Citas Petryna -c-

- Biological Citizenship: The Science and Politics of Chernobyl-Exposed Populations-

"In 2000, I interviewed the director of the Shelter complex. What I learned was that almost a decade after independence, worker protections, in spite od some improvements, were still deficient. The director told me that norms of radiation safety were inoperative. In a place of tremendous economic desperation, people were competed for work in the Zone of Exclusion, where salaries were relatively high and steadily paid. Prospective workers engaged in a troubling cost-benefit assesment that went something like this: if I work in the Zone, I lose my health. But I can send my son to law school. "Taking this risk is their individual problem. No one else is responsible for it," the director told me. (...) Despite the existence of these international limitations, the director's comment suggests that norms of worker exposures are in fact being decided locally and within the constraints of a national economy. In effect, he was revealing to me the extent to which workers' lives are undervalued by being overexposed (for much less pay). Yet however undervalued his workers' lived may be, they are still driven to work by a situation in which economic forces are overwhelming. In such an environment, physical risks escalate and risky work is seen as acceptable and even normal."