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National identity and controversy: New Zealand's clean green image and pentachlorophenol
PERGAMON
Health & Place 5 (1999) 45±57
National identity and controversy: New Zealand's clean green image and pentachlorophenol Kevin Dew * Department of Sociology and Social Policy, Victoria University of Wellington, P.O. Box 600, Wellington, New Zealand Received 1 February 1997; received in revised form 1 October 1997; accepted 1 December 1997
Abstract In the 1990s regulatory bodies in New Zealand worked to develop guide-lines to clean up the contamination of land caused by the use of pentachlorophenol in the treatment of timber. In contrast, there has been little eort to identify and compensate workers contaminated at these sites. This paper explores some of the reasons why action over the contaminated land was relatively quickly taken, whilst there was a lingering controversy over the health of the workers who used pentachlorophenol. The case study suggests that symbols of national identity can play an important role in the resolution of controversy. # 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Controversy; Pentachlorophenol; Occupational health; National identity; Environment; Risk
1. Introduction New Zealanders have prided themselves on their close relationship to the land. The landscape has been a traditional source for grounding national identity. This grounding has changed over time, from the pioneering spirit taming a wild country (Phillips, 1996; Bell, 1996), to a mystical contemplation of nature and, more recently, to an invocation of cleanness and green* Tel.: +64-44-72-1000 ext. 8785; fax: +64-44-95-5041; email: [email protected].
ness (Beatson and Beatson, 1994: Bell, 1996). However, this imagery contrasts with the lived experience of many New Zealanders. Although portrayed as a clean and green country, many New Zealanders appear to be suering from the eects of practices that have poisoned the land and poisoned the people. This more troublesome experience is highlighted in disputes over toxic weed killers used by local councils, spray drift from pesticides and herbicides used in agricultural production and the levels of toxins in the food chain. It is also supported by the realisation that many of New Zealand's ®shing and forestry practices are unsustainable (Wallace, 1997).
1353-8292/99/$ - see front matter # 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S 1 3 5 3 - 8 2 9 2 ( 9 8 ) 0 0 0 4 0 - 9
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This paper explores the controversy over the contamination of the land and the people by a chemical agent used in the treatment of timber. It is suggested that chains of meaning can construct a controversy in such a way that its resolution appears `natural'. The case of pentachlorophenol (PCP) contamination in New Zealand highlights the way in which imagery played an important part, though not the only part, in privileging particular issues in the controversy. A consequence of this imagery was that the sickness of the land was given greater status and privilege than the ills of the people. This study is based on an examination of a series of governmental reports produced on the PCP problem and responses to the issue from representatives of those workers most likely to have been contaminated. The debate can be located within the discussion of risk as outlined by Beck and Wynne and the concept of cultural resonance as employed by Hansen. These wider concerns with cultural perceptions of risk interact with recent economic changes, seen in neo-liberal reforms in New Zealand, to in¯uence the way in which these controversies developed. Following an outline of these issues this paper analyses the ways in which a series of elements impacted on the development of the dispute over the eects of PCP, speci®cally the impact of New Zealand's legislative focus, expert assumptions in report compilation, science, pressure groups and socioeconomic factors. The discussion then moves on to look at the importance of cultural in¯uences, in particular the relationship between national identity and the land, in privileging the issue of land contamination. 2. Risk and the environment Beck (1995) argues that there are four characteristics that separate the risks we are exposed to in technologically advanced civilisations from earlier periods. First is that today's hazards aect all social classes as the hazards encompass a geographical and spatial totality. Beck is referring to hazards that are derived from a range of technologies, including nuclear power, pesticide, insecti-
cide and herbicide use and developments in genetic engineering. Second is that the rules of causality and guilt have broken down in the risk society. This is due to the diculty in gaining proof that a problem is caused by a particular technology: the burden of proof in identifying a particular agent as causal is extremely one-sided as it disadvantages those who have misgivings about that particular technology (Beck, 1995, p. 3). This allows for the increase in hazards faced as those resisting the introduction and use of hazardous technologies ®nd the burden of proof an insurmountable obstacle. Thirdly hazards can be minimised, but never ruled out, and there is no guarantee of safety. Finally, today's hazards can be so catastrophic that compensation could not be provided for the damage caused. Beck's analysis provides us with insight into the costs of the Risk Society, but glosses over the ways in which dierent social classes can be aected by contemporary hazards. In contrast to Beck, Murphy (1994) argues that we should develop categories of environmental `classes' to supplement the sociological consideration of economic and social classes. For Murphy an analysis of environmental classes will re¯ect the bene®ts and costs accumulated by dierent classes in their participation in environmental degradation. Some classes of people are actively involved in perpetrating environmental degradation with little cost, for example the private sector and the state, while others are victimised classes. Murphy argues that there are dierent `grades' of victims. First-party victims are those who are victims because of their jobs, one example being `glow boys' who go into radioactive areas to do repair work. Other victim grades or types include those who voluntarily accept risk, those who do not actively participate in the system but are exposed to hazards and those who will be exposed to environmental degradation in the future. Linking the micro and macro dimensions of hazard identi®cation and risk assessment Wynne examines a number of ways in which workers, who may be ®rst-party victims, respond to these issues. Wynne identi®es a disparity between laboratory assessment of risk and the actual prac-
K. Dew / Health & Place 5 (1999) 45±57
tices where hazardous substances are used, illustrating this disparity in his discussion of risk assessment of 2,4,5,-T in the UK (Wynne, 1987, p. 287). A government agency in the 1970s concluded that the pesticide was safe for public use, yet agricultural workers' experience in using the pesticide led them to lobby to have the issue reopened. A committee on the safety of pesticides asserted that 2,4,5,-T was safe if it was manufactured and used properly, which the committee assumed was unproblematic. For the workers it was the very conditions under which the pesticide was used that raised concerns (Wynne, 1987, p. 287). The ideal conditions of use laid down by experts were not being met, thus giving rise to risky activities. Wynne's analysis alerts us to the ways in which experts exclude the reality of a situation in their assessment of risk, with lay accounts of risky activities usually being seen as irrational or anecdotal in nature (Irwin, 1995, p. 131). Economic and social pressures can have a major impact on the willingness to expose oneself to risk. Wynne discusses the example of radiation workers who would remove their exposurerecording instruments in order to avoid being shifted from their work (and the corresponding bonuses) because they had reached the ocial dose limit (Wynne, 1987, p. 288). Another study of radiation workers at the Sella®eld reprocessing plant found an unsuspected ``positive social construction of ignorance'' (Wynne, 1995). The workers made deliberate decisions to remain ignorant about certain issues, such as radiation risks (which we might think would be in their interests to know more about) justifying their ignorance on a number of grounds. First, if they started to follow the dispute they would never ®nish. Second, it would mean confronting endemic uncertainties which would be both unsettling and dangerous. Third, to show an active interest in the topic would signal a mistrust of those experts who were meant to protect them. Thus Wynne's studies question the credibility of expert risk analysis. Experts assume that ideal conditions are met, whereas in reality they will only be met in the appropriate economic, political, social and cultural circumstances. At the same
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time workers actively choose to be reliant on experts, as the costs of not doing so are too high. Hansen (1991) adds another dimension to the study of risk by arguing that cultural resonances are important in the public identi®cation of what is risky or hazardous. Hansen notes that particular environmental issues experience considerable `ups' and `downs' both in the media and in public perceptions. He argues that in order to understand the role of the mass media in the elaboration of environmental issues we must ``recognise the importance of cultural resonances in the privileging of some issues over others'' (Hansen, 1991, p. 444). The mass media serve as primary sources of information, but the media do not simply transmit messages to a passively receiving public. For an issue to gain prominence it must ``resonate with widely held cultural concepts'' (Hansen, 1991, p. 452). Even where a particular issue has strong cultural resonances it does not mean that action will be immediately taken on that issue. Beck's concept of organised irresponsibility helps explain why this occurs. Organised irresponsibility is an outcome of the inability of science to provide standards of proof upon which policy decisions can be based. The idea that by law one can intervene when one has established the individual causative agent actually protects the perpetrators of pollution and contamination as this scienti®c standard of proof is unachievable. The burden of proof is so high that perpetrators of pollution can avoid responsibility for their actions. Bureaucratic laws transform collective guilt into general acquittal (Beck, 1995, p. 2). The analysis below draws on the insights provided by these theories of risk and the risk society. A point of emphasis is placed on the need to consider the disparities between costs and bene®ts that accrue to dierent segments of society due to environmental pollution, changing economic ideologies can enhance those disparities. In this controversy further insights are gained by exploring the ways in which symbols of national identity advantage contaminated land over contaminated people.
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3. The pentachlorophenol story PCP was ®rst introduced in 1936 for use as a wood preservative, although it was not extensively used until some years after its introduction. In New Zealand it was mainly used to treat radiata pine, a major export product for the country. Most timber treatment sites in New Zealand where PCP was likely to have been used were in rural areas, locating the main ®rst-party victims of this controversy in those areas where radiata pine was milled. In addition a high proportion of these sawmill workers are drawn from the indigenous Maori population. Over a 40 year period an estimated 5000 tonnes of PCP were used, making New Zealand amongst the heaviest per capita users of PCP in the world (Stevenson, 1992a). In 1991 New Zealand de-registered the sale of PCP, but the perception of PCP as a public problem did not gain prominence until the clean and green image of New Zealand was threatened on the international stage. Sawmill workers were exposed to PCP particularly when timber was graded and sorted in a part of the sawmill known, ironically, as the green chain. Many of these workers suered a variety of ill-health eects which they later believed were related to PCP exposure, the Wood Industries Union registering 400 such workers (Dominion, 6 July 1996). PCP contamination can cause an array of symptoms including fever, fatigue, weight loss, nausea and mood swings (Occupational Safety and Health Service, 1996). Commercial grades of PCP used in New Zealand also contained toxic impurities created during manufacture, including dioxin and furans (Bingham, 1992). Dioxin is perhaps the most toxic agent produced during chemical manufacture and in the event of dioxin contamination a host of symptoms can occur, including severe skin rashes, malaise, peripheral nervous system disturbances, liver toxicity and possibly cancer and fetotoxicity (miscarriages) (Commission for the Environment, 1985). It is stored in fat tissue in the human body, which can provide a source of chronic exposure (Kang et al., 1991).
In 1988 PCP pollution became a focus of attention in New Zealand when sediment cores from the Manukau Harbour in Auckland revealed high concentrations of organic contaminants, PCP being the most signi®cant. Following this discovery the New Zealand Ministry for the Environment commissioned a study of PCP use in New Zealand. The ®ndings of the report were released in 1990 and it concluded that after 40 years of widespread use PCPs were probably widely distributed throughout the environment having major implications for the contamination of the land, water and people. More intensive studies were called for. In December 1990 a National Task Group (NTG) was set up to report on potentially contaminated sawmill and timber treatment sites (National Task Group, 1992). The NTG was chaired by a Ministry for the Environment ocial and was comprised of representatives from the Timber Industry, Government, Iwi (tribes of the indigenous Maori population) and the Timber Workers' Union. The Group's task was to assess the extent of PCP contaminated sites and advise government and industry on policies concerning liability, standards and clean-up. The NTG found that there were around 7500 contaminated sites (National Task Group, 1992) and if horticultural, farming and land®ll sites were included the number could be as high as 10000 (Szabo, 1993). One site was selected for detailed study, Waipa Mill, a sawmill outside of Rotorua (Rotorua is one of the most popular tourist destinations in New Zealand). One consequence of the study was that people were advised to have no more than 3 servings a week of trout caught from Lake Rotorua, this due to the risk of PCP contamination from the Waipa Mill discharge (Camp Scott Furphy, 1992). Growing local and international concerns over PCP contamination led to the chemical being deregistered for sale in December 1991 and action was taken to identify and attempt to clean up some of the sites. It was found that the costs of cleaning up high risk sites was enough to bankrupt all but the biggest New Zealand timber companies (Stevenson, 1992b; Buhrs and Bartlett, 1993). Interestingly, what did not hap-
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pen was a concerted attempt to identify and compensate contaminated workers. Except for passing references made in some reports to the possible health consequences for the workers who used toxic chemicals, they were largely ignored. As one worker at Waipa Mill put it ``Someone checked the ®sh but they never came to us'' (Stevenson, 1992c, p. 35). 4. Legislative focus New Zealand's changing legislative environment is one factor which limited the PCP controversy to one of land contamination and these changes need to be seen within the context of major economic changes. One of the major developments in the evolution of environmental policy in New Zealand has been a shift of decision-making in relation to resource management away from central government toward the corporate sector (Buhrs, 1997, p. 288). State allocation of funds for government departments responsible for environmental issues has been ``extremely meagre'' (Buhrs, 1997, p. 291) and the prevailing economic climate gives precedence to economic goals over environmental and social ones. This environmental policy is an outcome of reforms to de-regulate the market in order to increase New Zealand's competitiveness in the global economy (Memon, 1993, p. 47). The reforms initiated by the 1984 Labour Government, and carried on since, attempt to position the State as a neutral player in relation to competing interests (Memon, 1993, p. 53). This de-regulation has had a major impact on the PCP controversy. On the one hand the social dimensions of environmental policy have been excised from legislation, while on the other the State's success at undermining the Trade Union movement through the introduction of an Employment Contracts Act has weakened the workers' position (Crawford et al., 1996). One plank of the new policy on the environment has been a Resource Management Act. This Act has as its stated purpose the promotion of the sustainable management of natural and physical resources, including every person having
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a ``duty to avoid, remedy, or mitigate any adverse eect on the environment'' (Buhrs and Bartlett, 1993, p. 125). This Act, which came into law in 1991, ``virtually ignores the social dimension of environmental policy'' (Buhrs and Bartlett, 1993, p. 131). In terms of the PCP controversy, the Act was troublesome as the sites were contaminated before the Act came into law and hence a dispute arose over who should be burdened with the costs of cleaning them up, the Timber Industry or the State? The workers and their possible PCP-related ill eects receded into the background in such debates. Another aspect of New Zealand's legislative environment is a long established (since 1974) no-fault, state-run insurance scheme to cover industrial accidents. In order to gain compensation for accident or illness suered from workplace activities the Accident Compensation Corporation (now the Accident Compensation and Rehabilitation Corporation) has to be convinced that any suering is real, caused by work activities and not caused by some natural agent or lifestyle choice. The trade-o for such a nofault system is that it is much less likely that workers can successfully take their employers to court, the right to sue is severely limited. Thus the burden of proof falls very heavily on the workers to prove their case before a bureaucratic body and to date they have been manifestly unsuccessful at doing this. On this matter Buhrs and Bartlett (1993) argue that problems need to ®t into existing institutional patterns or they may fall through the cracks. For the workers the institutional pattern is set by ACC, whereas for the toxic sites it is established by the Ministry for the Environment and the Resource Management Act. Dierent outcomes relate to the dierent institutional settings and the rules and norms within which they operate. In the case of the sawmill workers, their claims-making activities have been severely constrained by the role of the state-run, no-fault insurance scheme and nor do they have a place in the environmental policy framework. An additional obstacle for the workers has been the conspicuous absence of Ministry of Health involvement in the PCP issue.
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5. Expert assumptions Another important aspect of the PCP controversy is the centrality of expert assumptions. The experts involved in compiling reports made certain assumptions about the impact of PCP upon workers. The Health Department's representative on the NTG was quoted as saying that workers who used PCP were likely to have used them with proper care (New Zealand Herald, 22 May 1991). Workers in timber treatment plants contradicted this view. Proper care meant that workers would wear protective clothing and that timber would not be moved by hand when it was dripping with PCP. However, workers were handling timber when it was still dripping with chemicals and protective clothing was not worn because it interfered with freedom of movement in the work situation. Examples included protective aprons hindering movement and safety goggles steaming up making it dicult for the workers to see, hence they were discarded. In addition unanticipated spills and uncontrolled spraying of chemicals occurred. When one worker had chemicals spray into his eyes permanently scarring them he made inquiries to the company at Waipa Mill about compensation. He claimed he was told that he was lucky not to lose his job over the incident as he failed to wear the goggles provided (Stevenson, 1992c). These events support the ®ndings of other studies of work processes in situations of risk (see Wynne, 1987; Irwin, 1995) where `normal working conditions' often do not apply. This was exacerbated by the fact that the workers had little awareness of the possible health consequences of exposure to the chemicals used (Stevenson, 1992c). The NTG assumed that there was no need to study the health of the public in relation to PCP because those most likely aected, the workers, did not appear to have any adverse eects (Stevenson, 1992b). This assumption was based on Department of Labour records, which did not show any signi®cant eect on timber industry workers exposed to PCP. However, Department of Labour records are based on company records. Prior to the release of the NTG report the workers themselves were unaware of the risks
of exposure to PCP and did not initially relate their health problems to such exposure. Those with health problems went to their own medical practitioners and did not see the company doctors. Complaints to their medical practitioners were not seen as work related (Stevenson, 1992b) and so the company records showed no sign of any problem. It was after the NTG report was made public, identifying the sawmills as contaminated sites, that workers started to question the role of chemical exposure in the development of their health problems. 6. Limitations of science In this dispute science can be seen as an agent of legitimation. It claimed that PCP was safe when it was ®rst introduced, then later identi®ed it as toxic to the environment, while neglecting the impact on people. Finally, science was involved in denying workers the chance of compensation. The NTG report stated that even full scale epidemiological studies would be unlikely to distinguish cases of chemical exposure from symptoms arising from such things as lifestyle and consumption behaviour impacts, hereditary conditions, exposure to chemicals outside of the workplace and so on. This is in contrast to the ability to assess the impact of PCP on the trout in Lake Rotorua. The recognition that scienti®c procedures could not establish certainty justi®ed no action being taken at all. Obstacles to achieving scienti®c validation for the workers' complaints were immense and include the fact that it cost NZ$1500 to measure dioxin levels in one individual. The procedure of taking 1 l of blood required to measure dioxin can be too stressful for sick workers. Many workers have already died, possibly eliminating the most seriously contaminated from any study. Even if high blood dioxin levels are found, this does not establish that the dioxin causes the symptoms. To complicate the picture further, dioxin may not be causing their problems, some other chemical or combination/interaction of chemicals may be the culprit. Current scienti®c
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techniques may not be able to establish cause in these situations. The dispute over the cause of the workers' health problems is a clash between the ``balance of probabilities'' approach and the ``beyond all reasonable doubt'' approach (Jacques, 1992, p. 40). The National Task Group chose to adhere to very strict de®nitions of scienti®c standards of certainty and proof, as opposed to looking at the balance of evidence. This requirement for evidence to be ``absolutely watertight'' has been noted in other studies where workers have attempted to link their symptoms with chemical exposure (Irwin, 1995). If scienti®c validation is the sole criteria of legitimation, it can be an insurmountable obstacle for workers and others hoping to gain legitimation for their complaints. The tendency for scientists to want to wait for further evidence, good scienti®c practice, can be used for the purposes of industry and government to avoid considering compensation for the workers. A report commissioned by the Labour Minister found that 137 former timber workers had an association between exposure and symptoms known to be short-term eects of PCP (Occupational Safety and Health Service, 1996). The study was not able to make any analysis of workers who had died or of associations between PCP and rare fatal illnesses such as cancer. This report stated that more evidence was needed before stronger conclusions could be drawn, in particular because the 137 in the sample were voluntary and therefore not a representative sample. For the Timber Industries this was enough to maintain the line that the case of contamination was not proven. For the workers involved the legitimating force of science leaves them in a double bind. Science is no help but is absolutely necessary. Science provides the framework within which the debate around compensation takes place. The fact that the attempt to implicate PCP or dioxin in causing worker illness was not sustained, could lead to the argument that with better technical apparatus for detection this controversy would have been satisfactorily resolved. However, as Wynne (1987) argues, uncertainty is not passive, resulting from a lack of precision in our measurement of
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the objective world, but is actively created out of contending cultural backgrounds and institutional purposes. Abraham, in his study of drug regulation in the UK and the USA, shows how regulatory agencies can award the ``bene®t of the doubt to commercial interests'' (Abraham, 1995, p. 177) and that any uncertainty in the science can justify regulatory inaction. 7. Pressure groups Pressure groups play a major role in the development of environmental controversies. Greenpeace acted as a public watchdog group, keeping the issue of PCP alive and securing media attention. Its focus was on the environment and clean-up operations (Greenpeace Magazine, November 1992), thus it fought the battle on the same terms as the Timber Industry. The dierence between Greenpeace and the Timber Industry was in how much needed to be done to clean up, how the cleaning up should be carried out and when it should be done. There is no equivalent national or international pressure group to lobby on behalf of sick people. The Wood Industries Union of Aotearoa (WIUA) did attempt to give the issue of possible worker contamination a high pro®le. It set up a support group for workers exposed to timber treatment chemicals so that they could share their experiences and possibly supply information to the WIUA journal for educational purposes (Wood Industries Union of Aotearoa, October 1993). The WIUA ran a number of articles on PCP, but these did not achieve any eective mobilisation around the issue. In part this could be a re¯ection of the relatively weak position of unions in New Zealand since the post-1984 Labour reforms, with declining union membership being one indicator of this weakness (Crawford et al., 1996). The workers' support group, by its nature, is very small and has no obvious links with nationwide action groups. In cases of chronic illness it is not uncommon for support groups to develop, for example ME groups, MS groups, OOS groups and so on. However, these are focused
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around particular illnesses, typically in situations where there is some dissatisfaction with what conventional medicine has to oer (Kelleher, 1994). Beyond their particular concerns there is little evidence of developing a common position with other support groups. At a fundamental organisational and institutional level the issues of environmental contamination and of human contamination are confronted in very dierent ways. The former has a global focus, the latter a particular focus. This particular focus limits the ability of the sufferers to air their concerns and obtain a sympathetic audience. 8. Socio-economic factors An additional obstacle for the workers in their claims-making activities is the way in which the socio-economic group they are drawn from is perceived. Whereas the land is associated with positive images, it is not unusual for workers to be negatively stereotyped. A high percentage of the sick sawmill workers were Maori, from rural/ provincial towns and from the lower socio-economic strata. This is a section of the population most likely to be viewed with mistrust and a suspicion of malingering, when suering problems of undocumented origin (Good and Delvecchio Good, 1981). However, at the same time it is the working class whose health is most threatened by environmental hazards (Petersen and Lupton, 1996, p. 102), the potential ®rst-party victims in Murphy's environmental classes. Social disadvantage means fewer opportunities to escape environmental hazards or to do something about them. The defensiveness about another stereotype, of the hard-living lifestyle of the working man, is emphasised by one worker who claimed that ``we never got drunk... we smoked, but we've all given up now except one joker'' (Stevenson, 1992c, p. 35). Whereas the land cannot malinger, the worker may, especially if compensation claims are involved. Whereas the land does not engage in irresponsible behaviour, people might. In addition to the obstacles posed by the legislative en-
vironment and the role of science in dispute resolution, the workers have to overcome these negative images of the malingering worker and of self-in¯icted illness. In addition, science-based controversies are more dicult to analyse when the parties involved have varying abilities to express their positions (Sunesson, 1993). The workers did not have access to the resources available to other parties in the dispute, such as the Timber Industry and the State. The State's undermining of the Union movement since the mid-1980s could only have exacerbated this disparity. 9. Cultural in¯uence Thus far a number of factors have been discussed which led to the privileging of the issue of contaminated land over the issue of the contaminated worker. Without discounting these factors, it can now be suggested that in this controversy these have in turn been shaped by cultural factors, in particular the issue of national identity. Science has been used in an eort to identify contaminated sites and to determine appropriate clean-up procedures, but was not used to identify contaminated workers and develop appropriate treatments. New Zealand's legislative environment channelled the issue in particular directions. However, the allocation of scienti®c resources and the development of legislation is grounded in a system of values and it is suggested that in this instance those values are strongly related to cultural identity. By exploring the cultural in¯uences we enrich our view of the relationship between cultural values, here crystallised in the notion of national identity, and the determinants of health and sickness. Conditions may not be recognised because of cultural blindspots and without recognition the development of a condition cannot be understood. Hansen (1991, p. 453) suggests that it is precisely the extent to which they [environmental issues or problems] can be anchored in and made to activate existing
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chains of cultural meaning which helps determine whether they become part of media coverage and wider social elaboration. The symbol of clean and green New Zealand provides a very strong cultural resonance which strengthens chains of cultural meaning and provides a strong impetus for action. This symbol is grounded in the nation's self-image and its economic dependency. This privileges concern for the contamination of the environment over the contamination of the people. New Zealand's clean and green image is carefully cultivated by the tourism industry, by politicians and the mass media (Buhrs and Bartlett, 1993) as a marketing strategy. Nature imagery is a crucial element in selling the country as a distinctive tourist destination (Bell, 1996) and tourism is not only one of New Zealand's major industries but one of the largest industries in the world (Urry, 1992). Poets, composers and artists are at the forefront in grounding New Zealand's national identity in nature. This eort simpli®es the country's history, its economics and its politics (Bell, 1996) and side-steps ``crucial social issues such as our ugly history of race relations, the oppression of women and the exploitation of workers'' (Beatson, 1991, p. 47). This simpli®cation can be seen as serving ideological purposes. Phillips argues that ``Pakehas [European colonisers of New Zealand] elevated the conquest of the land so that they did not have to think of the conquest of the people'' (Phillips, 1996, p. 39). This suggests an early disjunction between the land and the people of the land, during the process of colonisation. Fairburn (1989, p. 51) argues that an image of New Zealand promoted during early colonial times was of an Arcadia where natural abundance had largely abolished the necessity of associational props. The principal requirement instead was something internal to each man, that he discipline himself and cultivate the work ethic. The sick worker disrupts this imagery. One should not get sick in Arcadia as this threatens
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both the work ethic and the clean and green imagery. Those who potentially disrupt this simple story or Arcadia may be rendered invisible. This disjuncture between images is further heightened by neo-liberal economic reforms which subordinates social values to economic considerations. The preservation of New Zealand's marketing strategies based on a clean and green image is given priority over the impact of contaminants on New Zealand workers. Contemporary images of nature have ``mesmerised the masses'' (Clark, 1991). The workers have no such enchanting or mesmerising appeal. To mobilise around images of the healthy happy worker would conjure images of the Stalinist Stakhanovite worker. Such imagery is anathema in a time of weakened unions and current anticollectivist sentiments. The worker is in double jeopardy when we consider that not only is there a lack of images of the hard working, happy, healthy worker that could enchant us, but the worker can also be seen as a symbol of the actual destruction of the environment. An image of the hard-working timber worker is in tension with the pristine, innocent and spiritually enchanting landscape. Environmentalists in New Zealand have shown a capacity for a great attachment to the land and a much more tempered relationship with the people. Individuals may be drawn to the land because of its ``spiritual presence'' (McVarish, 1992, p. 10) and may be motivated to ®ght for the land as it cannot ``®ght for itself'' (McVarish, 1992, p. 12). The land is innocent and needs protecting from people. This ambivalence toward people is summed up by one environmentalist (quoted in McVarish, 1992, p. 16) who stated that I cherish New Zealand's countryside, the air quality, colours, light and the people, to some extent. This ambivalence represents perhaps a tension developing out of an ``ecocentric'' metaphysics (Davidson, 1994, p. 1) where a regard for ecology displaces humanity as a central concern.
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10. On the political agenda These powerful cultural in¯uences impact upon the ability of issues to get on the political agenda. Political and public responses only became vociferous when the clean and green image was threatened. The popular media and politicians successfully ignored the issue of PCP contamination when it was ®rst raised. A New Zealand magazine, Terra Nova, ran articles in 1992 covering the topic in some depth, but evoking no response. Little media attention was given to these developments until a challenge to New Zealand's clean and green image was provided by overseas reporting on the issue. In July 1993 the New Scientist ran an article titled ``New Zealand's Poisoned Paradise'' (Szabo, 1993), which was followed in August by an article in The Times of London. In these articles questions were asked about New Zealand's clean and green image. The existence of contaminated trout in the tourist attraction of Lake Rotorua was highlighted, provoking defensive responses from the New Zealand government. The Environment Minister reacted angrily to Greenpeace's claims that there were 10,000 PCP contaminated sites in New Zealand, charging that such claims sabotaged the New Zealand Tourism Board's advertising campaign in Britain (The Times of London, 19 August 1993). The overseas articles were seen as unpatriotic, jeopardising export and tourist markets (Gleeson, 1996, p. 1912). It is one thing to tell New Zealanders that they are destroying themselves, but it is another to tell the rest of the world in international fora that they are poisoning their paradise. As Ellis and Salter (1995) state in relation to their review of contaminated sites policy and guidelines As New Zealand promotes its `clean green' image to support trade initiatives, there is an expectation that site clean up will be progressively achieved. To protect the clean and green image certain environmental issues may be promoted (Buhrs and Bartlett, 1993). There is no such cultural resonance, or economic concern, that has motivated
`cleaning up the people'. The ``romantic tourist gaze'' can support attempts to protect the environment (Urry, 1992, p. 9) but has no such impact upon those who dwell in it. In order for a controversy to close it must ®rst get on to the political agenda. Buhrs and Bartlett (1993) identify ®ve categories that help explain why certain environmental problems get on to the political agenda. These are socio-cultural factors in the assessment of risk; the relative seriousness of the problem; economic factors, in particular a reluctance of government to impose burdens on the economy; political-institutional interests where problems need to conform to `institutional patterns' and convergence where outside in¯uences induce countries to adopt particular policies. All of these factors play a part in this particular case. The contamination of the environment gained heavy weighting in terms of getting the issue on to the political agenda because of its perceived threat to the country's clean and green image, a problem seen as serious because of its potential economic costs. This threat promoted relatively rapid state action, even though the policies developed meant extra costs and regulatory burdens being imposed upon the business sector. The mechanism of the Resource Management Act provided the institutional conduit for such action and international concerns about toxic residues in foods and the toxic nature of PCP added to this impetus. The workers had little chance of getting on to the political agenda in terms of these categories. Public anxiety over an issue may also provide a means for initiating state action. Robinson (1991) analyses a case of workers being exposed to a pesticide that was linked to sterility. This issue quickly got onto the political agenda when it was found that the pesticide had contaminated the water supply and residues were found on fruit, provoking wider public anxiety. In the case of the sawmill workers their health problems only became linked to PCP after the State had initiated plans to clean up contaminated sites. Potential public anxiety about PCP had therefore been somewhat assuaged before the workers had implicated the chemical as a cause of their problems. Another New Zealand case study of
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unsuccessful claims-making, this time from ®re®ghters exposed to chemicals at a ®re in a chemical storage depot, illustrates the importance of this issue of public anxiety. Public anxiety over the impact of the ®re was diminished once the eects of the ®re were contained, whereas the workers continued to suer after the ®re (Lloyd and Dew, 1995). For the ordinary citizen the workers' claims in both cases had lost a degree of relevance (see Hannigan, 1995). To date the workers claims have not been successfully legitimated by science, popularised by activists, given media attention or given any dramatisation in symbolic terms, all factors which may in¯uence the successful outcome of a claim (Hannigan, 1995). The contaminated land had all these factors in its favour. 11. Conclusion The closure of a controversy can only be understood by relating it to wider social and political structures in society (Potter, 1996). This implies that closure is related to the issue of power and not to the internal mechanisms of science (Beder, 1991). Whatever the conclusions of science might be, social concerns will be the determining in¯uence in controversy closure. It is suggested here that the ways in which certain issues are privileged relate to wider cultural formations. Controversies over harm to the natural environment are increasingly important (Wildavsky and Drake, 1990) and there is little doubt that the symbol of nature is a source of political action. Behind this exist cultural traditions related to the natural world (Beck, 1996). This tradition of elevating nature to a special space has strong cultural resonances in New Zealand's export oriented, post-colonial society. In contrast, Beck and Wynne indicate how the application of science, and the reliance on expertise, can be detrimental to the worker. The interaction of organised irresponsibility and the possibility of the positive social construction of ignorance, not only on the workers part, but by all those involved in the manufacture, distribution and use of PCP, has both denied the
55
worker the chance of compensation and aected their health status. Networks surrounding the issue of a contaminated environment are more extensive than those surrounding the contaminated worker. The contaminated environment threatened economic interests, mobilising business, state and pressure group responses. The contaminated worker provided no such threat and, in addition, would only be an economic burden to the State if rendered visible. At the foundation of this disjuncture is a set of deep-seated values embedding the controversy in notions of national identity. The shaping and moulding of the controversy can be linked to the way in which the land was privileged over the people. The development of legislation, the role of science in establishing `facts', the existence of active and articulate pressure groups and the value placed on the `working man' arise out of the privileging of the `natural' over the `social'. The conclusion that can be taken from this is that the ``highly prestructured reality'' (Berg, 1992, p. 152) of scienti®c analysis and legislative environments is itself de®ned and shaped by cultural symbols and images. This case study alerts us to the ways in which these symbols can intersect with economic interests which together impact upon the development and resolution of science-based controversies. The issue of the contaminated workers is not a dead issue. Workers' support groups are still ®ghting for recognition of their problems and it is still possible that they may meet with some success. The cases of methyl mercury poisoning in Minamata (Thurston, 1974) and of asbestos ill-eects (Calhoun and Hiller, 1988) suggest that, even after decades of lobbying, claims may still be successful. What this particular study suggests is that resolution of controversy can occur quickly, slowly or not at all, depending, at least in part, on the cultural resonances associated with the controversy. A cultural given identi®ed as a signi®cant in¯uence in the resolution of this particular controversy is the elevation of New Zealand's clean and green image to what has been described as ``an ocial status of State Truth'' (Gleeson, 1996, p. 1912). During this time of economic liberalism there is a concurrent
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lack of cultural resonance for the ®rst-party victims in this controversy, the timber mill workers.
Acknowledgements The author would like to thank the internal grants committee of Victoria University of Wellington for funding this research, David Young for drawing attention to the PCP issue and for his insights and Roger Daube for his help in collecting the information and for his comments. Mike Lloyd, David Pearson and the anonymous referees are thanked for their helpful suggestions. References Abraham, J., 1995. Science, Politics and the Pharmaceutical Industry: Controversy and Bias in Drug Regulation. St. Martin's Press, New York. Beatson, P., 1991. From landscape to environment: representations of nature in New Zealand classical music. Sites 22, 34±53. Beatson, P., Beatson, D., 1994. The Arts in Aotearoa New Zealand. Sociology Department, Massey University, Palmerston North. Beck, U., 1995. Ecological Politics in an Age of Risk. Polity Press, Cambridge. Beck, U., 1996. World risk society as cosmopolitan society? ecological questions in a framework of manufactured uncertainties. Theory Culture and Society 13, 1±32. Beder, S., 1991. Controversy and closure: Sydney's beaches in crisis. Social Studies of Science 21, 223±256. Bell, C., 1996. Inventing New Zealand: Everyday Myths of Pakeha Identity. Penguin, Auckland. Berg, M., 1992. The construction of medical disposals: medical sociology and medical problem solving in clinical practice. Sociology of Health and Illness 14, 151±180. Bingham, A., 1992. National Task Group on Site Contamination. Task Brief 5: Dioxin Regulations and Guidelines. Ministry for the Environment, Wellington. Buhrs, T., 1997. Environmental policy. In: Miller, R. (Ed.), New Zealand Politics in Transition. Oxford University Press, Auckland, pp. 287±295. Buhrs, T., Bartlett, R., 1993. Environmental Policy in New Zealand: the Politics of Clean and Green? Oxford University Press, Auckland. Calhoun, C., Hiller, H., 1988. Coping with insidious injuries: the case of Johns-Manville Corporation and asbestos exposure. Social Problems 32, 162±181.
Camp Scott Furphy, 1992. Pentachlorophenol Risk Assessment Pilot Study: National Task Group Team Report. Ministry for the Environment, Wellington. Clark, N., 1991. Nature and the postmodern: the hyperenchantment of the world. Sites 22, 21±33. Commission for the Environment, 1985. The ICI Fire: a Report to the Minister for the Environment. Commission for the Environment, Wellington. Crawford, A. et al., 1996. Unions and Union Membership in New Zealand: Annual Review for 1995. Industrial Relations Centre, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington. Davidson, C., 1994. Green politics and spiritual concerns. New Zealand Sociology 9, 1±35. Ellis, H., Salter, R., 1995. A Review of Contaminated Sites Policy and Guidelines. Ministry for the Environment, Wellington. Fairburn, M., 1989. The Ideal Society and its Enemies: the Foundations of Modern New Zealand Society. Auckland University Press, Auckland. Gleeson, B., 1996. The perils of market environmentalism. Economy and Planning A 28, 1910±1916. Good, B., Delvecchio Good, M., 1981. The meaning of symptoms: a cultural hermeneutic model for clinical practice. In: Eisenberg, L., Kleinman, A. (Eds.), The Relevance of Social Science for Medicine. D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, pp. 165±196. Hannigan, J., 1995. Environmental Sociology. Routledge, London. Hansen, A., 1991. The media and the social construction of the environment. Media, Culture and Society 13, 443±458. Irwin, A., 1995. Citizen Science: a Study of People, Expertise and Sustainable Development. Routledge, London. Jacques, P., 1992. Some current issues: the trade union view. In: Richardson, M. (Ed.), Risk Management of Chemicals. Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, pp. 38±51. Kang, H. et al, 1991. Dioxins and dibenzofurans in adipose tissue of US Vietnam veterans and controls. American Journal of Public Health 81, 344±349. Kelleher, D., 1994. Self-help groups and their relationship to medicine. In: Gabe, J. et al. (Eds.), Challenging Medicine. Routledge, London, pp. 104±117. Lloyd, M., Dew, K., 1995. On linking sociology and epidemiology: some observations on and a proposal for critical epidemiology. New Zealand Sociology 10, 242±274. McVarish, S., 1992. The Greening of New Zealand: New Zealanders' Visions of Green Alternatives. Random Century, Auckland. Memon, P.A., 1993. Keeping New Zealand Green: Recent Environmental Reforms. University of Otago Press, Dunedin. Murphy, R., 1994. Rationality and Nature: a Sociological Inquiry into a Changing Relationship. Westview Press, Boulder. National Task Group, 1992. Report of the National Task Group Investigating Site Contamination from the Use of
K. Dew / Health & Place 5 (1999) 45±57 Timber Treatment Chemicals. Ministry for the Environment, Wellington. Occupational Safety and Health Service, 1996. An Investigation into the Health Eects of Previous Occupational Pentachlorophenol Exposure on Timber Sawmill Employees. Department of Labour, Wellington. Petersen, A., Lupton, D., 1996. The New Public Health: Health and Self in the Age of Risk. Allen and Unwin, St. Leonards. Phillips, J., 1996. A Man's Country? The Image of the Pakeha Male: a History. Penguin, Auckland. Potter, J., 1996. Representing Reality: Discourse, Rhetoric and Social Construction. Sage, London. Robinson, J., 1991. Toil and Toxics: Workplace Struggles and Political Strategies for Occupational Health. University of California Press, Berkeley. Stevenson, P., 1992a. The scandal of the PCP dumps. Terra Nova June, 10±15. Stevenson, P., 1992b. PCPs: crunch time for the timber industry. Terra Nova August, 13±23. Stevenson, P., 1992c. No risk to employees' health. Terra Nova August, 24±35.
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Sunesson, S., 1993. Comparing tool controversies: science, contexts, institutional power, and the development of medical controversies. In: Brante, T. et al. (Eds.), Controversial Science: from Content to Contention. State University of New York Press, Albany, New York, pp. 193±224. Szabo, M., 1993. New Zealand's poisoned paradise. New Scientist 31, 29±33. Thurston, D., 1974. Aftermath in Minamata. Japan Interpreter 1, 25±42. Urry, J., 1992. The tourist gaze and the environment. Theory Culture and Society 9, 1±26. Wallace, C., 1997. The clean green' delusion. New Zealand Studies 7, 22±29. Wildavsky, A., Drake, K., 1990. Theories of risk perception: who fears what and why. Daedalus 119, 41±60. Wynne, B., 1987. Risk Management and Hazardous Waste: Implementation and the Dialectics of Credibility. SpringerVerlag, Berlin. Wynne, B., 1995. Public understanding of science. In: Jasano, S. et al. (Eds.), Handbook of Science and Technology Studies. Sage, Thousand Oaks, pp. 361±388.
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National identity and controversy: New Zealand's clean green image and pentachlorophenol Kevin Dew * Department of Sociology and Social Policy, Victoria University of Wellington, P.O. Box 600, Wellington, New Zealand Received 1 February 1997; received in revised form 1 October 1997; accepted 1 December 1997
Abstract In the 1990s regulatory bodies in New Zealand worked to develop guide-lines to clean up the contamination of land caused by the use of pentachlorophenol in the treatment of timber. In contrast, there has been little eort to identify and compensate workers contaminated at these sites. This paper explores some of the reasons why action over the contaminated land was relatively quickly taken, whilst there was a lingering controversy over the health of the workers who used pentachlorophenol. The case study suggests that symbols of national identity can play an important role in the resolution of controversy. # 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Controversy; Pentachlorophenol; Occupational health; National identity; Environment; Risk
1. Introduction New Zealanders have prided themselves on their close relationship to the land. The landscape has been a traditional source for grounding national identity. This grounding has changed over time, from the pioneering spirit taming a wild country (Phillips, 1996; Bell, 1996), to a mystical contemplation of nature and, more recently, to an invocation of cleanness and green* Tel.: +64-44-72-1000 ext. 8785; fax: +64-44-95-5041; email: [email protected].
ness (Beatson and Beatson, 1994: Bell, 1996). However, this imagery contrasts with the lived experience of many New Zealanders. Although portrayed as a clean and green country, many New Zealanders appear to be suering from the eects of practices that have poisoned the land and poisoned the people. This more troublesome experience is highlighted in disputes over toxic weed killers used by local councils, spray drift from pesticides and herbicides used in agricultural production and the levels of toxins in the food chain. It is also supported by the realisation that many of New Zealand's ®shing and forestry practices are unsustainable (Wallace, 1997).
1353-8292/99/$ - see front matter # 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S 1 3 5 3 - 8 2 9 2 ( 9 8 ) 0 0 0 4 0 - 9
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This paper explores the controversy over the contamination of the land and the people by a chemical agent used in the treatment of timber. It is suggested that chains of meaning can construct a controversy in such a way that its resolution appears `natural'. The case of pentachlorophenol (PCP) contamination in New Zealand highlights the way in which imagery played an important part, though not the only part, in privileging particular issues in the controversy. A consequence of this imagery was that the sickness of the land was given greater status and privilege than the ills of the people. This study is based on an examination of a series of governmental reports produced on the PCP problem and responses to the issue from representatives of those workers most likely to have been contaminated. The debate can be located within the discussion of risk as outlined by Beck and Wynne and the concept of cultural resonance as employed by Hansen. These wider concerns with cultural perceptions of risk interact with recent economic changes, seen in neo-liberal reforms in New Zealand, to in¯uence the way in which these controversies developed. Following an outline of these issues this paper analyses the ways in which a series of elements impacted on the development of the dispute over the eects of PCP, speci®cally the impact of New Zealand's legislative focus, expert assumptions in report compilation, science, pressure groups and socioeconomic factors. The discussion then moves on to look at the importance of cultural in¯uences, in particular the relationship between national identity and the land, in privileging the issue of land contamination. 2. Risk and the environment Beck (1995) argues that there are four characteristics that separate the risks we are exposed to in technologically advanced civilisations from earlier periods. First is that today's hazards aect all social classes as the hazards encompass a geographical and spatial totality. Beck is referring to hazards that are derived from a range of technologies, including nuclear power, pesticide, insecti-
cide and herbicide use and developments in genetic engineering. Second is that the rules of causality and guilt have broken down in the risk society. This is due to the diculty in gaining proof that a problem is caused by a particular technology: the burden of proof in identifying a particular agent as causal is extremely one-sided as it disadvantages those who have misgivings about that particular technology (Beck, 1995, p. 3). This allows for the increase in hazards faced as those resisting the introduction and use of hazardous technologies ®nd the burden of proof an insurmountable obstacle. Thirdly hazards can be minimised, but never ruled out, and there is no guarantee of safety. Finally, today's hazards can be so catastrophic that compensation could not be provided for the damage caused. Beck's analysis provides us with insight into the costs of the Risk Society, but glosses over the ways in which dierent social classes can be aected by contemporary hazards. In contrast to Beck, Murphy (1994) argues that we should develop categories of environmental `classes' to supplement the sociological consideration of economic and social classes. For Murphy an analysis of environmental classes will re¯ect the bene®ts and costs accumulated by dierent classes in their participation in environmental degradation. Some classes of people are actively involved in perpetrating environmental degradation with little cost, for example the private sector and the state, while others are victimised classes. Murphy argues that there are dierent `grades' of victims. First-party victims are those who are victims because of their jobs, one example being `glow boys' who go into radioactive areas to do repair work. Other victim grades or types include those who voluntarily accept risk, those who do not actively participate in the system but are exposed to hazards and those who will be exposed to environmental degradation in the future. Linking the micro and macro dimensions of hazard identi®cation and risk assessment Wynne examines a number of ways in which workers, who may be ®rst-party victims, respond to these issues. Wynne identi®es a disparity between laboratory assessment of risk and the actual prac-
K. Dew / Health & Place 5 (1999) 45±57
tices where hazardous substances are used, illustrating this disparity in his discussion of risk assessment of 2,4,5,-T in the UK (Wynne, 1987, p. 287). A government agency in the 1970s concluded that the pesticide was safe for public use, yet agricultural workers' experience in using the pesticide led them to lobby to have the issue reopened. A committee on the safety of pesticides asserted that 2,4,5,-T was safe if it was manufactured and used properly, which the committee assumed was unproblematic. For the workers it was the very conditions under which the pesticide was used that raised concerns (Wynne, 1987, p. 287). The ideal conditions of use laid down by experts were not being met, thus giving rise to risky activities. Wynne's analysis alerts us to the ways in which experts exclude the reality of a situation in their assessment of risk, with lay accounts of risky activities usually being seen as irrational or anecdotal in nature (Irwin, 1995, p. 131). Economic and social pressures can have a major impact on the willingness to expose oneself to risk. Wynne discusses the example of radiation workers who would remove their exposurerecording instruments in order to avoid being shifted from their work (and the corresponding bonuses) because they had reached the ocial dose limit (Wynne, 1987, p. 288). Another study of radiation workers at the Sella®eld reprocessing plant found an unsuspected ``positive social construction of ignorance'' (Wynne, 1995). The workers made deliberate decisions to remain ignorant about certain issues, such as radiation risks (which we might think would be in their interests to know more about) justifying their ignorance on a number of grounds. First, if they started to follow the dispute they would never ®nish. Second, it would mean confronting endemic uncertainties which would be both unsettling and dangerous. Third, to show an active interest in the topic would signal a mistrust of those experts who were meant to protect them. Thus Wynne's studies question the credibility of expert risk analysis. Experts assume that ideal conditions are met, whereas in reality they will only be met in the appropriate economic, political, social and cultural circumstances. At the same
47
time workers actively choose to be reliant on experts, as the costs of not doing so are too high. Hansen (1991) adds another dimension to the study of risk by arguing that cultural resonances are important in the public identi®cation of what is risky or hazardous. Hansen notes that particular environmental issues experience considerable `ups' and `downs' both in the media and in public perceptions. He argues that in order to understand the role of the mass media in the elaboration of environmental issues we must ``recognise the importance of cultural resonances in the privileging of some issues over others'' (Hansen, 1991, p. 444). The mass media serve as primary sources of information, but the media do not simply transmit messages to a passively receiving public. For an issue to gain prominence it must ``resonate with widely held cultural concepts'' (Hansen, 1991, p. 452). Even where a particular issue has strong cultural resonances it does not mean that action will be immediately taken on that issue. Beck's concept of organised irresponsibility helps explain why this occurs. Organised irresponsibility is an outcome of the inability of science to provide standards of proof upon which policy decisions can be based. The idea that by law one can intervene when one has established the individual causative agent actually protects the perpetrators of pollution and contamination as this scienti®c standard of proof is unachievable. The burden of proof is so high that perpetrators of pollution can avoid responsibility for their actions. Bureaucratic laws transform collective guilt into general acquittal (Beck, 1995, p. 2). The analysis below draws on the insights provided by these theories of risk and the risk society. A point of emphasis is placed on the need to consider the disparities between costs and bene®ts that accrue to dierent segments of society due to environmental pollution, changing economic ideologies can enhance those disparities. In this controversy further insights are gained by exploring the ways in which symbols of national identity advantage contaminated land over contaminated people.
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3. The pentachlorophenol story PCP was ®rst introduced in 1936 for use as a wood preservative, although it was not extensively used until some years after its introduction. In New Zealand it was mainly used to treat radiata pine, a major export product for the country. Most timber treatment sites in New Zealand where PCP was likely to have been used were in rural areas, locating the main ®rst-party victims of this controversy in those areas where radiata pine was milled. In addition a high proportion of these sawmill workers are drawn from the indigenous Maori population. Over a 40 year period an estimated 5000 tonnes of PCP were used, making New Zealand amongst the heaviest per capita users of PCP in the world (Stevenson, 1992a). In 1991 New Zealand de-registered the sale of PCP, but the perception of PCP as a public problem did not gain prominence until the clean and green image of New Zealand was threatened on the international stage. Sawmill workers were exposed to PCP particularly when timber was graded and sorted in a part of the sawmill known, ironically, as the green chain. Many of these workers suered a variety of ill-health eects which they later believed were related to PCP exposure, the Wood Industries Union registering 400 such workers (Dominion, 6 July 1996). PCP contamination can cause an array of symptoms including fever, fatigue, weight loss, nausea and mood swings (Occupational Safety and Health Service, 1996). Commercial grades of PCP used in New Zealand also contained toxic impurities created during manufacture, including dioxin and furans (Bingham, 1992). Dioxin is perhaps the most toxic agent produced during chemical manufacture and in the event of dioxin contamination a host of symptoms can occur, including severe skin rashes, malaise, peripheral nervous system disturbances, liver toxicity and possibly cancer and fetotoxicity (miscarriages) (Commission for the Environment, 1985). It is stored in fat tissue in the human body, which can provide a source of chronic exposure (Kang et al., 1991).
In 1988 PCP pollution became a focus of attention in New Zealand when sediment cores from the Manukau Harbour in Auckland revealed high concentrations of organic contaminants, PCP being the most signi®cant. Following this discovery the New Zealand Ministry for the Environment commissioned a study of PCP use in New Zealand. The ®ndings of the report were released in 1990 and it concluded that after 40 years of widespread use PCPs were probably widely distributed throughout the environment having major implications for the contamination of the land, water and people. More intensive studies were called for. In December 1990 a National Task Group (NTG) was set up to report on potentially contaminated sawmill and timber treatment sites (National Task Group, 1992). The NTG was chaired by a Ministry for the Environment ocial and was comprised of representatives from the Timber Industry, Government, Iwi (tribes of the indigenous Maori population) and the Timber Workers' Union. The Group's task was to assess the extent of PCP contaminated sites and advise government and industry on policies concerning liability, standards and clean-up. The NTG found that there were around 7500 contaminated sites (National Task Group, 1992) and if horticultural, farming and land®ll sites were included the number could be as high as 10000 (Szabo, 1993). One site was selected for detailed study, Waipa Mill, a sawmill outside of Rotorua (Rotorua is one of the most popular tourist destinations in New Zealand). One consequence of the study was that people were advised to have no more than 3 servings a week of trout caught from Lake Rotorua, this due to the risk of PCP contamination from the Waipa Mill discharge (Camp Scott Furphy, 1992). Growing local and international concerns over PCP contamination led to the chemical being deregistered for sale in December 1991 and action was taken to identify and attempt to clean up some of the sites. It was found that the costs of cleaning up high risk sites was enough to bankrupt all but the biggest New Zealand timber companies (Stevenson, 1992b; Buhrs and Bartlett, 1993). Interestingly, what did not hap-
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pen was a concerted attempt to identify and compensate contaminated workers. Except for passing references made in some reports to the possible health consequences for the workers who used toxic chemicals, they were largely ignored. As one worker at Waipa Mill put it ``Someone checked the ®sh but they never came to us'' (Stevenson, 1992c, p. 35). 4. Legislative focus New Zealand's changing legislative environment is one factor which limited the PCP controversy to one of land contamination and these changes need to be seen within the context of major economic changes. One of the major developments in the evolution of environmental policy in New Zealand has been a shift of decision-making in relation to resource management away from central government toward the corporate sector (Buhrs, 1997, p. 288). State allocation of funds for government departments responsible for environmental issues has been ``extremely meagre'' (Buhrs, 1997, p. 291) and the prevailing economic climate gives precedence to economic goals over environmental and social ones. This environmental policy is an outcome of reforms to de-regulate the market in order to increase New Zealand's competitiveness in the global economy (Memon, 1993, p. 47). The reforms initiated by the 1984 Labour Government, and carried on since, attempt to position the State as a neutral player in relation to competing interests (Memon, 1993, p. 53). This de-regulation has had a major impact on the PCP controversy. On the one hand the social dimensions of environmental policy have been excised from legislation, while on the other the State's success at undermining the Trade Union movement through the introduction of an Employment Contracts Act has weakened the workers' position (Crawford et al., 1996). One plank of the new policy on the environment has been a Resource Management Act. This Act has as its stated purpose the promotion of the sustainable management of natural and physical resources, including every person having
49
a ``duty to avoid, remedy, or mitigate any adverse eect on the environment'' (Buhrs and Bartlett, 1993, p. 125). This Act, which came into law in 1991, ``virtually ignores the social dimension of environmental policy'' (Buhrs and Bartlett, 1993, p. 131). In terms of the PCP controversy, the Act was troublesome as the sites were contaminated before the Act came into law and hence a dispute arose over who should be burdened with the costs of cleaning them up, the Timber Industry or the State? The workers and their possible PCP-related ill eects receded into the background in such debates. Another aspect of New Zealand's legislative environment is a long established (since 1974) no-fault, state-run insurance scheme to cover industrial accidents. In order to gain compensation for accident or illness suered from workplace activities the Accident Compensation Corporation (now the Accident Compensation and Rehabilitation Corporation) has to be convinced that any suering is real, caused by work activities and not caused by some natural agent or lifestyle choice. The trade-o for such a nofault system is that it is much less likely that workers can successfully take their employers to court, the right to sue is severely limited. Thus the burden of proof falls very heavily on the workers to prove their case before a bureaucratic body and to date they have been manifestly unsuccessful at doing this. On this matter Buhrs and Bartlett (1993) argue that problems need to ®t into existing institutional patterns or they may fall through the cracks. For the workers the institutional pattern is set by ACC, whereas for the toxic sites it is established by the Ministry for the Environment and the Resource Management Act. Dierent outcomes relate to the dierent institutional settings and the rules and norms within which they operate. In the case of the sawmill workers, their claims-making activities have been severely constrained by the role of the state-run, no-fault insurance scheme and nor do they have a place in the environmental policy framework. An additional obstacle for the workers has been the conspicuous absence of Ministry of Health involvement in the PCP issue.
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5. Expert assumptions Another important aspect of the PCP controversy is the centrality of expert assumptions. The experts involved in compiling reports made certain assumptions about the impact of PCP upon workers. The Health Department's representative on the NTG was quoted as saying that workers who used PCP were likely to have used them with proper care (New Zealand Herald, 22 May 1991). Workers in timber treatment plants contradicted this view. Proper care meant that workers would wear protective clothing and that timber would not be moved by hand when it was dripping with PCP. However, workers were handling timber when it was still dripping with chemicals and protective clothing was not worn because it interfered with freedom of movement in the work situation. Examples included protective aprons hindering movement and safety goggles steaming up making it dicult for the workers to see, hence they were discarded. In addition unanticipated spills and uncontrolled spraying of chemicals occurred. When one worker had chemicals spray into his eyes permanently scarring them he made inquiries to the company at Waipa Mill about compensation. He claimed he was told that he was lucky not to lose his job over the incident as he failed to wear the goggles provided (Stevenson, 1992c). These events support the ®ndings of other studies of work processes in situations of risk (see Wynne, 1987; Irwin, 1995) where `normal working conditions' often do not apply. This was exacerbated by the fact that the workers had little awareness of the possible health consequences of exposure to the chemicals used (Stevenson, 1992c). The NTG assumed that there was no need to study the health of the public in relation to PCP because those most likely aected, the workers, did not appear to have any adverse eects (Stevenson, 1992b). This assumption was based on Department of Labour records, which did not show any signi®cant eect on timber industry workers exposed to PCP. However, Department of Labour records are based on company records. Prior to the release of the NTG report the workers themselves were unaware of the risks
of exposure to PCP and did not initially relate their health problems to such exposure. Those with health problems went to their own medical practitioners and did not see the company doctors. Complaints to their medical practitioners were not seen as work related (Stevenson, 1992b) and so the company records showed no sign of any problem. It was after the NTG report was made public, identifying the sawmills as contaminated sites, that workers started to question the role of chemical exposure in the development of their health problems. 6. Limitations of science In this dispute science can be seen as an agent of legitimation. It claimed that PCP was safe when it was ®rst introduced, then later identi®ed it as toxic to the environment, while neglecting the impact on people. Finally, science was involved in denying workers the chance of compensation. The NTG report stated that even full scale epidemiological studies would be unlikely to distinguish cases of chemical exposure from symptoms arising from such things as lifestyle and consumption behaviour impacts, hereditary conditions, exposure to chemicals outside of the workplace and so on. This is in contrast to the ability to assess the impact of PCP on the trout in Lake Rotorua. The recognition that scienti®c procedures could not establish certainty justi®ed no action being taken at all. Obstacles to achieving scienti®c validation for the workers' complaints were immense and include the fact that it cost NZ$1500 to measure dioxin levels in one individual. The procedure of taking 1 l of blood required to measure dioxin can be too stressful for sick workers. Many workers have already died, possibly eliminating the most seriously contaminated from any study. Even if high blood dioxin levels are found, this does not establish that the dioxin causes the symptoms. To complicate the picture further, dioxin may not be causing their problems, some other chemical or combination/interaction of chemicals may be the culprit. Current scienti®c
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techniques may not be able to establish cause in these situations. The dispute over the cause of the workers' health problems is a clash between the ``balance of probabilities'' approach and the ``beyond all reasonable doubt'' approach (Jacques, 1992, p. 40). The National Task Group chose to adhere to very strict de®nitions of scienti®c standards of certainty and proof, as opposed to looking at the balance of evidence. This requirement for evidence to be ``absolutely watertight'' has been noted in other studies where workers have attempted to link their symptoms with chemical exposure (Irwin, 1995). If scienti®c validation is the sole criteria of legitimation, it can be an insurmountable obstacle for workers and others hoping to gain legitimation for their complaints. The tendency for scientists to want to wait for further evidence, good scienti®c practice, can be used for the purposes of industry and government to avoid considering compensation for the workers. A report commissioned by the Labour Minister found that 137 former timber workers had an association between exposure and symptoms known to be short-term eects of PCP (Occupational Safety and Health Service, 1996). The study was not able to make any analysis of workers who had died or of associations between PCP and rare fatal illnesses such as cancer. This report stated that more evidence was needed before stronger conclusions could be drawn, in particular because the 137 in the sample were voluntary and therefore not a representative sample. For the Timber Industries this was enough to maintain the line that the case of contamination was not proven. For the workers involved the legitimating force of science leaves them in a double bind. Science is no help but is absolutely necessary. Science provides the framework within which the debate around compensation takes place. The fact that the attempt to implicate PCP or dioxin in causing worker illness was not sustained, could lead to the argument that with better technical apparatus for detection this controversy would have been satisfactorily resolved. However, as Wynne (1987) argues, uncertainty is not passive, resulting from a lack of precision in our measurement of
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the objective world, but is actively created out of contending cultural backgrounds and institutional purposes. Abraham, in his study of drug regulation in the UK and the USA, shows how regulatory agencies can award the ``bene®t of the doubt to commercial interests'' (Abraham, 1995, p. 177) and that any uncertainty in the science can justify regulatory inaction. 7. Pressure groups Pressure groups play a major role in the development of environmental controversies. Greenpeace acted as a public watchdog group, keeping the issue of PCP alive and securing media attention. Its focus was on the environment and clean-up operations (Greenpeace Magazine, November 1992), thus it fought the battle on the same terms as the Timber Industry. The dierence between Greenpeace and the Timber Industry was in how much needed to be done to clean up, how the cleaning up should be carried out and when it should be done. There is no equivalent national or international pressure group to lobby on behalf of sick people. The Wood Industries Union of Aotearoa (WIUA) did attempt to give the issue of possible worker contamination a high pro®le. It set up a support group for workers exposed to timber treatment chemicals so that they could share their experiences and possibly supply information to the WIUA journal for educational purposes (Wood Industries Union of Aotearoa, October 1993). The WIUA ran a number of articles on PCP, but these did not achieve any eective mobilisation around the issue. In part this could be a re¯ection of the relatively weak position of unions in New Zealand since the post-1984 Labour reforms, with declining union membership being one indicator of this weakness (Crawford et al., 1996). The workers' support group, by its nature, is very small and has no obvious links with nationwide action groups. In cases of chronic illness it is not uncommon for support groups to develop, for example ME groups, MS groups, OOS groups and so on. However, these are focused
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around particular illnesses, typically in situations where there is some dissatisfaction with what conventional medicine has to oer (Kelleher, 1994). Beyond their particular concerns there is little evidence of developing a common position with other support groups. At a fundamental organisational and institutional level the issues of environmental contamination and of human contamination are confronted in very dierent ways. The former has a global focus, the latter a particular focus. This particular focus limits the ability of the sufferers to air their concerns and obtain a sympathetic audience. 8. Socio-economic factors An additional obstacle for the workers in their claims-making activities is the way in which the socio-economic group they are drawn from is perceived. Whereas the land is associated with positive images, it is not unusual for workers to be negatively stereotyped. A high percentage of the sick sawmill workers were Maori, from rural/ provincial towns and from the lower socio-economic strata. This is a section of the population most likely to be viewed with mistrust and a suspicion of malingering, when suering problems of undocumented origin (Good and Delvecchio Good, 1981). However, at the same time it is the working class whose health is most threatened by environmental hazards (Petersen and Lupton, 1996, p. 102), the potential ®rst-party victims in Murphy's environmental classes. Social disadvantage means fewer opportunities to escape environmental hazards or to do something about them. The defensiveness about another stereotype, of the hard-living lifestyle of the working man, is emphasised by one worker who claimed that ``we never got drunk... we smoked, but we've all given up now except one joker'' (Stevenson, 1992c, p. 35). Whereas the land cannot malinger, the worker may, especially if compensation claims are involved. Whereas the land does not engage in irresponsible behaviour, people might. In addition to the obstacles posed by the legislative en-
vironment and the role of science in dispute resolution, the workers have to overcome these negative images of the malingering worker and of self-in¯icted illness. In addition, science-based controversies are more dicult to analyse when the parties involved have varying abilities to express their positions (Sunesson, 1993). The workers did not have access to the resources available to other parties in the dispute, such as the Timber Industry and the State. The State's undermining of the Union movement since the mid-1980s could only have exacerbated this disparity. 9. Cultural in¯uence Thus far a number of factors have been discussed which led to the privileging of the issue of contaminated land over the issue of the contaminated worker. Without discounting these factors, it can now be suggested that in this controversy these have in turn been shaped by cultural factors, in particular the issue of national identity. Science has been used in an eort to identify contaminated sites and to determine appropriate clean-up procedures, but was not used to identify contaminated workers and develop appropriate treatments. New Zealand's legislative environment channelled the issue in particular directions. However, the allocation of scienti®c resources and the development of legislation is grounded in a system of values and it is suggested that in this instance those values are strongly related to cultural identity. By exploring the cultural in¯uences we enrich our view of the relationship between cultural values, here crystallised in the notion of national identity, and the determinants of health and sickness. Conditions may not be recognised because of cultural blindspots and without recognition the development of a condition cannot be understood. Hansen (1991, p. 453) suggests that it is precisely the extent to which they [environmental issues or problems] can be anchored in and made to activate existing
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chains of cultural meaning which helps determine whether they become part of media coverage and wider social elaboration. The symbol of clean and green New Zealand provides a very strong cultural resonance which strengthens chains of cultural meaning and provides a strong impetus for action. This symbol is grounded in the nation's self-image and its economic dependency. This privileges concern for the contamination of the environment over the contamination of the people. New Zealand's clean and green image is carefully cultivated by the tourism industry, by politicians and the mass media (Buhrs and Bartlett, 1993) as a marketing strategy. Nature imagery is a crucial element in selling the country as a distinctive tourist destination (Bell, 1996) and tourism is not only one of New Zealand's major industries but one of the largest industries in the world (Urry, 1992). Poets, composers and artists are at the forefront in grounding New Zealand's national identity in nature. This eort simpli®es the country's history, its economics and its politics (Bell, 1996) and side-steps ``crucial social issues such as our ugly history of race relations, the oppression of women and the exploitation of workers'' (Beatson, 1991, p. 47). This simpli®cation can be seen as serving ideological purposes. Phillips argues that ``Pakehas [European colonisers of New Zealand] elevated the conquest of the land so that they did not have to think of the conquest of the people'' (Phillips, 1996, p. 39). This suggests an early disjunction between the land and the people of the land, during the process of colonisation. Fairburn (1989, p. 51) argues that an image of New Zealand promoted during early colonial times was of an Arcadia where natural abundance had largely abolished the necessity of associational props. The principal requirement instead was something internal to each man, that he discipline himself and cultivate the work ethic. The sick worker disrupts this imagery. One should not get sick in Arcadia as this threatens
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both the work ethic and the clean and green imagery. Those who potentially disrupt this simple story or Arcadia may be rendered invisible. This disjuncture between images is further heightened by neo-liberal economic reforms which subordinates social values to economic considerations. The preservation of New Zealand's marketing strategies based on a clean and green image is given priority over the impact of contaminants on New Zealand workers. Contemporary images of nature have ``mesmerised the masses'' (Clark, 1991). The workers have no such enchanting or mesmerising appeal. To mobilise around images of the healthy happy worker would conjure images of the Stalinist Stakhanovite worker. Such imagery is anathema in a time of weakened unions and current anticollectivist sentiments. The worker is in double jeopardy when we consider that not only is there a lack of images of the hard working, happy, healthy worker that could enchant us, but the worker can also be seen as a symbol of the actual destruction of the environment. An image of the hard-working timber worker is in tension with the pristine, innocent and spiritually enchanting landscape. Environmentalists in New Zealand have shown a capacity for a great attachment to the land and a much more tempered relationship with the people. Individuals may be drawn to the land because of its ``spiritual presence'' (McVarish, 1992, p. 10) and may be motivated to ®ght for the land as it cannot ``®ght for itself'' (McVarish, 1992, p. 12). The land is innocent and needs protecting from people. This ambivalence toward people is summed up by one environmentalist (quoted in McVarish, 1992, p. 16) who stated that I cherish New Zealand's countryside, the air quality, colours, light and the people, to some extent. This ambivalence represents perhaps a tension developing out of an ``ecocentric'' metaphysics (Davidson, 1994, p. 1) where a regard for ecology displaces humanity as a central concern.
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10. On the political agenda These powerful cultural in¯uences impact upon the ability of issues to get on the political agenda. Political and public responses only became vociferous when the clean and green image was threatened. The popular media and politicians successfully ignored the issue of PCP contamination when it was ®rst raised. A New Zealand magazine, Terra Nova, ran articles in 1992 covering the topic in some depth, but evoking no response. Little media attention was given to these developments until a challenge to New Zealand's clean and green image was provided by overseas reporting on the issue. In July 1993 the New Scientist ran an article titled ``New Zealand's Poisoned Paradise'' (Szabo, 1993), which was followed in August by an article in The Times of London. In these articles questions were asked about New Zealand's clean and green image. The existence of contaminated trout in the tourist attraction of Lake Rotorua was highlighted, provoking defensive responses from the New Zealand government. The Environment Minister reacted angrily to Greenpeace's claims that there were 10,000 PCP contaminated sites in New Zealand, charging that such claims sabotaged the New Zealand Tourism Board's advertising campaign in Britain (The Times of London, 19 August 1993). The overseas articles were seen as unpatriotic, jeopardising export and tourist markets (Gleeson, 1996, p. 1912). It is one thing to tell New Zealanders that they are destroying themselves, but it is another to tell the rest of the world in international fora that they are poisoning their paradise. As Ellis and Salter (1995) state in relation to their review of contaminated sites policy and guidelines As New Zealand promotes its `clean green' image to support trade initiatives, there is an expectation that site clean up will be progressively achieved. To protect the clean and green image certain environmental issues may be promoted (Buhrs and Bartlett, 1993). There is no such cultural resonance, or economic concern, that has motivated
`cleaning up the people'. The ``romantic tourist gaze'' can support attempts to protect the environment (Urry, 1992, p. 9) but has no such impact upon those who dwell in it. In order for a controversy to close it must ®rst get on to the political agenda. Buhrs and Bartlett (1993) identify ®ve categories that help explain why certain environmental problems get on to the political agenda. These are socio-cultural factors in the assessment of risk; the relative seriousness of the problem; economic factors, in particular a reluctance of government to impose burdens on the economy; political-institutional interests where problems need to conform to `institutional patterns' and convergence where outside in¯uences induce countries to adopt particular policies. All of these factors play a part in this particular case. The contamination of the environment gained heavy weighting in terms of getting the issue on to the political agenda because of its perceived threat to the country's clean and green image, a problem seen as serious because of its potential economic costs. This threat promoted relatively rapid state action, even though the policies developed meant extra costs and regulatory burdens being imposed upon the business sector. The mechanism of the Resource Management Act provided the institutional conduit for such action and international concerns about toxic residues in foods and the toxic nature of PCP added to this impetus. The workers had little chance of getting on to the political agenda in terms of these categories. Public anxiety over an issue may also provide a means for initiating state action. Robinson (1991) analyses a case of workers being exposed to a pesticide that was linked to sterility. This issue quickly got onto the political agenda when it was found that the pesticide had contaminated the water supply and residues were found on fruit, provoking wider public anxiety. In the case of the sawmill workers their health problems only became linked to PCP after the State had initiated plans to clean up contaminated sites. Potential public anxiety about PCP had therefore been somewhat assuaged before the workers had implicated the chemical as a cause of their problems. Another New Zealand case study of
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unsuccessful claims-making, this time from ®re®ghters exposed to chemicals at a ®re in a chemical storage depot, illustrates the importance of this issue of public anxiety. Public anxiety over the impact of the ®re was diminished once the eects of the ®re were contained, whereas the workers continued to suer after the ®re (Lloyd and Dew, 1995). For the ordinary citizen the workers' claims in both cases had lost a degree of relevance (see Hannigan, 1995). To date the workers claims have not been successfully legitimated by science, popularised by activists, given media attention or given any dramatisation in symbolic terms, all factors which may in¯uence the successful outcome of a claim (Hannigan, 1995). The contaminated land had all these factors in its favour. 11. Conclusion The closure of a controversy can only be understood by relating it to wider social and political structures in society (Potter, 1996). This implies that closure is related to the issue of power and not to the internal mechanisms of science (Beder, 1991). Whatever the conclusions of science might be, social concerns will be the determining in¯uence in controversy closure. It is suggested here that the ways in which certain issues are privileged relate to wider cultural formations. Controversies over harm to the natural environment are increasingly important (Wildavsky and Drake, 1990) and there is little doubt that the symbol of nature is a source of political action. Behind this exist cultural traditions related to the natural world (Beck, 1996). This tradition of elevating nature to a special space has strong cultural resonances in New Zealand's export oriented, post-colonial society. In contrast, Beck and Wynne indicate how the application of science, and the reliance on expertise, can be detrimental to the worker. The interaction of organised irresponsibility and the possibility of the positive social construction of ignorance, not only on the workers part, but by all those involved in the manufacture, distribution and use of PCP, has both denied the
55
worker the chance of compensation and aected their health status. Networks surrounding the issue of a contaminated environment are more extensive than those surrounding the contaminated worker. The contaminated environment threatened economic interests, mobilising business, state and pressure group responses. The contaminated worker provided no such threat and, in addition, would only be an economic burden to the State if rendered visible. At the foundation of this disjuncture is a set of deep-seated values embedding the controversy in notions of national identity. The shaping and moulding of the controversy can be linked to the way in which the land was privileged over the people. The development of legislation, the role of science in establishing `facts', the existence of active and articulate pressure groups and the value placed on the `working man' arise out of the privileging of the `natural' over the `social'. The conclusion that can be taken from this is that the ``highly prestructured reality'' (Berg, 1992, p. 152) of scienti®c analysis and legislative environments is itself de®ned and shaped by cultural symbols and images. This case study alerts us to the ways in which these symbols can intersect with economic interests which together impact upon the development and resolution of science-based controversies. The issue of the contaminated workers is not a dead issue. Workers' support groups are still ®ghting for recognition of their problems and it is still possible that they may meet with some success. The cases of methyl mercury poisoning in Minamata (Thurston, 1974) and of asbestos ill-eects (Calhoun and Hiller, 1988) suggest that, even after decades of lobbying, claims may still be successful. What this particular study suggests is that resolution of controversy can occur quickly, slowly or not at all, depending, at least in part, on the cultural resonances associated with the controversy. A cultural given identi®ed as a signi®cant in¯uence in the resolution of this particular controversy is the elevation of New Zealand's clean and green image to what has been described as ``an ocial status of State Truth'' (Gleeson, 1996, p. 1912). During this time of economic liberalism there is a concurrent
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lack of cultural resonance for the ®rst-party victims in this controversy, the timber mill workers.
Acknowledgements The author would like to thank the internal grants committee of Victoria University of Wellington for funding this research, David Young for drawing attention to the PCP issue and for his insights and Roger Daube for his help in collecting the information and for his comments. Mike Lloyd, David Pearson and the anonymous referees are thanked for their helpful suggestions. References Abraham, J., 1995. Science, Politics and the Pharmaceutical Industry: Controversy and Bias in Drug Regulation. St. Martin's Press, New York. Beatson, P., 1991. From landscape to environment: representations of nature in New Zealand classical music. Sites 22, 34±53. Beatson, P., Beatson, D., 1994. The Arts in Aotearoa New Zealand. Sociology Department, Massey University, Palmerston North. Beck, U., 1995. Ecological Politics in an Age of Risk. Polity Press, Cambridge. Beck, U., 1996. World risk society as cosmopolitan society? ecological questions in a framework of manufactured uncertainties. Theory Culture and Society 13, 1±32. Beder, S., 1991. Controversy and closure: Sydney's beaches in crisis. Social Studies of Science 21, 223±256. Bell, C., 1996. Inventing New Zealand: Everyday Myths of Pakeha Identity. Penguin, Auckland. Berg, M., 1992. The construction of medical disposals: medical sociology and medical problem solving in clinical practice. Sociology of Health and Illness 14, 151±180. Bingham, A., 1992. National Task Group on Site Contamination. Task Brief 5: Dioxin Regulations and Guidelines. Ministry for the Environment, Wellington. Buhrs, T., 1997. Environmental policy. In: Miller, R. (Ed.), New Zealand Politics in Transition. Oxford University Press, Auckland, pp. 287±295. Buhrs, T., Bartlett, R., 1993. Environmental Policy in New Zealand: the Politics of Clean and Green? Oxford University Press, Auckland. Calhoun, C., Hiller, H., 1988. Coping with insidious injuries: the case of Johns-Manville Corporation and asbestos exposure. Social Problems 32, 162±181.
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