History, Health, Work, Environment (HSTE) seminar: "Asbestos: a class disease, class sufferers", by Bastien Guillermin, sociologist (PACTE/Université Grenoble Alpes)
27 February : 15h00 - 17h00
Date : Thursday 27 February from 3pm to 5pm
Venue: Avignon University, Campus Hannah Arendt, room 0w33
The History, Health, Work and Environment (HSTE) research seminar is part of the Ecology and Care of Living Worlds section of the Norbert Elias Centre (UMR 8562). It is coordinated by Sylvain Bertschy, as part of the ToxCit Chair (Avignon University), with Moritz Hunsmann and Judith Wolf, co-director of the GISCOPE 84.
The aim is to explore the history of the relationship between health, work and the environment. The aim is to understand the processes of degradation/preservation/restoration of the environment and human health in their own historical context, and to examine the frameworks of rationality (lay, philosophical, scientific, legal, technical, etc.), the social configurations and the systems of action which, at different scales, make them possible (modes of governance and regulation).
This seminar is primarily aimed at researchers and students (primarily Masters and PhD students) from various disciplines (human and social sciences, environmental sciences, life sciences, etc.), but is open to all.
The second session will take place Thursday 27 February from 3pm to 5pmon the Hannah Arendt campus, room 0w33, on the theme :
Asbestos: a class disease, class sufferers
With Bastien Guillerminsociologist (PACTE/Université Grenoble Alpes)
Based on his dissertation work with retired chemical workers in the Roussillon region suffering from asbestos-related illnesses, Bastien Guillermin will analyse how these illnesses affect individuals differently depending on their social class. While the vast majority of these illnesses affect blue-collar workers (almost 90%), members of the middle and upper classes can also be victims of this carcinogen. However, blue-collar workers, technicians and managers do not face this ordeal in the same way. By focusing on people suffering from fibrosis or cancers in remission, he will show that asbestos-related pathologies create situations of disability for managers, which manifest themselves in particular in the practice of certain leisure activities, while they affect the 'instrumental relationship with the body' of blue-collar workers and some technicians. The latter describe themselves not as "disabled", but as unproductive and "useless" - "I feel like I'm useless, I don't have the strength for anything any more" -, thereby demonstrating a form of symbolic disqualification.