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Publicatie Laka-bibliotheek:
Risk society and contested illness: The case of nuclear weapons workers (2008)

Auteur	S.Cable, T.Shriver, T.Mix
Datum	juni 2008
Classificatie	6.01.4.55/19 (STRALING - GEVOLGEN - WERKNEMERS/STERS)
Voorkant

Risk Society and Contested Illness:
The Case of Nuclear Weapons Workers

Wealth production within a "risk society" typically depends on production
technologies that expose citizens to dangerous substances. Knowledge of such
exposure is, more often than not, hidden from the public. Empirical analyses show
that citizens' claims of illnesses caused by risky exposures are frequently contested
by the institutions that select production technologies and control information: the
government, corporations, and physicians. In this article, we use the risk society
thesis as a framework for addressing gaps in the environmental illness literature-
specifically, the basis for authorities' contestations of illness claims for which the
exposure-illness link is scientifically confirmed. Using case methods, including in-
depth interviews with 124 citizens, analyses center on the contested illness claims
of nuclear weapons workers at the federal Oak Ridge Nuclear Reservation. Results
highlight how institutional and organizational resources provided authorities with
tactical leverage, and allowed them to manufacture an ambiguous climate for public
discourse. This discourse focused on the exposure-illness link for a particular
individual and their specific symptoms rather than the established exposure-illness
links in general. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for
analyses of environmental exposure specifically, but also the seemingly contradictory
tension between the risk society s need to restrict information to experts and
democracy's need for open discourse.

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