Full Body Burden by Kristen Iversen

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Full Body Burden by Kristen Iversen is a book about a family living near a nuclear weapon plant in Rocky Flats. It also talks about the workers and how they were physically affected from working in the plant. Rocky Flats was full of secrets and lies. You can see how sociology takes place in Rocky Flats during this time. The workers and their bosses show us conflict theory. They are two different social classes working together. The conflict was the bosses knew what was going on but kept it a secret from the workers. The workers eventually found out how unsafe the plant was from working there. Another conflict was the bosses not disclosing every hazard they came across to the workers. The bosses live longer and avoid less injury’s because they get there workers to do the dangerous jobs. Some workers want more power so they can fix all the hazards and dangers in the nuclear plant because the bosses just ignored it. The bosses and workers are not equal. The group called Citizens for Energy and Freedom showed symbolic Interaction. It was formed by Rocky Flat workers and former workers. This group was holding a rally for the public and letting the public know that they are safe. They were manipulating the people in to thinking that living by this nuclear plant will cause no damage to them and their families. Also about how it’s safe and they won’t get cancer. They manipulated the public into thinking it was safe by saying if it was not safe the workers wouldn’t have built their family home next to it. It was like a fair they served food to the public and had a spoke person come to talk about being pro nuclear. This shows symbolic interactionism because the whole atmosphere of this rally gave off the symbol that it was a nice friendly place. Also because all their friends are agreeing to it being safe; so it gives off the symbol that it must be safe if everyone else thinks it is. Also the rally being a warm fun family event gave off the symbol to the public that what the spokesperson is saying must be true. I don’t think there was any functionalism at Rocky Flats and with the families. The society was not working together at all. There was rally’s going on that were for the plant and

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