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Occupational health: issues and actors (XVIIIth – XXth centuries), WEHC, Utrecht 2009 |
Occupational health: issues and actors (XVIIIe – XXe centuries), XVth World Economic History Congress, Utrecht, August 7, 2009
This session deals with the history of occupational health since the XVIIIth
century, and particularly with categories used to define, regulate or change
workers' health conditions (disability, prevention, repair...). The emergence
and use of these categories need to be related to the economical and social
context, to the different types of labour organization and to the various
patterns of social welfare. We will focus on the way categories are determined
and used; these questions will be explored through the analysis of actors and
social institutions that administer the law (administrations, factory
inspectors, insurance companies, occupational medical officers, courts...). We
will explore mobilizations and strategies developed by firms and trade unions,
experts or scientists and also victims’ organizations. Relations between these
different actors can take the shape either of rules, or tacit understandings, or
conflicts. Understanding these positions leads to study the debates led at
international, European and national level but also within firms and various
social groups. This session proposes to tackle these questions in a long-run
prospect, in order to understand how representations and strategies might
emerge, change or be carried on. The focus on the individual level will also be
taken into account because it includes the questions of physical integrity,
career paths and working activities. In connection with this individual level,
the study of occupational health needs to take gender and nationality into
consideration. All these questions will be considered in a comparative
perspective in order to identify differences and analogies among national
experiences.
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