Article ID: CBB766276484

Performing Expertise in Building Regulation: ‘Codespeak’ and Fire Safety Experts (2021)

unapi

Fire safety expertise was in great demand following the Grenfell Tower fire in London in June 2017. The government established a review of building regulations and an expert panel to inform its responses to Grenfell, and many other relevant organisations also formed their own expert panels. However, expert knowledge in fire safety is a highly contested domain, with knowledge claims based on differing sources. Fire fighters can claim expertise based on their experience of fighting fires, scientists and science-based engineers can claim expertise from experimentation, and those who create and enact regulations can claim expertise in what can termed ’codespeak’—the language of regulation. Although distanced from fundamental empirical experience of fire, codespeak is powerful because of its relative clarity and certainty, and legal status. Building users also bring their own form of ‘local’ expertise—they have first-hand experience of the practicalities of the solutions wrought by the other experts. Policy-makers thus face many competing forms of expert advice on fire safety, and their ability to judge what is most relevant in any particular case rests on the existence of a sufficient range and depth of in-house government expertise.

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Authors & Contributors
Ji-Bum Chung
Hemphill, Thomas A.
David Demortain
Meg Rosenburg
Kimura, Aya Hirata
Weinkle, Jessica
Concepts
Risk assessment
Disasters; catastrophes
Legislative and administrative regulations
Safety regulations
Expertise
Risk management
Time Periods
21st century
20th century
20th century, late
19th century
Places
Japan
United States
Las Vegas, Nevada
Washington, D. C. (U.S.)
Nevada (U.S.)
London (England)
Institutions
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (US NRC)
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
United States. Food and Drug Administration (USFDA)
United States. Environmental Protection Agency
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