| dc.description.abstract | This paper explores people’s experience of asbestos-related diseases in relation
to medicine, identity and gender. The paper adopts a comparative approach,
examining the experiences of impoverished former asbestos mine workers in
South Africa and working class factory workers and laggers in the United Kingdom
(UK). These two areas are connected through the activities of Cape plc, a
company that dealt with asbestos for about a hundred years, mining in the
Northern Cape of South Africa and manufacturing and processing in Barking, in
the UK. As indicated in the title, these industrial diseases are not contracted
through worker negligence, but rather because of governments’ and managements’
framing of risk and the implementation of safety measures. The first part of
the paper therefore contrasts authoritative and emic values through the
examination of governmental recognition of risk and people’s own understandings
of danger. The second part of the paper examines gendered and identity issues,
focusing on how men’s masculinity is both undermined and bolstered through their
involvement with asbestos production, while women’s identity is primarily vested
in their household and primary caretaker role. Throughout the paper, a comparative
anthropological approach focuses on the similarities of ‘meaning’ and subjective
interpretations – as contrasted with the country specific medical, legal and
political categorisations of disease with which these people regularly engage –
highlighting how people experience, interpret and respond to asbestos-related
diseases. Using an ‘effects made by gender approach’, the paper also examines
how asbestos diseases intersect with identity, leading people to emphasise
conventional gender roles.
Keywords: asbestos related diseases, gendered identities, South Africa, UK,
comparative framing of disease, pleural plaques, laggers, masculinity. | en_GB |
