World Risk Society and Constructing Cosmopolitan Realities: A Bourdieusian Critique of Risk Society

Abstract

Current global crises and threats have revealed the growing implications of Ulrich Beck's theory of risk society. Rather than being a theory of risk, risk society theory is more a social theory of the new social world and modernity. Risk society theory encompasses a new social ontology of the social in the era of uncertainties and crises. Beck also proposes the cosmopolitan outlook and particularly methodological cosmopolitanism as the epistemology and methodology of the world risk society. Yet, a close examination of Beck's social theory reveals a contradiction between the two aspects. On the one hand, in the ontological dimension, we are faced with the primacy of the indeterminate and the empirical, but on the other hand, Beck's epistemological prescriptive eliminate the possibility of reaching them. The current article aims to address this incompatibility. In doing so, first, the main pillars of risk society theory, and then the cosmopolitan outlook and sociology are discussed. By criticizing Beck's epistemological apparatus as well as juxtaposing the theory of risk society and Pierre Bourdieu's theory of action and fields, in the final section, the article proposes a solution to complete the ontology of risk society and overcome some of its epistemological problems.

Modern episteme, methodological nationalism and the politics of transnationalism

“…In recent decades, the social sciences have faced heightened criticism. Both Eurocentrism and methodological nationalism have come under extensive scrutiny from critics (Chakrabarty, 2000;Mignolo, 2002;McLennan, 2003;Connell, 2007;Chernilo, 2008;Alatas, 2016;Beck, 2016a;Go, 2016;Gutierrez Rodriguez et al, 2016;Jong, 2022b). The driving force behind these critiques is 2fold: on one hand, the social context that the social sciences have traditionally focused on has undergone profound transformations, and on the other, distinctive forms of knowledge have challenged the dominance and authority of these sciences.…”

“…The imperative to conceptualize phenomena and forces that exceed the bounds of established analytical categories is conspicuously evident in contemporary academic contributions (Featherstone, 1991;Seidman, 1994Seidman, , 2008Albrow, 1996Albrow, , 2004Giddens, 1999;Robinson, 2001;Held and McGrew, 2003;Latour, 2005;Dicken, 2007;Held, 2010;Beck, 2016b,c;Bauer, 2022;Jong, 2022b). This imperative encompasses not only empirical subjects of study, but also the perspectives and methodologies employed by scholars themselves.…”

Social Theory and Navigating Indeterminacy: A Configurational Analysis of Iranian Youth’s Identity Construction in Contemporary Iran

“…Crises, risks, and new global forces are neutral to the existing categories and foundations of different societies and affect different groups regardless of their local or national conditions. Here, only the reactions and the degree of impact can be distinct and national or local in appearance, reactions that have mainly arisen in a global and relational context [64]. As mentioned earlier, in the light of this process, various societies and nation-states confront the side effects of their modernization processes, and after a period of time, they face the challenge of uncertainty and indeterminacy, a situation that they desperately attempt to overcome.…”

“…Dominant regimes of power with different strategies try to exclude, regulate, discipline, and eliminate accidental, indeterminate, and uncertain elements because the requirements of power will be strictly applicable in a determined situation. Therefore, the cosmopolitanization of the world in the era of nation-states is the process of intensifying transnational hybridity and emerging various politics of transnationalism [25,30,36,64]. This means that the configurations constructed as a result of this process are transnational in essence because they comprise relations, boundaries, and categories that go beyond the national fixed, solid, and determined boundaries and entities.…”

Social configurations in the moment of post-foundationalism

“…But developments in the ontological status of contemporary society and the institutionalization of a kind of widespread uncertainty throughout the world (Jong, 2022b ) have caused the dominant social categories to lose their explanatory significance. The acceleration and integration of social forces and elements at the global level have reached such a point that it is almost impossible to define the social based on the previous foundations and settings.…”