The Subjectivities and Politics of Occupational Risk

The Subjectivities and Politics of Occupational Risk links restructuring in three industries to shifts in risk subjectivities and politics, both within workplaces and within the safety management and regulative spheres, often leading to conflict and changes in law, political discourses and management approaches.
The state and corporate governance emphasis on worker participation and worker rights, internal responsibility, and self-regulative technologies are understood as corporate and state efforts to reconstruct control and responsibility for Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) risks within the context of a globalized neoliberal economy. Part 1 presents a conceptual framework for understanding the subjective bases of worker responses to health and safety hazards using Bourdieu's concept of habitus and the sociology of risk concepts of trust and uncertainty. Part 2 demonstrates the restructuring arguments using three different industry case studies of multiple mines, farms and auto parts plants.
The final chapter draws out the implications of the evidence and theory for social change and presents several recommendations for a more worker-centred politics of health and safety. The book will appeal to social scientists interested in health and safety, work, employment relations and labour law, as well as worker advocates and activists.

Alan R. Hall is a North Carolina columnist and theater critic who has plied his trade for over thirty years. He is also a published poet, essayist, short story author as well as a theater enthusiast. Mr. Hall is a graduate of Augusta State University of Georgia and studied literature for performance at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. He has won numerous awards for criticism from the North Carolina Press Association. This is his first full-length novel. Alan has lived in Chapel Hill since 1974. Always a lover of books, he began his career as a bookseller before switching gears and going to work for the University of North Carolina's Law Library. He went on to become Technical Librarian for the Central Carolina Bank (now Suntrust). He considers himself fortunate to be able to "call North Carolina Home."

1. Introduction and Research Methods Part 1: Risk Subjectivities and Practices 2. Identifying Hazards and Judging Risk 3. Taking Risks or Taking a Stand: Interests, Power and Identity Part 2: Case Studies of Health and Safety in Hard Rock Mining, Family Farming and Auto Parts Manufacturing 4. Transforming the Mining Labour Process: Transforming Risk and its Social Construction 5. Reconstructing Miner Consent: Management Objectives and Strategies 6. The Transformation and Fragmentation of Canadian Agriculture 7. Health and Safety in Farming 8. The Transformation of Production and Health and Safety in Auto Parts Manufacturing. 9. Participation and Control in a Non-Union Auto Parts Firm 10. Conclusion and Implications for Change