Paper short abstract:

An ethnographic approach of work in offshore wind farms (France and UK) show a green activity but with a global market of itinerant and intermittent work, with seasonality, in a patchwork of rules and highly gendered. Green but similar to the offshore oil industry

Paper long abstract:

The green quality of work in the wind sector is a controversial subject. The ILO (ILO, 2012) lists wind power as a green activity, with solar methanization, material recycling operations, and even the greening of nuclear power. However, the ILO distinguishes decent green jobs from those participating in the energy transition, but in a dangerous, unhealthy environment. The ILO report (ILO, 2012) compares, from this angle, the work of wind power to that of hull dismantling, or of the automobile industry, because of the mechanical risks and exposure to products toxic. From this angle, wind power work is not “green” in the ILO sense, because it is not always “decent”. Additionally, skills related to risk acceptance, intermittent and itinerant work are highly valued in the offshore wind industry, where weather monitoring and seasonality are present.

This allow the retraining of former military personnel and individualized approaches to work, as in the offshore oil industry. An ethnographic approach to work in the offshore wind industry( in France and UK) also shows the cohabitation of different rules and practices which evokes a patchwork, making a link with the patchwork economy of the post-socialist transition in Poland, or the patches of Lowenhaupt Tsing. In and around these wind farms,we can observe a very low participation of female workers in these operations; work in offshore wind farms is highly gendered, for reasons that lie in its long-standing technical connections and proximity to the social landscape of the offshore oil supply chain.