Labour History News Archive

Labour History News

Working with Dust

Conference Title--
Working with Dust: Health, Dust and Diseases in the History of Occupational Health. An International Comparative Conference on Industrial Health and the Politics of Disease Regulation Since 1700

10th, 11th and 12th, April 2006
Location: Centre for Medical History, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK

Call for Papers

The Centre for Medical History at the University of Exeter is hosting aninternational conference to be held at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, Exeter, on 10th, 11th and 12th April 2006.

The conference will include the following themes:

Testaments and oral history of dusty workplaces
Coal mining: colliery diseases and the struggle for compensation
Asbestos
Silicosis to pneumoconiosis
Tuberculosis and industrial disease
Gender and industrial disease
State responses to respiratory illness at work
Models of dust-induced industrial illness viewed cross-nationally
International Labour Office and the regulation of dusty work
Changing frontiers in the burden of dust-induced diseases: developing countries
The frontier between work and the environment in the inducement of disease and disease risk
Additional themes may be included at the request of those proposing papers

The Conference welcomes presentations and contributions from individuals who are interested in environmental health as well as problems of disease at work and political responses to health hazards. In particular, we seek to extend our examination of regulation beyond Western nations, and beyond the nation state to bilateral and international agencies, including the International Labour Office and similar bodies. Some funds may be available for travel and lodging. These and other methodological/conceptual issues will be the subject of a further conference in the US during 2007, organized jointly by Dr Joseph Melling () and Professor Christopher Sellers (). Enquiries to either/both in respect of this longer-term research and conference agenda would be most welcome.

If you are interested in contributing to the April 2006 conference, please forward an abstract of 250 words to Claire Keyte, Administrator, The Centre for Medical History, School of Humanities & Social Sciences, University of Exeter, Amory Building, Rennes Drive, Exeter, EX4 4RJ, or by email to by 31st January 2006.