The Materiality of Health & Safety: The origins and symbolism of high-visibility work clothing

健康的重要性

• 批准号: 2606137
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of York
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2021 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2606137
• 关键词: Materiality; Health; Safety; origins; symbolism

This innovative PhD project will investigate the origins, development, and contemporary use of high-visibility work clothing (hi-vis) and other personal protective equipment (PPE) as both protective and symbolic material culture. Originally developed for Scottish railway workers in the 1960s, hi-vis has since gone through radical technological changes, been adopted by many sectors, and has acquired an extremely rich and varied range of symbolic meaning. This symbolic meaning can vary between sectors (railway workers wearing orange whilst construction crews wear yellow) and on multiple scales (colour of helmets signifying job rank on site), but has also been adopted beyond its initial use for health and safety by different social classes and as a form of solidarity in protests such as those in France and Hong Kong. While we anticipate that the primary focus of the project will be on the origins, development and current application of PPE, the subject parameters can correspond to the successful candidate's existing expertise, so as they remain within the purview of collections at the National Railway Museum (NRM).I will investigate questions such as:1.What historical factors led to the development of high-visibility clothing? What considerations and restrictions have shaped this design? What innovations contributed to its current widespread use?2. Which sectors have worn/are wearing hi-vis and, generally, how does it vary in terms of colour, form etc across these sectors?3. How do questions of class, gender and race inform the deployment of hi-vis clothing, both from a health and safety perspective and in its symbolic usage?4. What is the public perception of hi-vis clothing? What can we infer about social relationships from people's understanding of hi-vis?5. What is the future of hi-vis clothing, in the public and private sectors? Does its growing ubiquity render people wearing hi-vis invisible?There has been little direct work on the history of hi-vis equipment but I will be able to position myself within a number of exciting, emerging fields of research across several disciplines, including gender, class, and race in the contemporary workplace, the history of health and safety, and contemporary archaeology. This project is innovative in looking at contemporary material culture through an interdisciplinary lens, traversing approaches and evidence drawn from diverse disciplines such as history, science and technology studies, anthropology, material culture studies, contemporary archaeology, and museology. Through examining the archives and collections at the NRM I will trace the technological lineages and social implications of PPE. I will investigate multiple lines of evidence drawn from an existing assemblage of artefacts and examine them in the context of identity and current political movements.

这个创新的博士项目将研究高可见度工作服（hi-vis）和其他个人防护装备（PPE）作为防护和象征性物质文化的起源、发展和当代使用。hi-vis最初是在20世纪60年代为苏格兰铁路工人开发的，此后经历了彻底的技术变革，被许多部门采用，并获得了极其丰富多样的象征意义。虽然我们预计项目的主要重点将放在PPE的起源、发展和当前应用上，但主题参数可以与成功的候选人现有的专业知识相对应，因此它们仍在国家铁路博物馆（NRM）的收藏范围内。我将调查如下问题：1。哪些历史因素导致了高知名度服装的发展？什么样的考虑和限制塑造了这个设计？什么创新促成了它目前的广泛使用？哪些部门已经或正在穿hi-vis，一般来说，这些部门在颜色、形式等方面有什么不同？阶级、性别和种族的问题如何从健康和安全的角度以及其象征意义上影响高能见度服装的部署？公众对高能见度服装的看法是什么？从人们对hi-vis的理解中，我们可以推断出社会关系的什么？在公共和私营部门，高能见度服装的未来是什么？它的日益普及是否会让戴着hi-vis的人隐形？很少有关于高可视设备历史的直接工作，但我将能够将自己定位在一些令人兴奋的新兴研究领域，包括当代工作场所的性别、阶级和种族、健康和安全的历史以及当代考古学。该项目具有创新性，通过跨学科的视角审视当代物质文化，从历史学、科学技术研究、人类学、物质文化研究、当代考古学和博物馆学等不同学科中汲取方法和证据。通过检查NRM的档案和收藏，我将追踪PPE的技术血统和社会影响。我将调查从现有的人工制品组合中提取的多条证据线，并在身份和当前政治运动的背景下检查它们。