Sociological theories of risk
As of the 23rd May 2022 this website is archived and will receive no further updates.
understandinguncertainty.org was produced by the Winton programme for the public understanding of risk based in the Statistical Laboratory in the University of Cambridge. The aim was to help improve the way that uncertainty and risk are discussed in society, and show how probability and statistics can be both useful and entertaining.
Many of the animations were produced using Flash and will no longer work.
Sociologically oriented research has been asking questions on what uses the talk of risks fulfils: why are risks talked about as they are, what roles do they play in society? Since "risk" is a relatively modern concept, what are the features of modern life that make thinking about risk so distictively modern? What other concepts used to fulfil the role played nowadays by risk?
Here I will concentrate on two traditions of research. One is about the role that risks play in people's thoughts and how they can often be used to project social identities and boundaries, in which risk is very often more about fear of the outside and the unknown which needs to be avoided. This way of thinking about risk is dominated by the work of the anthropologist Mary Douglas, though some similar ways of thinking about the discursive uses of risk arise from work in social psychology.
The other strand of research, mostly the sociologists Ulrich Beck and Anthony Giddens, considers the way the concept of risk has been incorporated into contemporary society (which is classified by these writers as "late modernity"), and how it dominates late modern society and its attitudes to science, and its own awarness of itself.
Risk, blame and identity
Anthropologist Mary Douglas has investigated risk in light of her earlier work on purity and danger (Douglas 1966, & Douglas 1992
In conscious opposition to the psychological approaches [link], Douglas argues that culture and surrounding society play a huge part in influencing attitudes and reactions towards risks (although many researchers in psychology of risk have by now conceded the point, and in my opinion it is better to think of the cultural approach as supplementing the psychological one). Douglas sees an analogy with attitudes towards society and the body. A society or culture, like someone's body has its clearly marked boundaries, an outside bodies and influences are seen potential dangers. Just as with our bodies we are careful about the substances we eat, drink or even inject, societies react analogously with dealing with outside influences.
It is at the boundaries, where the definitions of what belongs where are not so clear, and where there misplaced objects can be seen as polluting: shoes for example are not inherently dirty, especially new ones fresh out of the factory, yet evoke feelings of uncleanliness when placed on the dining table.
Societies have particular symbolisms and rituals concerning impurity, and anyone who is considered to be bringing impurity to the society will be stygmatised.....
TO BE CONTINUED
