Manchester University Working Papers
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Опубликовано на портале: 10-01-2003
Tom Dwyer
Manchester University Working Papers.
2003.
Sociology now finds itself in a position where it can make major contributions to
the analysis of the production and control of risks.
The breakdown of the Great Western Paradigm founded by Descartes has led to the
development of new theories in many areas of knowledge. This paper seeks to locate
the space that might be available for sociological theory in the development of the
reconstruction of knowledge about industrial safety and health.
At the macro level some recent work on risk by Giddens and Beck will be reviewed.
These authors virtually ignore most sociological work carried out on the actual production,
which occurs in workplaces, of the very risks that lead Beck to talk of risk society.
Much sociological work has been carried out within three traditions: functionalist,
Marxist and phenomenological. Work carried out in each of these traditions makes
different types of contributions to understanding the production of risks. No single
perspective has achieved dominance.
Form within the walls of the disciplines that have traditionally dealt with the
control of risks: safety engineering, industrial medicine, psychology and ergonomics,
new approaches to the analysis and control of risks are sought, some talk of the
necessity for a new paradigm. Here much reflection points towards the development
of understandings of work and people at work that are compatible with the phenomenological
tradition and the sociology of work.
Sociology now finds itself in a position where it can make important contributions
to the analysis of the production and control of risks. Three particular areas are
identified: the diagnosis of cause, the development of a clinical role and, in a
more speculative vein, a theoretically and methodologically sophisticated sociology
of risk may result in the development of predictive models.
Thus interesting prospects for theory development and, probably, new job markets
for sociology graduates are opened up.
Introduction
Sociology now finds itself in a position where it can make major contributions to
the analysis of the production and control of risks. Fundamental in this area have
been a series of notions from the sociology of work, they play important roles in
diagnosing cause, and in the future they promise to play a clinical role complementing
that of technicians and, who knows, if the science comes right sociologists may be
tempted to develop predictive models.
This perspective opens up very interesting prospects for theory development and,
probably, a promising job market for sociology graduates.
