Faculty Member, School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research
Reader in Social Risk Research
SSPSSR
About
Why are so many contemporary concerns and issues understood as risks; often indeterminate, threatening and projected into the future? When did this trend first begin, and where? Why has the language of (avoiding) risk and harm and precaution become so attractive to policy makers? Why are basic choices recast as lifestyle risks – such as what we choose to eat and drink, whether through scaremongering or, more recently, being ‘nudged’ into ‘better’ choices? These are the kinds of questions that shape my, interdisciplinary research on contemporary risk in society. Rarely, I have found, is evidence ever compelling for them to be understood simply in their own terms; instead there is a mixture of competing actors, agendas, and social and cultural forces. All this against a backdrop of greater uncertainty that, again, cannot be understood simply as an objective feature of the more complex world in which we live.
I'm interested in stories of harm - whether in the form of risks, rumours, urban legends or conspiracies - and how and why they can make an impact within society. My early research was into how fears related to mobile phones and masts were created, and how they developed in different societies – particularly in relation to the emergence of precautionary governance. Since then, my work has developed through a range of different examples and a number of different directions. One strand of my work has been concerned with better understanding risk behaviours and rituals: from British and American women guarding alcoholic drinks from possible ‘spiking’, to the Japanese routinely wearing masks to protect themselves from flu. Another strand of my work concerns the representation of risks, from how and why media coverage of the volcanic ash cloud remained largely blame-free and self contained, to how, on the other hand media risk campaigning developed so uniquely in the UK. I’m also interested in the politics, regulation and institutions of risk, from public inquiries to nuclear radiation regulation.
I enjoy teaching around a range of risk related areas such as:
• Basic concepts of risk, probability and precaution
• History of the emergence of risk and the shift to precaution, and its globalisation
• Key ‘domains; of risk: terrorism, security, child protection, media, law, interpersonal relations and the world of work
• Risk perception, assessment, management and communication
• Comparative national risk and the politics of risk
I also take a keen interest and teach on health and family.
I aim to carry out rigorous research, but make no claim to being entirely objective or neutral. In historical terms, the rise of probabilistic reasoning marks humanity’s progress over thinking of the world around us in terms of fate, taboo and sin. It is central and essential to modernity. The more recent expansion of risk reasoning to inappropriate areas of life is more problematic, as is the unrealistic sense that risk can somehow be eliminated from our lives. Some of my work has been for bodies such as the Risk, Regulation Advisory Council, and is explicitly concerned to challenge the politics of risk aversion today.
Contact Information
| Address: | SSPSSR, Cornwallis
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