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Posted Mon, 29 Sep 2003 20:41:47
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British Sociological Association London Medical Sociology Meeting
Venue: King's College London, Room 1.16, Franklin Wilkins Building, Stamford
Street, London SE1 8WA.
Nearest tube and rail: Waterloo
8th OCTOBER 2003 6pm
'Happy, healthy and here'. Constructing responsibility for
employee health. Russell Jackson Sheffield Hallam University
Academics have recently brought a Foucauldian analysis to bear on the field
of employee health, but there is an absence of empirical research grounded in
employee accounts. This talk draws on a recently completed thesis, in which
qualitative research methods and forms of Discourse Analysis are utilised from
within a predominantly Foucauldian perspective, in order to explore the
relations between the perceived shift toward an underlying neoliberalist political
rationality and emerging forms of (health) regulation. Neoliberalism is concerned
to reform the conduct of individuals and institutions, to make them more
competitive and productive.
Research proceeds through analysis of a key cultural technology, the
'Revitalising Health Safety Strategy Statement', and two case studies, Consignia and a
small web-design company, The Byte. The state, through the Revitalising
Health and Safety Strategy Statement, makes a subject position available for
employees characterised by motivation, responsibility and productivity, that is
'happy, healthy and here'. An appeal is made to freedom: companies, groups and
individuals are positioned as autonomous and responsible agents. Active
participation in health and safety establishes local sites of self government that can
be indirectly managed by the technologies of numericisation and performance.
The concept of responsibility is used strategically as a powerful persuasive
trope, designed to change - or maintain - certain behaviours. At both
Consignia and The Byte, employees continue to subjectively experience health problems
that they understand to be caused by work. Under contemporary
problematisations they are positioned as (ir)responsible for failing to take adequate measures
to protect themselves.
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