Requiem for RSI: The Explanation and Control of an Occupational Epidemic

The emergence of a “critical medical anthropology” offers a perspective that can complement and enrich the explanatory model (EM) approach, particularly in the case of illnesses that are polysemic and have political and economic implications. Repetition strain injury (RSI), an occupational illness which became epidemic in Australian industry in the early 1980s, became the focus of multiple and disparate biomedical EMs. We argue that the biomedical debates about the etiology of RSI can be understood in terms of the ideological role of medicine in reducing RSI to a physiological or a psychological phenomenon, individualizing the problem, disenfranchising (or blaming) the injured worker, and deflecting attention from those structural conflicts endemic in the workplace (and exacerbated by economic stringencies) which fostered injury, pain, and disability.

[1]  A. Kleinman.  Concepts and a model for the comparison of medical systems as cultural systems. , 1978, Social science & medicine.

[2]  G Bammer,et al.  The arguments about RSI: an examination. , 2010, Community health studies.

[3]  D. Russell.  Repetition strain injury and psychiatry. , 2010, Community Health Studies.

[4]  M. Pitcher,et al.  Medical and ergonomic aspects of an industrial dispute concerning occupational-related conditions in data process operators. , 2010, Community health studies.

[5]  Quintner Jl,et al.  The pain of 'RSI'. A historical perspective. , 1989 .

[6]  Barbara Ellen Smith,et al.  Digging Our Own Graves: Coal Miners and the Struggle over Black Lung Disease , 1989 .

[7]  W. Pearse,et al.  Workers' Health and Safety in Australia: An Overview , 1987, International journal of health services : planning, administration, evaluation.

[8]  G. Wright.  The failure of the “RSI” concept , 1987, The Medical journal of Australia.

[9]  H. Waitzkin.  MICROPOLITICS OF MEDICINE: THEORETICAL ISSUES , 1986 .

[10]  H. Stein.  Sick people and ‘trolls’: A contribution to the understanding of the dynamics of physician explanatory models , 1986, Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry.

[11]  Ireland Dc.  Repetitive strain injury. , 1986 .

[12]  B. Bloch.  Repetition strain injuries , 1984, Medical Journal of Australia.

[13]  D. Faithfull,et al.  Occupational repetition strain injuries , 1984 .

[14]  W. E. Stone.  Repetitive strain injuries , 1983, The Medical journal of Australia.

[15]  A. Young.  The Anthropologies of Illness and Sickness , 1982 .

[16]  V. Navarro,et al.  Work, Ideology, and Science: The Case of Medicine , 1980, International journal of health services : planning, administration, evaluation.

[17]  M. Taussig,et al.  Reification and the consciousness of the patient. , 1980, Social science & medicine. Medical anthropology.

[18]  D. Ferguson,et al.  REPETITION INJURIES IN PROCESS WORKERS , 1971, The Medical journal of Australia.

[19]  J W PERROTT,et al.  ANATOMICAL FACTORS IN OCCUPATIONAL TRAUMA , 1961, The Medical journal of Australia.

[20]  M. Sharma.  Medicine and social control , 1991 .

[21]  A. Hopkins,et al.  The social recognition of repetition strain injuries: an Australian/American comparison. , 1990, Social science & medicine.

[22]  R. Spillane,et al.  RSI: fact or fiction? , 1987 .

[23]  C. Helman.  Disease and Pseudo-Disease: A Case History of Pseudo-Angina , 1985 .

[24]  K. Figlio.  Chlorosis and chronic disease in nineteenth-century Britain: the social constitution of somatic illness in a capitalist society. , 1978, Social history.