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

科学家们已经证明，在美国，水力压裂开采页岩油气会使工人暴露在不安全水平的可吸入结晶二氧化硅中，这种粉尘会导致虚弱和致命的肺部疾病，引发人们对工人健康和这个不断扩张的行业的劳动程序的质疑。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看法的因素。这项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对这种职业健康危害的看法，这是他们工作的特点，目的是检查它与拟议的联邦法规如何交叉，后者将限制接触二氧化硅。这项研究为不断发展的页岩气学术提供了一个新的视角，到目前为止，页岩气学术强调的是对社区经济和环境影响的看法。此外，它还推动了卫生地理方面的努力，以审查调解健康观念的性别和地理过程。拟议的限制职业接触结晶二氧化硅的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、行业、社区组织和有组织的劳工中的利益相关者合作得出的及时分析，并将产生与水力压裂操作中结晶二氧化硅相关的报告、培训和认识材料。该项目使用女权主义和健康地理学开发的理论工具分析形成工人对页岩气行业二氧化硅暴露的健康感知的过程，以评估当前的监管建议。它旨在了解有关工人接触二氧化硅的监管和行业论述如何影响工人如何感知二氧化硅暴露和缓解，劳动过程如何影响工人如何感知二氧化硅暴露和缓解，最后，工作之外的社会关系，特别是家庭关系，如何影响工人感知二氧化硅暴露和缓解。这项研究主要在马塞卢斯页岩地区的钻探活动中心宾夕法尼亚州威廉斯波特进行，除了机构分析和参与者观察外，还将通过对工人、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，这些研究已经确定了建立安全和健康工作场所做法的监管努力、对工作场所健康和安全的正常化文化态度以及从事采掘工作的工人感受到的压力和义务之间的矛盾。该项目采取的女权主义方法论方法推进了定性研究，特别是人种学研究，因为其对日常经验的关注使其准备好审查结构规范和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.