Workplace injury and the failing academic body: a testimony of pain

This article explores how meanings around risk, health/safety, and workers’ bodies are constructed in an academic context. I do so through the study of a single academic in Australia who sustained a back injury at work. Through an analysis of in-depth interviews and documents, I attempt to show the...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Liu, Helena (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Springer 2022
In: Journal of business ethics
Year: 2022, Volume: 179, Issue: 2, Pages: 339-352
Further subjects:B Occupational health and safety
B Human Resource Management
B Workplace injury
B Aufsatz in Zeitschrift
B Academia
B Neoliberalism
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Description
Summary:This article explores how meanings around risk, health/safety, and workers’ bodies are constructed in an academic context. I do so through the study of a single academic in Australia who sustained a back injury at work. Through an analysis of in-depth interviews and documents, I attempt to show the embodied experience of an injured worker’s struggle for care, recovery, and survival in the neoliberal academy. Writing from the nexus of workplace health and safety and critical management literatures, the raw testimony of this injured academic lays bare the violences that are enabled within a wider culture of self-discipline, individualism, and performativity in the university. The story presented in this article exposes how physiological and psychological injuries can be exacerbated through the very health and safety procedures that are designed to prevent and alleviate harm. Please note that this article contains references to suicide and suicidal ideation.
ISSN:1573-0697
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of business ethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1007/s10551-021-04838-9