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

Abstract

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.

Bringing the Polluters Back In

“…Likewise, the second recipe comports with Pastor and colleagues’ (2001) findings on residential turnover, suggesting that ethnic churning creates situations in which businesses can more easily externalize their pollution. The third recipe mirrors the results of Cable and colleagues (2008), and especially Rosner and Markovitz (2002), that power imbalances in the form of large, absentee-managed branches put African American neighborhoods at risk regardless of neighborhood income levels. Finally, the fourth recipe is reminiscent of the scenario described by Pulido (2000) and Auyero and Swistun (2008), suggesting that poor Latino migrants may be exposed to toxins (see also Skolnick 1995) in part because facilities’ distant headquarters engender ambiguous information about who is ultimately to blame for environmental harms.…”

Sustainability and Ecological Civilization in the Age of Anthropocene: An Epistemological Analysis of the Psychosocial and “Culturalist” Interpretations of Global Environmental Risks

“…If social-ecological risks can be said to be by-products of an unsustainable mode of wealth production ("wealth production within a 'risk society' typically depends on production technologies that expose citizens to dangerous substances" [57]), it is because the inequality of the distribution of economic capital ("just 62 individuals had the same wealth as 3.6 billion people-the bottom half of humanity" [58]) is related to the inequality in the consumption of natural capital: as demonstrated by Assadourian, the richest 7% of the population are responsible for 50% of CO 2 emissions while the poorest 50% are responsible for 6% of them [59]. Furthermore, since the exploitation of resources benefits the most those who are more in the capacity to avoid its direct adverse consequences while, reversely, "the worst human effects of ecological plunder and degradation are often imposed on the poorest, most socially marginalized sections of the working class" [60], then environmental risks are closely related to the social-economic relations that frame our perceptions.…”

Review of "Invisible Nature," by Kenneth Worthy

“…While Worthy does not expand on the social organizations, forces, and barriers that prevent this news from becoming public knowledge, he does begin to highlight dynamics that other environmental sociologists address. By exposing these contested illnesses, it is possible to reveal social inequalities, power differentials, economic structures, and organizational dynamics that benefit the dominant economic system (Cable, Shriver, and Mix 2008).…”