When Recreancy Becomes the Norm: Emergency Response Planning and The Case of Tar Sands Upgrading in the Alberta Industrial Heartland

Abstract

Bill Freudenburg’s concept of recreancy is used as a frame for explaining processes that perpetuate questionable regimes of emergency response planning. The specific instance of tar sands upgrading in Alberta, Canada, is used as a case in point. When recreancy is institutionalized so that the results correlate across permitted hazardous facilities, it must be concluded that recreancy is less of a situational response than a normative dynamic.

Citation

Edelstein, M.R. (2013), "When Recreancy Becomes the Norm: Emergency Response Planning and The Case of Tar Sands Upgrading in the Alberta Industrial Heartland", William R. Freudenburg, A Life in Social Research (Research in Social Problems and Public Policy, Vol. 21), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 119-175. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0196-1152(2013)0000021011