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The Asbestos Ban in Korea from a Grassroots Perspective: Why Did It Occur?

In 2009, asbestos was finally banned in Korea, about 70 years after the first opening of asbestos mines under Japanese control. After having presented the history of asbestos industry, together with its regulations and health effects over time, we constructed narrative analyses of how the asbestos i...

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Autores principales: Yoon, Yu-Ryong, Kwak, Kyeong Min, Choi, Yeyong, Youn, Kanwoo, Bahk, Jinwook, Kang, Dong-Mug, Paek, Domyung
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5858267/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29370079
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph15020198
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author Yoon, Yu-Ryong
Kwak, Kyeong Min
Choi, Yeyong
Youn, Kanwoo
Bahk, Jinwook
Kang, Dong-Mug
Paek, Domyung
author_facet Yoon, Yu-Ryong
Kwak, Kyeong Min
Choi, Yeyong
Youn, Kanwoo
Bahk, Jinwook
Kang, Dong-Mug
Paek, Domyung
author_sort Yoon, Yu-Ryong
collection PubMed
description In 2009, asbestos was finally banned in Korea, about 70 years after the first opening of asbestos mines under Japanese control. After having presented the history of asbestos industry, together with its regulations and health effects over time, we constructed narrative analyses of how the asbestos issue under the prevailing risk system was managed by whom and for what purpose, to provide context for the change. We could identify five different phases: laissez-faire, politico-technical, economic–managerial, health-oriented cultural, and human rights-based post-cultural risk systems. The changes leading to the asbestos ban evolved over different phases, and each phase change was necessary to reach the final ban, in that, without resolving the previous issues by examining different categories of potential alternatives, either the final ban was not possible or, even if instituted, could not be sustained. An asbestos ban could be introduced when all the alternatives to these issues, including legitimate political windows, economic rationalizations, health risk protections, and human rights sensitivities, were available. We think the alternatives that we had were not in perfect shape, but in more or less loosely connected forms, and hence we had to know how to build solidarities between different stakeholders to compensate for the imperfections.
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spelling pubmed-58582672018-03-19 The Asbestos Ban in Korea from a Grassroots Perspective: Why Did It Occur? Yoon, Yu-Ryong Kwak, Kyeong Min Choi, Yeyong Youn, Kanwoo Bahk, Jinwook Kang, Dong-Mug Paek, Domyung Int J Environ Res Public Health Article In 2009, asbestos was finally banned in Korea, about 70 years after the first opening of asbestos mines under Japanese control. After having presented the history of asbestos industry, together with its regulations and health effects over time, we constructed narrative analyses of how the asbestos issue under the prevailing risk system was managed by whom and for what purpose, to provide context for the change. We could identify five different phases: laissez-faire, politico-technical, economic–managerial, health-oriented cultural, and human rights-based post-cultural risk systems. The changes leading to the asbestos ban evolved over different phases, and each phase change was necessary to reach the final ban, in that, without resolving the previous issues by examining different categories of potential alternatives, either the final ban was not possible or, even if instituted, could not be sustained. An asbestos ban could be introduced when all the alternatives to these issues, including legitimate political windows, economic rationalizations, health risk protections, and human rights sensitivities, were available. We think the alternatives that we had were not in perfect shape, but in more or less loosely connected forms, and hence we had to know how to build solidarities between different stakeholders to compensate for the imperfections. MDPI 2018-01-25 2018-02 /pmc/articles/PMC5858267/ /pubmed/29370079 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph15020198 Text en © 2018 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Yoon, Yu-Ryong
Kwak, Kyeong Min
Choi, Yeyong
Youn, Kanwoo
Bahk, Jinwook
Kang, Dong-Mug
Paek, Domyung
The Asbestos Ban in Korea from a Grassroots Perspective: Why Did It Occur?
title The Asbestos Ban in Korea from a Grassroots Perspective: Why Did It Occur?
title_full The Asbestos Ban in Korea from a Grassroots Perspective: Why Did It Occur?
title_fullStr The Asbestos Ban in Korea from a Grassroots Perspective: Why Did It Occur?
title_full_unstemmed The Asbestos Ban in Korea from a Grassroots Perspective: Why Did It Occur?
title_short The Asbestos Ban in Korea from a Grassroots Perspective: Why Did It Occur?
title_sort asbestos ban in korea from a grassroots perspective: why did it occur?
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5858267/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29370079
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph15020198
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