The paper proposes a reflection on the theme of safety in the workplace and its regulation through ethnographic observation of some urban sites. This contribution is part of a wider research. Following a Practice-based Studies perspective (Gherardi, 2000), the research focused on the practices of safety under construction, both as construction industry and as the process by which the daily safety is put into practice and re-built in the relationships and interactions involving different actors. These actors, in fact, are characterized by a specific professional vision (Goodwin, 1994) of what is or is not safe in the local context in which they work. Starting from these considerations, the author aims to show that in the case of workplace safety regulation "failure/betrayal" spaces - in the relationship between different institutional actors at different levels of regulation (ILO, European Union, Italian Governments for example) - coexist with spaces of alternative, creative and collective creation of situated game rules (in a specific workplace) that allow to work safely.
Keywords: Workplace safety, regulation, construction site, situated game rules, situated practices, ethnography