`Risk is Part of Your Life': Risk Epistemologies Among a Group of Australians

Abstract

Much has been written by important sociocultural theorists about the role played by risk in late modern societies, and some, like Beck and Giddens, have ventured to contend that industrial society is turning into `risk society'. Little empirical research has been conducted, however, that has sought to examine the speculations of grand theories about `risk society'. This article discusses findings from an Australian interview-based study that sought to elicit the participants' understandings of the notion of risk. Three major issues from the interviews are examined: the ways in which the participants defined `risk', the risks they nominated as most threatening to themselves and those they saw as threatening Australians in general. The findings reveal that the `risk society' thesis was supported in some ways. Other findings, however, challenged this thesis, including the participants' critique of government's role in protecting its citizens from risk, the ways in which many of them represented risk-taking as positive, their relative inattention to environmental risk and the role played by such factors as gender, age and sexual identity in structuring risk perceptions.

Mary Douglas, risk and accounting failures

“…Consequently, Giddens idea of reflexivity implies not only that expert knowledge has pre-eminence, but also that lay individuals adopt a rationalist and calculative stance in their interactions with expert systems (Alexander, 1996;Elliott, 2002;Lupton and Tulloch, 2002). Wynne (1996) explains how this simplistic approach can be seen to be deficient "once one introduces the idea that scientific expert knowledge itself embodies a particular culture" and consequently embodies "hermeneutic (and formulaic) and not only propositional truths" (Wynne, 1996, p.75).…”

“La suerte no existe” [“luck does not exist”]youth, risk and leisure in Cali, Colombia

“…The theoretical framework of this proposal finds its roots in the work of Beck (1992Beck ( , 1998 and Giddens (1991) regarding the risk society and individualization processes in late modernity; in the considerations of Douglas (1992) and Luhmann (1991) on the anthropological and sociological aspects of the notion of risk, and in the extensive and current research on the topic developed by Lupton (1999), and Lupton and Tulloch (2001, 2002a, 2002b. A growing body of research has also been analysing risk taking in youth regarding processes of transitions, identity construction, and social inclusion and exclusion (Plant and Plant, 1992;Furlong and Cartmel, 1997;Foreman et al, 2000;Williams, 2003;Mitchell, et.…”

“…Therefore, the analysis of risk and risk taking should include the exploration of the contexts in which these processes take place and the individual and social meanings attributed to such risks. Using Lupton and Tulloch's (2002a) design, this study assumes the idea of social risks as a constructed notion; therefore, the task is to explore the characteristics of this construct, e.g. the definitions and meanings of risk, and the individual and social factors that need to be considered in its construction.…”

The social construction of risk by young people

“…Such evidence adds to the debate that risk taking for adolescents should not necessarily be perceived as problematic (Lupton & Tulloch 2002). Risky sports such as rock climbing are socially acceptable for adults and young people alike and are not necessarily undertaken through ignorance or coercion (Gardener in Bell & Bell 1993: 66).…”