We had a lovely group from all over the globe (Australia, USA, Brazil, NZ, Austria, Portugal, Italy etc) join together this week to discuss and learn about Poetics.

The study of Poetics is about developing skills in language and being sensitised to language. We started by defining Poetics and why it matters to risk.

We then explored some mapping about Poetics because in Poetics, its not just about text but the relationship of all text to personhood. You won’t find any discussion of personhood anywhere in safety.

The map of Poetics we first use, shows the four distinct strands of what Poetics is about.

This map helps direct us to the ways in which text is used to make meaning and the ways in which text affects us in the ways we organise. None of this is discussed anywhere in the risk and safety industry.

The Use of Text

Yet, the use of text and the way text is used in risk and safety determines what we think risk and safety is. The language of ‘controls’, creates systems of control. The language of ‘hazards’ create a focus on objects.

 So much of what consumes safety is evident in the language it uses.

 You can throw about brands like ‘new’, ‘revolution’, ‘different’ or ‘innovation’ but the underlying discourse is about: systems, organisational performance, safety, injury rates, ‘factors’ and engineering.

 Unless the methodology (philosophy) is different, the methods will also be the same, just traditional safety. So, on Monday, its back to the same old risk assessment methods, systems-focus, brain-centrism and power-focused discourse. Indeed, the symbolism is the same: linear, brain-centric and mechanical.

 Without a clearly defined ethic beyond traditional deontology, all the branding in the world makes no difference to practice the next day.

Slogans are neither ‘principles’ or method. Aspirations are not methods.

 A Focus on Non-Measureables

 In the workshop we also discussed critical aspects of the Poetics of Risk as seen in the following map.

Everything you see mapped is: interconnected, inter-affected and inter-corporeal in the way people live and exercise social being.

 Risk and safety cannot be separated off from any of this as if Safety is some unique silo in human living.

 None of this is discussed anywhere in the risk and safety industry.

 Indeed, just listen to the podcasts, audit the language at safety conferences or the language in safety marketing and see/hear the agenda. What is it about? It’s about all the stuff Safety has been pre-occupied with for decades: systems, organisational performance, safety, injury rates, ‘factors’ and engineering. All packaged up in the same old ethic and methodology with a few different slogans.

From Poetics to Doing in Risk

In Poetics, we learn to deconstruct not just the language of safety but the implications of safety language for method.

The big question for Safety, after the conference is over, the entertainment dies down, the noise abates, the podcast ends and the stories are forgotten is: what do I do now?

In Poetics, we don’t just deconstruct language but we develop a new language and new ethic with a focus on new methods to tackle risk. We don’t talk about ‘fixing’ but ‘tackling’, we don’t talk about ‘controls’ but ‘influences’ and this changes the way we understand and do risk.

In SPoR, the methods then are also Poetic, focusing on what can’t be measured and much more on what can’t be counted. In SPoR, we know that the most important aspects of life and living can’t be counted. They can only be felt and experienced. In SPoR, we move from the brain-as-computer to the power of embodied knowing.

In SPoR, we use methods that help focus on what has been mapped in Poetics. We use methods that help make the unconscious/conscious and, bring into focus the nature of the human person and an ethic that serves persons not systems. In SPoR, we bring into balance the emphasis on persons rather than systems (https://safetyrisk.net/full-steam-ahead-in-safety/).

If you want to learn more about how all this works, you can email here: admin@spor.com.au