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- Title
Social Control and Contested Environmental Illness: The Repression of III Nuclear Weapons Workers.
- Authors
Mix, Tamara L.; Cable, Sherry; Shriver, Thomas E.
- Abstract
Using in-depth interviews, participant observation, and document analysis, we examine obstacles faced by a group of nuclear workers organizing to challenge the Oak Ridge Nuclear Reservation and the Department of Energy (DOE) over health grievances. The Coalition for a Healthy Environment (CHE) is comprised of ill employees, formed after workers from the nuclear facility realized a pattern of denial and resistance to their health concerns. We highlight environmental problems in Oak Ridge and share respondents' narratives regarding the use of social control to limit mobilization. We focus on hard and soft forms of social control utilized by DOE/corporate management, physicians, and co-workers, conceptualizing repression on a continuum representing severity of harm. Social control tactics included on-the-job harassment in the form of task reassignment and layoffs, monitoring, lack of diagnosis and treatment, stigmatization, and ostracism. We also analyze how social control impacts CHE's recruitment, tactics, and mobilization of resources and discuss implications for future research on ill workers and social control.
- Subjects
OAK Ridge (Tenn.); TENNESSEE; NUCLEAR industry personnel; INDUSTRIAL hygiene; PERSONNEL management; SOCIAL control; ENVIRONMENTALLY induced diseases; ENVIRONMENTAL health; NUCLEAR weapons plants &; the environment; NUCLEAR energy &; the environment
- Publication
Human Ecology Review, 2009, Vol 16, Issue 2, p172
- ISSN
1074-4827
- Publication type
Article