REBELS AND PIONEERS - TECHNOCRATIC IDEOLOGIES AND SOCIAL IDENTITIES IN THE FRENCH NUCLEAR WORKPLACE, 1955-69

This paper compares the cultural meanings of 'work' and 'risk' at two French nuclear sites, run by different institutions in the 1950s and 1 960s. Differences between the two sites stemmed not from technological constraints, but from differences in the political, social and cultur al ideologies espoused by each institution. Responses to risk, for exa mple, were as much responses to larger ideological constructs as they were responses to danger. Through this case study, the paper argues th at we should find broader uses for analytic tools like 'social constru ctivism' and 'technological style', it proposes analyzing the meanings given to technologies and risks after they are constructed, and exami ning the ways in which technological activity continues to be social, cultural or political, even after technologies are 'black-boxed' or re ach 'closure'. Doing so leads to new ways of seeing critical connectio ns between artefacts, structures and practices of technological activi ty and broader social cultural or political issues.