Analytic Viewpoints in Miners Representations of Risk

Expert miners frequently describe objects and processes they have observed from a distance—the curve of an arch in a mine roadway, the subtle torque miners apply when they install a roof bolt, or the ways miners might use their 

To assess risk, workers in risky occupations must actively move outside of their own embodied experience. When workers assume an analytic viewpoint, they can speculate about the causes and outcomes of events they have not directly experienced and assume a viewpoint rhetorically outside of and above their own institutional and geographic location. When miners describe risk, they can employ this viewpoint to reflect upon and make sense of the cause of events and procedures they have experienced. They can move outside their geographic location in order to observe and analyze events and processes from the viewpoint of colleagues, apprentices, and management. The analytic viewpoint in these narratives may thus reveal a miner s perception of the (frequently watchful) social and institutional relationships among management, apprentices, helpers, and team members underground. 

In the following examples, narrators represent an active accounting of risks they have processed, analyzed, and, in some cases, actively come to terms with. 

FIG- 7.7. E5 looks into the space created between her hands. In this case, 

E5 s hands depict the two-foot pads of the t-bar which pinned her to the rib and nearly crushed her. 

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