Revealing violence in the structure of sociotechnical systems theory: The Historiography of the Tavistock Institute’s ‘Ahmedabad Experiment’
通过档案研究，揭示塔维斯托克研究所的‘艾哈迈达巴德实验’在推广社会技术系统理论时，如何通过抹除低种姓工人需求和压制工会实现成功，暴露了组织中的结构性暴力。
This article revisits the Tavistock Institute of Human Relation’s (TIHR) contribution to the field of Organisation Studies (OS) in the post-World War II era: Sociotechnical Systems (STS) Theory. Although the concept ‘sociotechnical’ was born out of TIHR’s coal mine studies in Britain in the post-War era, the empirical focus for this paper is the ‘Ahmedabad Experiment’—TIHR’s consultancy work in the weaving sheds of Calico Mills in India (1953–1963) through which STS theory was universalised. A radical theory of the times, it made possible democratic choice in work organisation around new technology. Yet, through archival research looking at social and political contexts the article reveals violence in the process of universalisation of the theory. The success of the experiment was achieved through the erasure of the needs and voices of the lowest caste workers who did the ‘dirty work’ of spinning, and the silencing of the Labour Union. The purpose of this research is twofold. First, it contributes to the revision of the history of soft management and shows that violence is constitutive of organising. It reveals how structural, symbolic and epistemic forms of violence shaped STS theory’s universalisation process. Second, it outlines an archival methodology as an endeavour in making OS research more historical, contextual and ethical. An alternative understanding away from the privileged received accounts of STS theory that evolves out of use of this methodology is presented.