ABSTRACT
Setting a starting point and an end point for the drilling operations, to separate them from the foregoing and consecutive operations is a pragmatic act that must be done with careful reference to the objective of the study. In a high-risk activity such as offshore drilling operations, one might expect a study to reveal conditions and incidents of a risky and perhaps spectacular character. This would certainly be an adequate expectation if the study followed a tradition where safety is seen as the absence of risks and errors. Every method has its strengths and weaknesses. As the epistemological perspective of this study assumes a constructivist and relativist view rather than a correspondence theory of truth, the method is directed towards matters of concern rather than matters of fact. Relativity is sometimes confused with anything goes, but there is indeed a difference between the relativity of truth and the truth of relation.
