TY - JOUR
T1 - 'Risks', 'hazards' and life choices
T2 - Reflections on health at work
AU - Fox, Nick
PY - 1998/11/1
Y1 - 1998/11/1
N2 - The workplace has been extensively and variously evaluated as an environment which - like others - contains risks to health. This paper unpacks such risk assessment by problematising the relation between hazards and risks. Three positions are set out. In the first (materialist or realist), risks map directly onto underlying real hazards. In the second (constructionist or culturalist), hazards are natural, while risks are social constructions. In the final (postmodern) position, both risks and hazards are seen as constructions. The paper goes on to consider the implications of the latter position for assessment of risks in the workplace, arguing that risks are often discounted in the on-going choices made by people who do some things called 'work' and evaluate their continuity of sense-of-self as their 'health'.
AB - The workplace has been extensively and variously evaluated as an environment which - like others - contains risks to health. This paper unpacks such risk assessment by problematising the relation between hazards and risks. Three positions are set out. In the first (materialist or realist), risks map directly onto underlying real hazards. In the second (constructionist or culturalist), hazards are natural, while risks are social constructions. In the final (postmodern) position, both risks and hazards are seen as constructions. The paper goes on to consider the implications of the latter position for assessment of risks in the workplace, arguing that risks are often discounted in the on-going choices made by people who do some things called 'work' and evaluate their continuity of sense-of-self as their 'health'.
KW - Hazards
KW - Health
KW - Risk
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=0039984527&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/0038038598032004003
DO - 10.1177/0038038598032004003
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:0039984527
VL - 32
SP - 665
EP - 687
JO - Sociology
JF - Sociology
SN - 0038-0385
IS - 4
ER -