Phenomenology[i] moves beyond the traditional subject-object dichotomy. While phenomenology often uses the term ‘objects’ to describe what we direct our attention toward, people are a special case. They are never merely objects like machines. People are subjects—a unique subset of phenomenological objects—and understanding this relational dynamic is key to transforming Safety’s reductive approach.
In phenomenology, attending to a person differs fundamentally from attending to inanimate objects. While machines can be acted upon passively, people possess subjectivity and agency. When we attend to someone, we acknowledge their consciousness, intentions, and experiences. Though they may be the ‘object’ of our attention, this is a dynamic, relational process—not an act of control. Unlike machines, people engage, respond, and co-create meaning. This makes them what Levinas (1969) calls alterity and Merleau-Ponty (2002) describes as other—in the sense that they have their own consciousness, requiring a different kind of attention.
When systems reduce people to objects, their individuality and lived experience are diminished. The human element fades, and they lose influence over the systems intended to protect them. In contrast, a phenomenological approach sees workers as subjects whose insights are essential to shaping a shared understanding of risk. This aligns with Buber’s I-Thou relationship, which recognises mutual subjectivity, unlike the I-It relationship, where people are reduced to objects to be used (Buber, 1937). In Safety, people must be engaged as co-subjects, not passive entities.
Reducing people to objects leads to alienation and disengagement. Systems that treat workers as passive participants create environments where safety becomes a top-down imposition. By recognising workers as subjects with valuable insights, a phenomenological approach fosters more humane and meaningful practices. It respects their autonomy and acknowledges their role in creating a shared understanding of risk. Involving workers in the process makes safety systems more adaptable and responsive—both more ethical and more effective.
A clear example of workers being treated as objects is Critical Risk Management (CRM), a common tool in high-risk industries. Executives are drawn to CRM for its reductionist approach, offering an over-simplified model that seems easy to manage from a distance. However, its effectiveness is questionable, as it fails to account for the complexity of emerging risks.
In CRM, the focus is on pre-determined controls, assuming risks can be managed with minimal direct worker input. Proponents claim workers are always empowered to speak up and raise concerns. While this sounds altruistic, it rarely plays out in the field. From a phenomenological perspective, real empowerment requires creating space and time for workers to reflect and voice their experiences. Without these conditions in place, the claim of empowerment remains theoretical, not practical.
CRM further assumes that the system’s pre-determined controls are superior to workers’ lived experience. This overlooks the dynamic nature of risk, which emerges as workers engage with their environment. Workers are not merely enforcing a static system; they encounter new conditions that the system often cannot predict. The system’s temporal disconnect—its inability to adjust in the moment—renders workers’ actual engagement with risk secondary to the rigid framework imposed from above.
This diminishes the importance of embodied, situated knowledge, which is central to phenomenology. Workers’ lived experience and their ability to engage with risks as they emerge are ignored in favour of abstract controls. Phenomenologically, this reflects a deep misunderstanding of how people experience and respond to their environment. Workers are expected to fit into a pre-determined model, rather than being recognised as co-creators of safety through their ongoing, lived experiences.
A phenomenological approach to safety would recognise that risks emerge as workers engage with their tasks. It would value their direct input not as an afterthought but as a core element of safety systems. Such an approach would move beyond slogans of empowerment, instead creating the time, space, and engagement for workers to contribute meaningfully to dynamic safety practices. This would make safety systems more adaptive and responsive, and more ethical, as they would respect workers’ agency in shaping a shared understanding of risk.
By viewing people as special kinds of objects in phenomenology, we transcend reductive frameworks that treat them as instruments to be used. This relational approach, which recognises subjectivity, leads to more ethical and effective engagement, especially in workplace safety.
Sources
Buber, M. (1937). I and Thou (R. G. Smith, Trans.). T&T Clark.
Levinas, E. (1969). Totality and infinity: An essay on exteriority (A. Lingis, Trans.). Duquesne University Press. (Original work published 1961).
Merleau-Ponty, M. (2002). Phenomenology of perception (C. Smith, Trans.). Routledge. (Original work published 1945).
Zahavi, D. (2019). Phenomenology: The basics. Routledge.
[i] Phenomenology: As one of the most influential philosophical traditions of the 20th century, phenomenology was founded by Edmund Husserl to examine how we directly experience and perceive the world. Rather than seeking to explain why things exist, phenomenology focuses on how they appear to us, exploring the structures of consciousness and experience. Prominent figures such as Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Emmanuel Levinas, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty expanded on Husserl’s work, furthering our understanding of reality as it’s lived, rather than as an abstract concept.
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