Autoethnography in workplace safety: Revealing the suffering of unintentional first responders in the Canadian trucking industry and beyond

Abstract

The author presents evocative and analytical autoethnography as a promising qualitative research methodology for application in occupational health and safety (OHS) practice and research, where it is not currently a commonly used technique. Through an autoethnography, the author discusses OHS in the Canadian trucking industry and trauma as a result of witnessing and responding to collisions as a trucker or other unintentional first responder. Using a personal and traumatic experience of witnessing and then providing assistance at a collision involving a freight train and small car, the author attempts to show the reader what a trucker goes through in such a situation for the purpose of revealing these experiences and humanizing OHS data. The use of autoethnography in this way is presented as an additional and relatively new tool for OHS researchers and practitioners as a way to address, with their OHS management systems, the psychosocial hazards staff may face that may be unknown to the employer for cultural reasons within the trucking industry. The role of employers in addressing psychosocial hazards is explored and autoethnography is positioned as a tool employers may use in expanding their safety management systems into the area of psychosocial hazard mitigation, all within a Canadian trucking OHS context but with applications beyond the trucking industry.