The book focuses on details case studies at specific sites: engineering companies, intensive care units, nuclear watse handling facilities, air traffic control centres
Contributions from leading scholars from Europe and the USA
The topic has a multi-disciplinary appeal
Jane Summerton, sociologist of technology, is associate professor at the Department of Technology and Social Change, Linkoeping University, Sweden. Her previous work has focussed on managerial and user practices in sociotechnical networks and systems, particularly in relation to energy and environmental issues. Her current research concerns 'non-user' practices in technology and their intersections with socio-economic resources, ethnicity and gender.
Boel Berner, sociologist and historian, is professor at the Department of Technology and Social Change, Linkoeping University, Sweden. Her research has focussed on the identities and practices of technical experts, in work, education and in relation to risk, and on questions of gender and technology. Her most recent books in English are Gendered Practices (ed. 1996) and Manoeuvring in an Environment of Uncertainty (ed. with Per Trulsson, 2000)
Jane Summerton and Boel Berner Constructing Risk and Safety in Technological Practice: An Introduction
Part I: Interpreting Accidents
Introductory Comments
1. Judith Green The Ultimate Challenge for Risk Technologies: Controlling the Accidental
2. Joerg Potthast Narratives of Trust in Constructing Risk and Danger: Interpretations of the Swissair 111 Crash
3. Sidney W. A. Dekker Re-situating Your Data: Understanding the Human Contribution to Accidents
Part II: Defining Risks
Introductory Comments
4. Jane Summerton 'Talking Diesel': Negotiating and Contesting Environmental Risks of Automobility in Sweden
5. Andrew Koehler Defining Risk and Safety in a High Security Organization: 'Bunkering' at the Los Alamos Plutonium Handling Facility
Part III: Constructing Safety
Introductory Comments
6. Gene I. Rochlin Safety as a Social Construct: The Problem(atique) of Agency
7. Johan M. Sanne Creating Trust and Achieving Safety in Air Traffic Control
8. Sabrina Thelander The Social Construction of Safety in the Face of Fear and Distrust: The Case of Cardiac Intensive Care
9. Marianne Doeoes and Tomas Backstroem Constructing Workplace Safety through Control and Learning: Conflict or Compatibility?