Occupational health has long focused on the body. This study asks what happens when we look further.
Published in Culture & Psychology (2026), this research was produced by researchers at the International Executive School, Strasbourg, in collaboration with Dr. Rita Persaud of Wilfrid Laurier University, Ontario, Canada, and Dr. Khagendra Nath Gangai of Sharda University, India.
Through the voices of sugarcane workers in Guyana, the study exposes a truth that policy has been slow to acknowledge: when governance fails, it is not only the body that suffers. Workers are left without accountability, without a voice, and without any recognition of the psychological burden they carry. That burden, the research shows, is shaped not just by poor conditions but by culture itself, by the ways communities understand risk, authority, and silence.
The message is clear and urgent. Protecting workers means understanding the worlds they inhabit. Culturally grounded occupational health is not a luxury. It is where meaningful protection begins.
We are proud to see IES at the forefront of research that listens to those who are too rarely heard.
Refernce: Naipaul, T., Naipaul, J., Persaud, R., Gangai, K. N., Naipaul, R., & Bacchus, S. (2026). “It Ain’t Just the Body That Suffering, Is the Mind Too”: Occupational Health Governance and Psychological Wellbeing Among Sugarcane Workers in Guyana. Culture & Psychology, 0(0).
Read more: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1354067X261459962