Doctoral Dissertation Research: Workers' Perceptions of Health-Risk Exposure in an Extractive Industry

科学家们已经证明，在美国开采页岩油和天然气的水力压裂法可能会使工人暴露在不安全的可吸入结晶二氧化硅水平下，这种粉尘可能导致衰弱和致命的肺部疾病，从而引发对工人健康和这个不断扩大的行业的劳动过程的质疑。该项目研究了随着监管变化的展开，影响工人对二氧化硅暴露的看法的因素。该研究分析了页岩能源工人在性别社会关系和时空灵活性的背景下感知这种职业健康危害的方式，这些都是他们工作的特点，以研究它如何与拟议的联邦法规交叉，限制接触二氧化硅。这项研究为日益增长的页岩气奖学金提供了一个新的视角，迄今为止，页岩气奖学金一直强调对社区经济和环境影响的看法。此外，它推进健康地理学的努力，以检查性别和地理过程调解健康的看法。限制职业接触结晶二氧化硅的拟议法规将影响从事水力压裂的公司和工人;因此，这项研究将提供与政府、工业、社区组织和劳工组织的利益相关者合作得出的及时分析，并将产生报告，以及与水力压裂操作中的结晶二氧化硅相关的培训和认识材料。该项目分析了塑造工人在页岩气行业的二氧化硅暴露的健康认知，使用女权主义和健康地理学开发的理论工具，以评估当前的监管建议。它的目的是了解有关工人的二氧化硅暴露的监管和行业话语如何影响工人如何感知二氧化硅暴露和实践缓解，劳动过程如何影响工人如何感知二氧化硅暴露和实践缓解，最后，工作之外的社会关系，特别是家庭关系，如何影响工人如何感知二氧化硅暴露和实践缓解。这项研究主要在宾夕法尼亚州的威廉斯波特进行，这是马塞勒斯页岩地区钻井活动的中心，除了机构分析和参与者观察外，还将通过与工人、家庭成员、政府和行业代表的半结构化访谈来完成。这些方法将建立在初步研究的基础上，初步研究发现，在建立安全和健康工作场所做法的监管努力、关于工作场所健康和安全的正常文化态度以及从事采掘工作的工人所感受到的压力和义务之间存在矛盾。该项目采用的女权主义方法论推进了定性研究，特别是人种学研究，因为其对日常经验的关注使其准备研究结构规范与个人身份之间的矛盾，在某些情况下，这些矛盾会给个人带来更大的风险。

Scientists have shown that hydraulic fracturing to extract shale oil and gas in the United States can expose workers to unsafe levels of respirable crystalline silica, a dust that can cause debilitating and deadly lung diseases, raising questions about workers' health and the labor process in this expanding industry. This project examines factors shaping workers' perceptions of their silica exposure as regulatory change unfolds. The study analyzes the ways shale energy workers perceive this occupational health hazard in the context of the gendered social relations and spatio-temporal flexibility that characterizes their work to examine how it intersects with proposed federal regulation that would limit exposure to silica. This study contributes a new perspective to the growing shale gas scholarship, which to date has emphasized perceptions of community economic and environmental impacts. Further, it advances efforts within health geography to examine gendered and geographic processes mediating perceptions of health. Proposed regulations to limit occupational exposure to crystalline silica will impact companies and workers engaged in hydraulic fracturing; thus, this study will provide timely analysis derived collaboratively with stakeholders in government, industry, community organizations, and organized labor and will result in reports, and training and awareness materials related to crystalline silica in hydraulic fracturing operations.This project analyzes processes that shape workers' health perception of silica exposure in the shale gas industry using theoretical tools developed in feminist and health geography to evaluate current regulatory proposals. It aims to understand how regulatory and industry discourses about workers' silica exposure affect how workers perceive silica exposure and practice mitigation, how the labor process affects how workers perceive silica exposure and practice mitigation and finally, how social relations outside of work, in particular those of the family, affect how workers perceive silica exposure and practice mitigation. Conducted primarily from Williamsport, Pennsylvania, a hub of drilling activity in the Marcellus Shale region, this research will be completed through semi-structured interviews with workers, family members, and government and industry representatives, in addition to institutional analysis, and participant observation. These methods will build upon preliminary research that has identified contradictions among regulatory efforts to establish safe and healthy workplace practices, normalized cultural attitudes about workplace health and safety, and the pressures and obligations felt by workers engaged in extractive work. The feminist methodological approach taken by this project advances qualitative, and specifically ethnographic research, as its focus on everyday experience makes it poised to examine contradictions between structural norms and individuals' identities that, in some instances, produce greater risk to individuals.