The constitution and effects of safety culture as an object in the discourse of accident prevention: A Foucauldian approach

Safety culture is part of a larger discursive practice shared by scholars and practitioners in the field of accident prevention. It appears in various institutional documents, such as scientific and accident reports, industry-related statistics, manuals, and legislation. We examine the constitution of safety culture and its effects as a form of knowledge based on a Foucauldian archae-genealogical approach. Our analysis lays out the historical conditions for the emergence of the object, the scientific approaches for its delimitation, and its regular characteristics. We also describe four effects of the object in the discourse: a focused aspect of organisational culture that implies a normative homogeneity of values, beliefs, and behaviours; a disciplinary enforcement of workers' safety behaviours; a biopolitical control of organisations; and a form of governmentality that connects the conduct of individuals with organisational norms.