TY - JOUR AU - Räsänen, Keijo PY - 2015/11/01 Y2 - 2024/03/29 TI - Fire and Water combined: Understanding the Relevance of Working Life Studies through a Concept of Practical Activity JF - Nordic Journal of Working Life Studies JA - NJWLS VL - 5 IS - 0 SE - Articles DO - 10.19154/njwls.v5i3a.4833 UR - https://tidsskrift.dk/njwls/article/view/26642 SP - 47-62 AB - When I presented the basic ideas of this paper at a conference, a Swedish colleague commented: ‘you manage to combine water and fire.’ I understood his kind comment to mean that he used water and fire as metaphors for practice and theory. The comment puzzled me for a while. Water and fire obviously destroy each other, or at least radically transform each other. Then I realized that humans have actually managed to combine water and fire in several ways. One solution is the kettle. It makes possible to use fire in a controlled way for the human purpose of boiling water. Thus, this paper can be taken as an attempt at offering a kettle-like vehicle for bringing together practicetheoretical concepts and vocational practice. My kettle is a concept of practical activity. I am trying to boil up an answer to the following question: in what senses a study of work can be practically relevant to those who are doing the work being studied? ER -