CfP Accidents and Emergencies:,Risk, Welfare and Safety in Europe,and North America, c. 1750-2000
Accidents and Emergencies:
Risk, Welfare and Safety in Europe
and North America, c. 1750-2000
Keynote speakers
Professor Bill Luckin (University of Bolton, UK) Dr Arwen
Mohun (University of Delaware, USA)
Context and aims
We live in a society obsessed with risk and safety. Via a
medley of state-related and commercial agencies, we insure ourselves against
the possibility of death, ill-health, accident, theft and unemployment,
subjecting every facet of our lives to the calculus of risk. Meanwhile, a
battery of signs, leaflets, manuals and adverts spread the message of ‘health
and safety’, reminding us of the dangers lurking in our everyday actions.
Equally, notions of risk and safety go to the heart of
our sense of collective welfare, and the complex relations of self, society and
the State, and public and private agency. Indeed, for some sociologists, we
live in a ‘risk society’, premised on the ‘reflexive’ processing of
information, the prevention of the accidental and the unexpected, and the
anxious desire to predict – even control – the future.
The aim of this conference is to take stock of the present
by focussing on modern Europe and North America from roughly 1750 onwards. It
welcomes:
· historians from all sub-fields (social, medical,
cultural, etc.) · scholars from other disciplines such as sociology and
cultural studies.
Risk, welfare and safety have long been sites of
historical inquiry.
This conference takes this literature as its point of
departure, and encourages both general and trans-national appraisals of the
history and nature of modern ‘risk societies’, as well as accounts which focus
on particular technologies, practices and discourses.
In sum, the aim of ‘Accidents and Emergencies’ is to:
· rethink the history of risk, welfare and safety; ·
encourage a more integrated approach to their empirical study and
conceptualisation; · open up new historical and sociological perspectives
through which we might better grasp the present.
Format and themes
This will be a three-day conference: 9, 10 & 11
September 2013, to be held at Oxford Brookes University and supported by the
University of Portsmouth.
We intend that the papers should be pre-circulated, in a
draft form of around 5,000 words (though we appreciate this will not be
possible in all cases).
Papers – conceptual and empirical – are invited which
address one or more of the following themes:
1. Conceptualising and historicising ‘risk society’: the
work of Beck, Giddens, Luhmann and Ewald – and others 2. The politics of risk
and solidarity: liberalism, social democracy and neo-liberalism 3. Selling risk
and safety: mixed economies of welfare, and the insurance and safety industries
4. Statistics, temporality and the calculus of risk: histories of actuarial
probability 5. Industrial risks (i): pollution and the environment 6.
Industrial risks (ii): technology and workplace accidents 7. Shock, trauma and
sensation: representing accidents and emergencies 8. Logistics of risk and
safety: emergency services and technologies 9. Preventing accidents (i):
surveillance, inspection and maintenance 10. Preventing accidents (ii): health
and safety education 11. Transnational risks and exchanges: policies,
innovations and institutions 12. Key words: meanings of ‘safety’, ‘risk’,
‘probability’ and ‘accident’ in particular contexts Over the three days we
would like speakers to raise the salient issues of their papers in order to
leave as much time as possible for discussion and feedback. The conference
language will be English.
We intend to publish a selection of the papers in the
form of an edited volume or special issue of a journal.
Contacts
Expressions of interest to: mike.esbester@port.ac.uk.
These should include:
· a brief ‘bio’ (detailing institution, publications,
research
interests, etc.)
· a proposal/abstract (of roughly 300 words), indicating
the theme or
themes for which you wish to be considered.
The deadline for the submission of abstracts is 31
January 2013.
Alternatively, if you are interested in attending as a
delegate please
email to reserve a place.
Conference organisation enquiries: tcrook@brookes.ac.uk
Organisers: Dr Tom Crook (Oxford Brookes University) and
Dr Mike
Esbester (University of Portsmouth).