaluative task. Implications and limitations of the present study are discussed. (shrink)

Routine testing is a practice whereby medical professionals ask all patients whether they would like an HIV test, regardless of whether there is anything unique to a given patient that suggests the presence of HIV. In three respects I aim to offer a fresh perspective on the debate about whether a developing country with a high rate of HIV infection morally ought to adopt routine testing. First, I present a neat framework that organises the moral issues at stake, bringing out (...) the basic principles involved and exhibiting their logical relationships. Second, appealing to the Kantian principle of respect for the dignity of persons, I offer a thorough justification for routine testing when it serves as a gateway to anti-retroviral treatment (ART). Third, I present a respect-based defence of the controversial and novel thesis that routine testing is morally justified even if ART is unaffordable or otherwise unavailable. (shrink)

In the UK, it has been proposed that alongside the current advice to abstain from alcohol completely in pregnancy, there should be increased screening of pregnant women for alcohol consumption in order to prevent instances of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. The Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network published guidelines in 2019 recommending that standardised screening questionnaires and associated use of biomarkers should be considered to identify alcohol exposure in pregnancy. This was followed in 2020 by the National Institute for Health and Care (...) Excellence Draft Quality Standard, which recommended that pregnant women should have information on their alcohol consumption recorded throughout their pregnancy and this information transferred to the child’s health records. Most recently, Public Health England has stated that the alcohol intake of all women should be recorded throughout pregnancy, not just at the initial booking appointment and that tools such as blood biomarkers and meconium testing should be researched in order to determine true prevalence rates of alcohol in pregnancy. We argue that this proposed enhanced screening undermines women’s autonomy and their legal right to be sufficiently informed to consent to screening. We argue that there is no evidence that this kind of screening will result in a reduction of fetal harm and there is a danger that undermining the autonomy of women and the trust relationship between women and healthcare professionals may even increase harm to future children. (shrink)

In this paper we comment on the changes in the provision of fertility care in Australia, New Zealand and the UK to illustrate how different funding arrangements of assisted reproductive technologies (ART) shape the delivery of patient care and the position of fertility nursing. We suggest that the routinisation of in vitro fertilisation technology has introduced a new way of managing the fertility patient at a distance, the distal fertility patient. This has resulted in new forms of organisational routines in (...) ART which challenge both traditional forms of nursing and advanced nursing roles. We discuss the consequences of this increasingly globalised approach to infertility through the lens of three national contexts, Australia, New Zealand and the UK to unpack the position of nursing within the new forms of organisational routines. (shrink)

This article develops and mobilises the concept of ‘mundane data’ as an analytical entry point for understanding Big Data. We call for in-depth investigation of the human experiences, routines, improvisations and accomplishments which implicate digital data in the flow of the everyday. We demonstrate the value of this approach through a discussion of our ethnographic research with self-tracking cycling commuters. We argue that such investigations are crucial in informing our understandings of how digital data become meaningful in mundane contexts of (...) everyday life for two reasons: first because there is a gap in our understanding of the contingencies and specificities through which big digital data sets are produced, and second because designers and policy makers often seek to make interventions for change in everyday contexts through the presentation of mundane data to consumers but with little understanding of how people produce, experience and engage with these data. (shrink)

Collections of living organisms are reservoirs of biological knowledge that operate across times and places. From the mid-20th century, scientific institutions dedicated to the cultivation of such collections have routinized and professionalized their care. But “care,” for these collections, is focused not just on individual organisms—instead, a principal aim of a curator is to maintain the integrity of a reproducing “strain,” “variety,” “line,” or “stock,” and the composition of a collection as a whole. This paper explores the forms, the material (...) dimensions, the temporalities, and the values of that care, to recover the conditions under which scientist-custodians maintain continuity of research over many decades. This paper does so by focusing on two rather different kinds of scientific collection: that of Drosophila fruit flies on the one hand, and plant seeds on the other. Their comparison is valuable because their vastly different needs and life cycles engender very different practices of care. Comparing the materialities, life cycles, needs, and values of these divergent collections helps to draw attention to the routine and the apparently mundane. First, the paper asks: what kinds of work go into managing such collections—that is, the day-to-day management and cultivation, surveillance, and administration of information? Second, it asks: how do these practices maintain the integrity of the strains and stocks, and the collections themselves? What kinds of value does this work create? Third, what are the future imaginaries that are rhetorically drawn into the funding strategies of these collections, and how do they envision future use, ownership, and control? (shrink)

Video recording is widely available in modern operating rooms. Here, I argue that, if patient consent and suitable technology are in place, video recording of surgery is an ethical duty. I develop this as aduty to protect,arguing for professional and institutional duties, as distinguished forduties of rescue.A professional duty to protect is described in mental healthcare. Practitioners have to take reasonable steps to prevent serious, foreseeable harm to their clients and others, even if that entails a non-consensual breach of confidentiality. (...) I argue surgeons have a similar duty to patients which means that, provided the patient consents, surgery should be routinely videoed. This avoids non-consensual breaches of patient confidentiality and is aligned with stated professional obligations.An institutional duty to protect means institutions have to take reasonable steps to prevent serious, foreseeable harm at the hands of their surgeons. Rulli and Millum highlighted how institutions can meet their duty using a more consequentialist approach that balances wider interests.To test the force and scope of such duties, I examine potential impacts of routine videoing on aspects of autonomy, justice, beneficence and non-maleficence. I find routine videoing can benefit areas including safety, candour, consent and fairness in access (to surgical careers and expertise). Countervailing claims, for example, on liability, confidentiality and privacy can be resisted—such that where consent and the technology are in place, routine videoing meets aduty of easy protection. In other words, its use should be standard of care. (shrink)

In workplace settings, skilled participants cooperate on the basis of shared routines in smooth and often implicit ways. Our study shows how interactional histories provide the basis for routine coordination. We draw on theater rehearsals as a perspicuous setting for tracking interactional histories. In theater rehearsals, the process of building performing routines is in focus. Our study builds on collections of consecutive performances of the same instructional task coming from a corpus of video-recordings of 30 h of theater rehearsals of (...) professional actors in German. Over time, instructions and their implementations are routinely coordinated by virtue of accumulated shared interactional experience: Instructions become shorter, the timing of responses becomes increasingly compacted and long negotiations are reduced to a two-part sequence of instruction and implementation. Overall, a routine of how to perform the scene emerges. Over interactional histories, patterns of projection of next actions emanating from instructions become reliable and can be used by respondents as sources for anticipating and performing relevant next actions. The study contributes to our understanding of how shared knowledge and routines accumulate over shared interactional experiences in publicly performed and reciprocally perceived ways and how this impinges on the efficiency of joint action. (shrink)

This article develops the concept of experiential careers, drawing theoretical attention to the routinization and de-routinization of specific experiences as they unfold over social career trajectories. Based on interviews and ethnographic fieldwork in two religious communities, we compare the social-temporal patterning of religious experience among newly religious Orthodox Jews and converted Muslims in two cities in the United States. In both cases, we find that as newly religious people work to transform their previous bodily habits and take on (...) newly prescribed religious acts, the beginning of their religious careers becomes marked by what practitioners describe as potent religious experiences in situations of religious practice. However, over time, these once novel practices become routinized and religious experiences in these situations diminish, thus provoking actors and institutions in both fields to work to re-enchant religious life. Through this ethnographic comparison, we demonstrate the utility of focusing on experiential careers as a sociological unit of analysis. Doing so allows sociologists to use a non-reductive phenomenological approach to chart the shifting manifestations of experiences people deeply care about, along with the patterned enchantments, disenchantments, and possible re-enchantments these social careers entail. As such, this approach contributes to the analysis of social careers and experiences of “becoming” across both religious and non-religious domains. (shrink)

Research risks have to meet minimal risk requirements in order for the research to qualify for expedited ethics review, to be exempted from ethics review, or to be granted consent waivers. The definition of “minimal risk” in the Common Rule (45 CFR 46) relies on the risks-of-daily-life and risks-of-routine-tests as comparators against which research activities are assessed to meet minimal risk requirements. While either or both comparators have been adopted by major ethics codes, they have also been criticized. In response (...) to criticisms, elaborations, and alternative comparators have been proposed. In this paper, I approach the search for workable comparators from the point of view that ethical reasoning about minimal risk involves analogical reasoning using comparators. In this regard, I develop two necessary conditions for an adequate minimal risk conception, which I use to assess three comparators. I conclude that the risks-of-routine-tests best fits the analogical reasoning operating in minimal risk assessments. (shrink)

Ethical problems with stakeholder relationships sometimes occur because organizational members are operating out of narrowly scripted organizational routines that do not include an explicit ethical component. In this article we describe methods of single-loop, double-loop, and triple-loop action learning that aim at helping organizational members develop understandings that incorporate conscious ethical considerations in stakeholder relationships. We describe the extent to which these methods achieve "second-order" change in the direction of ethical stakeholder relationships, give examples of the use of each of (...) the methods, and we consider their strengths and limitations for achieving the desired change. (shrink)

At the end of 2015, the German parliament passed a new law, entitled "Business-like Suicide Assistance", that effectively ended a rather liberal legal take on assisted suicide in Germany. §217 of the German Criminal Code was based on a proposal drafted by members of the parliament Michael Brand, Kerstin Griese, et all., The drafters’ goal was to prohibit Right-to-Die organisations such as Sterbehilfe Deutschland e.V. as well as repeatedly acting individuals from assisting people in ending their lives. The goal of (...) this article is to outline the new law in broad brushstrokes and raise some concerns. (shrink)