Reconociendo “riesgos invisibles” en una “zona de sacrificio”:

el caso de la organización Trabajadores Unidos Contra el Asbesto (TUCA) de la comuna de Coronel, Chile

Abstract

This article presents, on the one hand, the historical process of social construction of risk in a "Sacrifice Zone", discussing about various vulnerabilities that affect the territory, its inhabitants and workers; and, on the other hand, focuses its discussion on process of recognition and alteration of the social perception of the risk of affected and organized workers around asbestos. For this last, the work locates the trajectory of the group United Workers Against Asbestos (TUCA), organization that brings together a large part of the workers who were affected and exposed to contamination by inhalation of asbestos as they were removing it from a thermoelectric plant. The research is based on an ethnographic immersion process, which included ethnographic interviews to account the recognition process around “asbestos” as a threat to health by the affected workers. Likewise, general, historiographic, statistical, specialized literature and press materials, were reviewed to present both antecedents of this risk recognition process as well as to describe the social construction of the risk of a “Sacrifice Zone”.